Rain, rain, rain . . . After so many arid months, it is a delight. First thing this morning, I lugged the compost pail to the curb, and the dark air was heavy with the dense, tea-leaf scent of wet autumn. Now, back on the couch with my coffee cup, I listen to drops clatter against windows and vents, as the cat stalks past me, shaking his metaphorical fist at God.

It's been hard to take my eyes off the newsfeed. Finally, it seems, the emperor's clothes are shredding, and the rats are running from the ship. Funny how well he suits a pack of mixed fairy-tale metaphors. He's an ogre, and I wish Puss 'n Boots would hurry up and eat him.

My editorial slog is paying off, editorially at least: I've gotten a lot more done this week than I dared to hope for, but my brain feels like a slug trail. I think I'll go to my hard yoga class this morning, the one that requires all kinds of weight-bearing, core-tormenting, difficult-to-accomplish poses, and then come home refreshed enough to finish editing footnotes and close the manuscript for the weekend.

I want to start reading the book of Cavafy poems I bought at the library sale and finish reading Sam Hunter's play Lewiston, which my son is directing this fall. I need to prep for next week's Monson class and do some Frost Place planning. My brain is a juggler's paradise.

The other day, as I was standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, the woman in front of me turned around and said, "You are just glowing!" I, of course, was taken aback, being about to turn 55 and distracted by thoughts of whether or not I'd bought enough toilet paper. Perhaps the lights at the Whole Foods are specially designed to be kind to middle-aged women. Or maybe I'm radioactive. Anyway: feel free to imagine me with an aura . . . maybe one of those Glenda-the-Good-Witch bubbles. Old poet waves wand, sends cute dog back to Kansas.