We arrived home to a cold house last night. Apparently Maine transformed into full-fledged autumn while we were gone, which means that today I'd better bring up a load of firewood and the fire tools so I can be ready for this new world. As it was, we immediately caved to our unprepared state and turned on the furnace. Modern life has its allures.

I was insomniac in Brooklyn but fortunately collapsed into a dreamless coma as I soon as I returned to my own bed. However, the Monday-morning alarm was quite unwelcome. I could have stayed asleep a lot longer, if Chuckie had allowed it. But the Big Kitten is too thrilled to have us home again to allow us to stay asleep. So blearily I sit here writing to you, and blearily Tom drinks his coffee upstairs. The day demands our obedience.

In good news: Tom's truck is supposed to be ready for pick up today, so I should get my car back in time for the drive to Monson tomorrow. In bad news: We'll be slapped with yet another heart-stopping vehicle repair bill. In regular news: There's a lot of laundry in the basket, a lot of desk work in the coffers. The housework list is long, and the garden is wild. I've got a zoom meeting this afternoon, and I hope I don't fall asleep in the midst of it.

Yesterday was busy and lovely. We began the afternoon at the NYC Transit Museum, which is actually one of my favorite museums of all time. It's located in an unused subway station, and many of the exhibits are touchable and usable--turnstiles, ticket booths, and subway cars spanning the entire history of the network, which one can wander through and sit in. Then, midafternoon, we went to the buffalo stampede, an event I had struggled to imagine but that turned out to be one of the most interesting public art projects I've ever experienced. The giant puppets were amazing: the puppeteers were able to move and shift them in ways that really evoked the bodies of massive herd animals. Even when standing in place, they were always shifting and flickering, as large ruminants do; and the sight of forty of these puppets moving through a major city was poignant and beautiful. We walked the route with them, and with a huge crowd of other people--along the way stopping to listen to gospel singers on the steps of Borough Hall . . . among them Rhiannon Giddens, which was exciting. It was just a great afternoon, one that felt both impulsive and mysterious, and I was so glad to be there.

Temperatures cooled down enough last night for Steve to turn off the A/C, so now through the open bedroom window I listen to a single sparrow chirp, chirp, chirp like a slow metronome. The cicadas still hum, and beyond the animal voices I hear the far-off mutter of expressway traffic, closer roar of a truck, clipped whine and whoop of a cop car.

It was fun to meet Tom in town yesterday. I miss him so when I'm on the road, and it is nice to think that we can gradually work out ways to be together a little more often during my long travel stretches. This evening we'll be doing our parental duties--meeting up with our son's partner's family in Manhattan, going with them to a show--but the rest of our Saturday is open. So we've decided to check out this spectacle: a public art project in which 40 life-sized buffalo puppets stampede through downtown Brooklyn. I have high hopes that this will be strange and wonderful, but maybe it will just be a crowded mess. With a spectacle, one never knows.

It's muggy and dim this morning, and the cicadas in the apartment's handkerchief-sized backyard are operatic. The city is warmer than I thought it would be when I was home in autumnal Maine: summery and sticky, not a hint of chill in the air.

Thus far the visit has been relentlessly social, as I knew it would be. So I'm glad to be able to start off today slowly. I will meet Tom at the bus stop around 12:30, but till then the hours are my own. My plan is to get out of this bed whenever I happen to get out of it: shower, go find some coffee and a bagel, and then come back to the apartment and work on poems until I need to leave for Manhattan.

Yesterday's classes in Jersey City were fun--each an entirely different teaching experience, so that was great practice for me. The first was a largish AP Lit class, composed of the kinds of kids who usually sign up for such classes: a few serious literature lovers but mostly students who are pragmatic about its usefulness on college applications. These kids are primed for analysis, and I had only 50 minutes to surprise them into engaging as makers first, examiners second. So I dictated a Celan poem and gave them a writing prompt; then they read aloud a Sexton poem, and I gave them another prompt. After each writing prompt I then had them go back to the poem under discussion and engage with it . . . but asking them to make their own drafts between reading the model and talking about the model--creating a gap that belonged solely to them--felt very exciting. No one shared work. I did give them the opportunity but didn't expect them to take it. Not only was I new to them, but the class itself was unknown territory: they've only been in school for a couple of days. They have no trust-comfort yet, and I wasn't about to push them into that space. But I know they wrote, and I know they thought about what they wrote. I could see that in their eyes; I could hear it in their subsequent responses to the model poems; I could see that they were surprised.

