Next Move.

The air's got something in it today. There's a viscosity. ANYLF comes to you this morning live from the newly-swept WeatherDeck, the product of an afternoon of tree work done yesterday in frantic avoidance of anything that looks like the next revision of the novel. On the docket for today: beginning said revision, but also of course planting impatiens for the pots that run up the porch stairs; tying off the sprinting tomatoes to a new trellised 2x4 before what may well be afternoon storms, if the air's right; finally trimming in the house fan that rattled this reporter awake several times last night. Get that list long enough, and the serious fictive work doesn't have to start until tomorrow.

The first of the TLK winters, so named for my good friend TLK, who loves nothing more than long sleeves and coffee all day in, say, June, is forecast for tomorrow and tomorrow evening. The QPF wants to give us a half-inch of rain over the next 30 hours or so. Now that's a stretch of weather in which to begin a writing project. Today? Today one ought to be able to pile the dog into the truck, drive to Lowe's, purchase lumber. You want me to caulk in those windows? The ones you've been asking me about for two years? I'd be happy to. Quarter-round, finally, in the dining room? No problem.

Hard to get started again. Bad combination of paralytic fear and general laziness. Add maybe a bit of malaise, add a good portion of exhaustion. But I started Nell Freudenberger's novel last night, and it seems promising. In the past, I've given over the first few days of summer to reading. A decompression. Or re-entry, depending on your metaphorical preference. Houston, this is ANYLF. We're ready for something. Just not quite sure what. Over.