Of Note.

And again I slide away for a time weatherwise, and for no good reason. The weather went on just fine without me: It rained some, it warmed some, and last evening at about four-thirty or five o'clock it did what we rarely see it do this far into the year, which was clear off a bank of muggy clouds and then snap genuinely cool into dusk and beyond, jeans-and-sleeves temperatures, a little breeze, the boys a block or so over hollering their graduation deep into the night. It would have been a fine night to graduate, I thought. It seemed a fine night to graduate for those boys, anyway. And I kept thinking: Where are the girls? Quiet, and watching the boys holler, or not there at all?

What do we do here on our own back forty? Holler some, sure, but mainly tick item after item off the shed list until it finally has just one box left to check: final. The last side is sided, the ceiling's touched up, the walls are recaulked in those places that were wanting it, those two last batts of insulation are batted in, the last bits of trim are painted and hammer-fit and smoothed into place. It is time to call the city. That will be a nervous-making time. Still, I feel good, and mainly along these lines: How odd to have done something slowly and right. My M.O. breaks generally along other lines entirely.

The novel bides its time in NYC, waits for opinions, ideas, makes and works its own list. The Toad sleeps well and waves with both hands and babbles just about all the time. The dog sleeps more on the downstairs sofa than the upstairs bed. Mother's Day comes and goes like always, and not at all like always. The lawn is in need of a mow. The mower is in need of a tune. The coffee pot's emptied out. Me, too, maybe. There's an in-betweenness in the water over here. Something that would look like inertia if there weren't so many things going on. That's what made the cool night last night so nice: It was something specific, discrete, something that wanted logging, noting. So. Noted, and duly.