Puppet Masters.

Fire in the woodstove this morning. Actual time at the actual desk with the actual book. But splendor never lasts: they're chainsawing six or eight trees out of the catty-corner yard, and I'm headed this evening to the puppet show for a fancified one-on-one meeting with one of the puppeteers. In Which Our Hero Holds Forth On The Way Things Really Ought To Be, And Is Told: There There, Little Boy, Run Along Now. That sort of thing. I'm planning on shaving before I go, but that's more to say I did.

It's cold. It's cold for May, and it's nearly cold for any time. It's surely chilly. All that green out there doesn't quite mesh with the way the air is. One wants a quiet back deck, some reddening maple leaves, etcetera. This isn't totally without precedent—I've got a picture of me somewhere, standing on Carr Street in a watchcap sipping whiskey with the wisteria blooming behind me and the dog layed out on the sidewalk—but the wisteria blooms a month ago, folks. Precedent or no, this is like some slip of the tongue, an accident, an intern left in charge.

How to handle an argument you have no chance of winning: Walk the dog and the Toad through last evening's cooling park, high creek running the opposite way from the way you're walking. Think about what would happen if you did win. What you'd owe them then. What you can do with the time that comes from losing. Which may be, strangely enough, walking the dog and the Toad through the cooling park, and actual time at the actual desk. The things you want anyway. The things that have naught to do with most arguments that take place outside this zip code. So: shave. Just don't feel like you have to do too thorough a job of it.