The second class wasn't so much a class as a conversation with three serious student poets who wanted to share their work with me. Again, we only had 50 minutes, but we listened to work, reacted to it, talked about next steps, they asked me questions . . . They were eager and sweet and lovely to spend time with, and their work was strong and exciting.

This is a big urban high school, the city's academic magnet institution. These kids are all college-bound, many for Ivies and Little Ivies. I went to a Little Ivy myself, so I recognize the signs. No matter what worries lie below--about class status, racial discrimination, family situations--these kids understand that they are expected to succeed at a very high level. In that way they are entirely different from my central Mainers, yet young people everywhere are so dear, so obstinate, so open, such liars, such clowns, so fragile, so sturdy, so full of pulsing energy and lethargy. I am endlessly moved and frustrated and entertained by them.

On the train ride back to Brooklyn I was surrounded by a pack of middle school boys who accidentally clanked their water bottles on people's knees and spilled Chex Mix all over the place and had no idea where their feet were. My eyes filled; these children were so . . . themselves. I don't know why I am such a sucker for the awkward, idiotic charm of youth. But I do love it.

Good morning from Brooklyn, where I am getting ready to roust myself into my work day. So far the weather here has been cloudy and warm--not hot, but more summery than Maine has felt lately--and last night, when Steve, Paul, Lily, and I were walking through Gowanus, I found myself imagining what the place must have smelled like fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago. The dense pong of urban life: it must have been almost intolerable. Sanitation is one of the great boons of the modern world.

In a few minutes I'll get into the shower, get dressed, get out the door--heading first over to Paul's for breakfast, then to Jersey City to teach. I'm a bit apprehensive about teaching, but then I always am. I know I'm decent at the job, but that doesn't mean I'm relaxed about it. Teaching is a performance, and a performance keys me up.

Greetings from the bus, which is still lingering at the terminal, waiting for one final straggler. It's quite underfilled--only a few of us heading to the city this morning. And now the door sighs shut, and now the driver buckles his seatbelt and the safety video intones and the lights dim and we are on our way.

The sky is gorgeous this morning: clear blue striped with dense yellow-gray cloud. It's a fine day for a voyage. We lucked out: a non-bumpy bus, which is not always the case. The movie appears to be about French cats.

I need to work this morning--I've got a poetry collection to copyedit and a couple of poem drafts to revise before I email them to my Poetry Lab compadres. I ought to think a little more about the classes I'll be teaching tomorrow. I spend so much time with rural kids that a dip back into the world of urban teenagers will be a useful lesson. And I daresay I will do something dumb, which is always instructive.

Otherwise, I've got a novel to entertain me (James McBride's Deacon King Kong, loaned by my friend Gretchen) and a ham-and-gorgonzola sandwich to enjoy and I am glad I decided to wear socks and sweater on this bus because it's chilly in here. Compared to last week's train odysseys, this 6-hour trip is a skip and a jump. I might even nap through the whole thing.

The bathrooms are clean, the floors are washed, the sheets are changed. Ugh, housework, the never-ending chore. But anyway I'm caught up for the moment, till next Monday anyway. Which means that today is desk- and yardwork day. On Thursday afternoon I'll be teaching a class for my friend Holly at a high school in Jersey City, so I need to keep prepping for that, and I hope to finish a batch of editing today as well. I should pull out the trimmer and deal with the straggly crabgrass; I should deadhead flowers. I ought to pack, and I should make a don't-forget list for Tom who will be holding my fort till Friday, and I need to figure out where I can store my suitcase temporarily while I'm cruising around Manhattan tomorrow afternoon. I have to learn how to get to the Morgan Library from Grand Central Station and estimate when I might arrive so I can meet Jeannie at the door. I need to remember to text Steve so we can converge in Brooklyn later in the afternoon. And no doubt I'll be peppered with texts all day from my son Paul, who is one of those mysterious kids who appears to love to hang out with his parents. Where are you? Where are you going? Wait for me.

A voyage to New York is always a social maelstrom, though at the same time I am constantly traveling through the city alone, trying to converge with this person or that person at this time or that. Subways and streets are a web of solitaries.

