We're still doorless, though Tom worked all day till dusk, hoping he'd be able to install it. I'm not surprised the job's taking so long: he's been replacing not only the rotted sill but also sections of rotted beams and joists. At one point he was jacking up the house. So many secrets lie beneath the skin of a building, all of them eager to disintegrate when you're not paying attention.

Unfortunately he doesn't have today off from work, so I'm not sure when he'll return to the task. Maybe in the evenings, he says, if he can come home a little early. Or maybe we'll be in limbo till next weekend. 

Meanwhile, the rains have moved in. Knowing they were imminent, I, too, tried to catch up on a few outside chores, among them repotting a couple of root-bound houseplants. But I was still distracted by the Sappho project. Though I wrote only two more poems, I spent quite a while poring over the rest of the manuscript, not with a revisionary eye, simply trying to attend to my burgeoning characters and situations. I don't know how to write a novel, but surely, as with poems, it must be important not to excise material too soon. Whatever-this-is-I'm-writing is some sort of poem-story mashup, and I don't want to slice up the fabric before I even know what it looks like.