This has been such a buckle-down-and-get-stuff-done week, mostly involving my piles of desk work. Yesterday I turned in one editing project to the press, finished a large section of another, and figured out next week's high school plans. I also made a lot of progress on Tennyson's "Idylls" and read some Fussell--which, coincidentally, happens to mention Tennyson's "Idylls" as a culprit in the era's urge to romanticize war language.

Today will be more of the same, plus housework, and then probably I'll go out to write tonight. But I also need to fetch a library book; I need to do some editing of the Poetry Lab Substack drafts; I need to read a few more crowns of sonnets so that I can talk about them with Jeannie and Teresa; I need to think about the faculty performance that Gretchen, Gwynnie, Teresa, and I are beginning to create for the summer conference in Monson . . . 

Too much, too much, and then Christmas on our heels . . . My work life seems to require one invention after another. All I do is either make stuff up myself or help other people figure out what to do with the stuff they're making up. Yesterday, as I was standing in line at Walgreens, I was a little jealous of the cashier. It seemed like a restful job, just being cheerful and telling customers they've stuck their debit cards into the slot upside down. But no doubt Walgreens is really a bubbling cauldron of evil, and the cashier goes home every afternoon wanting to slit his throat.

Well, Chuck, for one, is fully satisfied with his lot. After a nice breakfast, he's in the kitchen chattering to Tom--chirp, yeek, chirp. He sings like a chubby little round-eyed bird. No one is happier than he is.