I have one job obligation--Thursday's jaunt to Jersey City--but otherwise this is a friends-and-family venture: the Morgan tomorrow with Jeannie to look at Ashbery drawings and Peter Hujar photographs; embracing Tom at the bus stop on Friday and then going to the Cloisters on Friday with him and Paul to look at the Bat Lord, a Zapotec clay sculpture made between 800 and 900, and the unicorn tapestries because we all adore them; then meeting our Lily's mother and stepfather on Saturday and going to Broadway with them to see Shmigadoon, which is not exactly our style of show but we are determined to have fun because NEW YORK and BROADWAY and BRIGHT LIGHTS and we love our Lily.

Visiting Chicago and New York City in the same week is a ridiculous schedule, but ridiculous schedule is my new middle name, and why not embrace it? 

Yesterday was kitchen day, as this photo attests. From left to right: pizza dough rising, a peach cobbler cooling, and five jars of peppers waiting to be labeled, then stowed on the pantry shelves. Not seen: three quarts of sliced frozen peaches, three quarts of diced frozen peppers. It was a giant undertaking, hogging up counters and stove so that Tom could barely find room to make breakfast for himself; featuring all of the household's biggest pots, pans, and colanders; requiring me to empty the compost pail three times before noon; and leaving me with a cramped right hand (peeling two bushels of peaches is not a restful task). But the end results were highly satisfying. Those canned peppers are the prettiest food I've made in quite a while, and they will be a delight this winter alongside roast chicken or pot-au-feu. And while  Maine peaches are the thin, sour cousins of those golden southern beauties, they still cook up handsomely. I may not want to eat them out of hand, but they will make a fine February cobbler.

Altogether this weekend was shockingly productive. On Saturday, before my reading, I even managed to vacuum my car . . . not that I'm driving it much at the moment. Mostly I cleaned it for reasons of wistfulness, and the possibly vain hope that my new vehicle won't devolve into a construction truck when I'm not looking. Loan a car to a carpenter and expect sawdust on the seats and boxes of screws on the floor. Sigh.

Now here we are, back at Monday again, and I need to do my weekly housework, work on my editing project, start prepping for next week's first Monson class. Early on Wednesday morning I'll leave for NYC: it's hard to believe I'll be on the road again so soon, but so goes my new life. I feel lucky to have had such a kitcheny Sunday. I feel lucky to have been able to read poems in the midst of this homestead whirl. I feel lucky to be visiting my two favorite sons in my two favorite cities. The breathlessness can be part of the pleasure, though sometimes I forget that.

At yesterday's reading I brought my crown of sonnets, "The Dead," into the air for the first time. Always, with poems, I hope that I've written something that can hold listeners' attention. But a long poem or sequence is particularly tricky. This has to do with more than maintaining audience focus over many pages. Performing a long poem has to draw those present into emotional communion. I'm struggling to describe what I mean, but when a long poem works in the air I have the sense that the room has become a fragile shell, that each listener is aware of the delicate walls, the currents of feeling, and that all are complicit in keeping this shell intact.

I think this happened with "The Dead" yesterday. And as a result I've been experiencing what usually ensues on such occasions--a postpartum exhaustion . . . not weary in body, but as if some inner reserve has been emptied and washed clean. A stripping-down of the spirit. Even all of these hours later my arms feel heavy, my thoughts slow. Reading those sonnets in public enacted a communal loss. Afterward, people needed to tell me about their own dead. In a way I felt like a sin-eater, responsible for that old ritual task common in Welsh and other Celtic cultures: reading the poem aloud was a way to absolve souls.

What fantastic sleeping weather! It was 49 degrees when I woke up today in the little northern city by the sea, such a treat for a slow Saturday morning. Chuckie finally nagged me into getting up at 6 a.m., but I could have wallowed longer.

Autumn is in the air and I am not sorry. Ah, wood stove, couch blankets, hot cups of tea, the beautiful creeping in of the evening. I love to be snug. Of course there are summer elegies--flowers, ripe tomatoes, bare feet, swimming in a warm pond. But the garden is tiring, and I am ready to let it fade.

Yesterday, after I finished up at my desk, I emptied most of the potted flowers onto the compost heap. It's so extremely dry here, and it's been impossible to keep up with the watering, given my road schedule. A few of the potted plants remain, but only the sturdiest. I also took down the backyard hammock and brought in the hummingbird feeder. It's time to accept that summer is on its way out.

