The weather has returned to torrid. The thermometer hit 90 yesterday and will likely do the same today; maybe tomorrow as well. Fortunately the house is small enough for our one small a/c unit to keep the humidity in check. You know I hate running it, but on these kinds of days it's a boon.

So after my first-thing-in-the-morning walk, I spent much of yesterday comfortably ensconced on the couch: reading a poetry manuscript, working on meeting plans, and periodically dipping back into Murdoch's The Green Knight. Then, in the afternoon, I had a zoom meeting about 2026 teaching conference plans and about a residency in Sarasota that Teresa is cooking up--a week in March for working on a collaborative performance. Right now my March schedule looks crazy--a mad press of teaching in Monson, flying to Florida, flying back from Florida, driving to Bangor for the MCELA event, teaching in Monson--but it's so far away that I can pretend my eyes won't be popping out of my head.

Hey, by the way, save the dates for that 2026 conference: July 5-12!

Today: more manuscript reading, more garden watering, more planning of various sorts, plus Little Chuck goes to the vet. I've been immersed in Murdoch's novel, thinking again about how I've struggled to write about her work . . . I think it always feels too smart for me; I don't know how to speak about the philosophical underpinnings, just about the melodrama and the swirl of characters and the inevitability of error.