It will cost $6,000 to replace the transmission, so Tina the Subaru is now officially dead. Time to cancel the insurance and try to sell her for parts. Sigh. She was a pain in the ass, repair-wise, but she drove our kid back and forth to high school and then college, and she drove me back and forth to all of my various jobs and obligations, and she never left me stuck in the mud or the snow. I lift my cap to her.

Today I need to mess around with getting us preapproved for a car loan, and then T is going to plot out various financial trajectories as he decides what sort of car we should be trying to find. And then, I guess, we will start actively looking.

I'm trying not to worry too much about this car situation, though in addition to the money anxieties I also fear I'm not going to have a vehicle by the time I need to start traveling again. But I'm striving to keep my thoughts away from fret and focused on the present: I need to vote today. I need to work on Monson plans. I might pick at some poem drafts. I've started reading Louise Erdrich's The Round House. I'd like to finish Notley's Mysteries of Small Houses. I'm waiting for an author to return an editing project. I could mess around more with my manuscript.

And the conference is getting ever closer. As usual, we've had some last-minute participant upheaval, but this year I've been able to fill all of the open spots quickly, which is a very, very good thing. Last year my beloved cat died suddenly while I was in Monson, and my beloved kid got really sick at the same time. This year I'm merely in automobile panic, and let's hope that's the worst of the emergencies I'll be dealing with.