Still, I've got so much harvest produce to deal with. This morning, before I head out for my reading, I'll grind down another batch of basil for the freezer, and maybe work on some parsley as well. I may even have time to string hot peppers . . . they're already washed and waiting; all I need to do is dig out my needle and thread. Tomorrow I'll can pickled peppers and chop up the rest for the freezer. And maybe those bags of peaches will also be ripe enough to process.

Meanwhile, I did draft a poem yesterday, and I started putting together a table of contents for the chapbook, and I copyedited 50 or so pages of a novel. I proposed a topic for a class I'm contracted to teach next month, and did some scheduling, and responded to various emails, and read Ruth Moore's Spoonhandle, which I'm enjoying a great deal.

This afternoon I'll be reading around the corner in Yarmouth. If you're local, and in the mood for words, stop by and give me a hug--

Finally I'm beginning to feel like myself, sleep-wise anyway.  Thus here I am, awake at the usual witching hour, considering the Friday ahead . . . recycling day, laundry day, dealing with piles of peppers and peaches day; but also I am going to write this morning. I accomplished almost nothing writing-wise during our Chicago trek, but I did take lots of notes and photos at the Art Institute's Thorne Miniature Room Collection, all focusing around one 1940s-era room, and I want to consider how those jottings might fit into my current writing projects--specifically the one that's linked to the Sappho annotations.

Still, the editing obligations are pressing, as are the vegetable and fruit jobs. One of T's co-workers has a peach tree and I, of course, am unable to say no to bounty. But the pepper situation is of my own making: I ordered them in bulk from the CSA because they were gorgeous and cheap and relatively easy to process for the freezer. I might pickle and can a batch as well, if I can find the time on Sunday.

Plus, I've got peppers in the garden to deal with: a crop of ripe Serranos that I should string up for drying. And so much basil, parsley, cilantro, and chard . . . wasn't this supposed to be a year of less work?

So, tonight: seared peppers for dinner, tossed with tofu, miso, scallions, lime, and cilantro. And today, poems.

Here's one of my photos of the tiny room . . . you may perceive it as a regular space, but it's in fact dollhouse-sized, like an exact miniature of a noir movie.

Sorry to be coming to you late this morning, but Tom set his alarm for the wrong time, and all three of us (including Chuckie) snoozed blithely on. Actually, I retract that apology. I'm not sorry to be coming to you late. Sleep is the temporary king of this household, and we are all eager to be ruled by him.

Meanwhile, rain fell overnight, and now yesterday's sweater temperatures have morphed into humid warmth and a brisk breeze is kicking up the dry leaves. A few minutes ago Tom managed to get out of the house and head to work--still in my car. We had bad news about his truck, of course. It needs a new rack-and-pinion, an expensive job that can't be tackled till the end of next week, so I still limp along carless. Blah.

Otherwise, I'm trying to return to some semblance of routine. I spent yesterday dealing with laundry, groceries, baking bread, answering emails, and today I'll turn my thoughts to the big editing project that dropped onto my desk while I was in Chicago. Next Wednesday I'll be hitting the road again--this time heading to Brooklyn for a few days--so I'll try to crank out as much editing as I can over the next few days. And then the following week I'll start my Monson Arts year. In between I've got weekend readings--one this Saturday, in Yarmouth; another coming up in Winthrop later in the month. I sure hope Tom's ride is fixed soon.

Yes, I'm alive and home and all is well except that I am extremely underslept. Consider this note a placeholder as I slowly consider the possibility of writing an actual post. Check in here a little later today to find out if I fell asleep face-first into my computer or if I managed to put together a couple of coherent sentences . . .

**

Tom and I left James's house at 8:15 on Monday night and unlocked the door of our own house just before 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning. I instantly fell asleep as soon as I climbed into bed and was 100 percent unconscious until 7 a.m., which is a late hour for me to rise but didn't add up to nearly enough rest to repair the previous two nights' train-trip insomnia and wedding-giddyness insomnia combined with time-zone lag. So pardon all grammatical-logical lapses in this post. I don't really know what it means to be conscious yet.

A few minutes ago I did get up and go downstairs and make coffee and empty the dishwasher. But then I brought the coffee back upstairs and climbed into bed again. So that's as far as I've gotten with my day. Tom has the more daunting task of getting his sick truck to the mechanic this morning. The mechanic is located conveniently around the corner, but the truck has no power-steering fluid, so effort will be expended. I'm glad not to be the one who has to expend it.

Though eventually I, too, will manage to exert myself. Piles of laundry await, as do the curiosities of an empty refrigerator. I need to fetch Chuckie home from the kennel. My email inbox is clogged with obligation. The garden is dry.

Meanwhile, wedding photos are starting to trickle in. Here are a couple more of my guys--James posing in the white suit, Paul playing flower girl.

And here's a little slice of my side of the family--left to right, my brother-in-law Kurt, my nephew Nick and his partner MC, my sister Heather, me clutching a beer can and looking wild-eyed, my son Paul and his partner Lily.

Just a quick note as the train's claim to wifi is symbolic only. I write to you from somewhere between Erie and Buffalo. The sun is glaring into the train's dirty windows, the school buses are stopped safely at the railway crossings, the cafe car is open and serving hot n' tasteless coffee, all of my children are tired and happy, and tomorrow I will muse here about the similarities between camping and an overnight train ride in coach. 

The pride of my heart, all here.

 

 

Yesterday mostly circled around the barbecue party at J and H's house--40 or so people eating and hanging out all afternoon, with our little cohort trying to be as helpful as we could with setup and cleanup and friendliness. Now, on wedding-day morning, all of the family members staying in this hotel are going on a boat tour before beginning the slide toward the evening's formalities. I woke up feeling nervous, which I daresay will not lessen as the day advances. I'll be reading during the ceremony--not my own poems, of course; but still I have to perform, and not cry while reading, and right now that seems hard.

After collapsing into our room's exceedingly comfortable bed, we both woke up yesterday morning feeling much refreshed. Tom found us a place nearby for breakfast, where we ate eggs Benedict and pondered the oddness of living downtown. I've never before spent much time in this part of the city. I always think of Chicago as its neighborhoods--low-slung prewar brick, alleys and taco stands and old warehouses.  But here we are surrounded by steel and glass and Armani stores.

After breakfast we went swimming, and I have to say: this hotel has the fanciest pool ever. It's on the 12th floor, which in itself seems amazing to me--a massive vaulted tiled space, water and air the perfect temperature, and I plan to dawdle here every day. (Full disclosure: using the word swim for what I do in the water greatly exaggerates my abilities. I float, and sometimes wave my arms around and kick a little.)

The wedding rehearsal was at noon, and I am proud to say that I figured out how to get there by bus. I am pretty good at navigating subway systems but always a little daunted by city buses. For some reason Tom and I have been walking in the wrong direction constantly since we've been here. One of us is as bad as the other, so managing the bus felt particularly victorious.

The wedding venue is quite hilarious but also sweet. It's in an old furniture store, so the place is packed with oddities. Outside is a funky overgrown garden where the wedding proper will take place, and inside there's a huge open room, big enough for tables and dance floor, and the 200 vases of flowers that I, along with Hannah's mom and aunt, spent the afternoon filling. That was a massive job, but the room will be lovely with so many blossoms and I'm excited to see it in its overwrought glory.

The day ended back at the hotel, where I found Tom showering off his sweaty afternoon, which he'd spent at James's house prepping for today's welcome party. Once he was clean we walked down the street to a Peruvian place . . . ah, Friday night in downtown Chicago, the young women dressed to the nines and their dates wearing nothing special . . . thick midwest summer air clogging the evening like a blanket . . . 

 Yesterday was so long. Our train ended up being six and a half hours late . . . not just because of the tree damage I told you about yesterday but because there was someone on the track in Indiana, so we had to wait quite a long time for cops to remove him. Unclear if he was in a vehicle or tying himself to the tracks or what, but something was going on.

We finally stepped out of Union Station and into Chicago at 5 p.m., and began our long schlepp to the hotel in 90 degree heat. And then, after unpacking and a quick shower, we headed out for dinner with James. Turns out I was almost too tired to eat, though I hadn't had a real meal for 24 hours, and Tom and I had both stiffened up after the long train ride and were hobbling around like witches. So J kindly drove us back to the hotel, where we collapsed into an exquisitely comfortable bed in front of a Mariners-Athletics game and both slept like rocks.

And now here I am, feeling much refreshed. Tom is currently messing around with the in-room coffee maker, and my younger son Paul is texting me from LaGuardia, and I believe that I have returned to being the kind of person who can hike all around Chicago and stay on my feet all day doing helpful errands for anyone who needs me. I guess we'll find soon out if that's true or not. . . .

Yesterday I said I would greet you this morning from Ohio. That is not the case. At some point overnight the train came to a halt, and now here we are, stopped east of Erie, Pennsylvania, because apparently a big storm dropped trees on the track ahead. The automated text to Tom's phone offers no clue about how long any of this will take. But safe to say, we won't arrive in Chicago anywhere close to on time.

Otherwise, though, the trip has been enjoyable, if drowsy. I've been reading back and forth between the Whitehead and the Penny novels, but I haven't done a lick of writing. Some of the blame has to be chalked up to the Dramamine I took for the bus ride, which sometimes makes me sleepy. But the rattle and roll of a moving train is a soporific in itself--though, at the same time, there's no way to get a solid night's sleep when you're sitting upright in a seat surrounded by people who won't stop talking on their phones.

So I guess that's about it for an update. It's too dark to see out the window. The cafe car isn't open for coffee yet. Somewhere ahead of us people are supposedly chainsawing trees off the track. I believe I'll go back to reading.

It's 5 a.m. in the little northern city by the sea, and a single cricket squeaks in the darkness. The air sifting through the windows is cool and crisp, and for the moment I am happy to be drinking hot coffee and wearing my old red bathrobe. But I have packed for heat. Temperatures in Chicago are supposed to be in the high 80s and 90s all week, with thunderstorms possible most afternoons. I expect to be sweaty and wilting, but at least summer clothes pack tighter than winter clothes do; and without any space-hogging sweaters and boots, I have room to stuff in a few extra clean shirts.

In a couple of hours our friend will arrive to haul us to the bus station, and the wedding adventure will begin: an hour-and-a-half ride to Boston's South Station and then, just after midday, we'll board the Lakeshore Limited and embark on our 22-hour ride to the Windy City. Tom is going to take advantage of the hiatus between bus arrival and train departure to hustle over to Chinatown and pick up takeout for lunch and dinner. It's always good to have fun things to eat on a long train trip.

I did end up acquiring a copy of Whitehead's Crook Manifesto, thanks to the altruistic generosity of my local bookstore owner. She called yesterday morning to say her distributor couldn't get the book to her before I was leaving, so she had checked with other bookstores in town and had tracked down one that had the book on the shelf. This is above-and-beyond service, don't you think? Librarians and booksellers: they are the greatest.

So now I have my four carefully chosen books, a travel cribbage board and a pack of cards, two poem-writing projects, a little notebook for writing down overheard conversations, a few shows to watch on my computer, a late afternoon Red Sox game to listen to, a friendly guy to cuddle up against, some salty snacks, a chocolate bar, a bag of as-yet unchosen Asian takeout, the prospect of a late-day beer from the cafe car, a pillow, a blanket, my toothbrush, the rattle of the rails . . . 

Tomorrow morning I will write to you from Ohio.

Today is departure eve, otherwise known as Don't Forget to Charge the Headphones I Hardly Ever Use Day and Will the Book I Ordered Be In Day and (sob) Chuckie Has to Go to the Cat Kennel Day. I hate parting with my darling Big Kitten, but he doesn't have the moxie to stay alone in the house for a week. So T will work a short day and come home for lunch, and then I will load up the Chuckster and drive him away to his motel.

Fingers crossed: things seem to have settled down in Vermont, and as of last night my sister was still planning to come to the wedding, which is a great relief to me. Nothing is easy here: she's got to figure out how to best get through O'Hare with a broken ankle, but she's eager for the party, and I am eager to hug her.

It looks like we might get some rain this afternoon, which is a very good thing. So I'll go for my walk this morning and then turn my thoughts to laundry and a few desk tasks--which will include choosing which two Grimm tales I want to focus on in my November Poetry Kitchen class. Over the past couple of months I've been steadily making my way through the tome of stories, taking notes on possibilities but not coming to conclusions. The time has come for me to pin down a pair so that when I return from Chicago I can jump straight into designing the class.

Who knew sitting on the couch reading fairy tales could count as work?