Heat Again.

Hot. Bang. Like that, ninety degrees. Close to, anyway. 89 in the shade of my porch yesterday and today both. I've had to water the new grass, the front flowers. The ferns went crispy. Tonight there was a little cool breeze coming off a thunderstorm riding just north of the state line, but it wasn't even close enough to hear, which is fine -- less heartbreak. Is May 3 too early to worry about total rainfall? To try to remember the last time it rained?

The writing shed: primed. White like snow blindness in there. I love it. Like all of my projects, I'm kicking myself for not having done it sooner. Still: new walls, new new novel, or the idea of one. And this old new novel due back red-inked from the editor any day, or any week, at least. And I'm reading. And less homicidal. Rewrite a novel in sixty frantic days on the heels of 150 days of misery and maybe the only place to land is better, saner. That or at the bottom of a ravine. Flip a coin. See which you get.

Baby bird season here -- in all the curved letters over at the building supply, and in those crispy front porch ferns. This year I'm watering a little bit anyway, trying to be careful, trying not to wet the nests, but trying not to lose the plants altogether. And I'd been doing fine until it turned so hot. Those first sets ought to fledge some time shortly -- they're in both ferns -- and then the birds can get at the business of going around again. Just like the rest of us. Just like everything. It's May again. It's hot again. Two nights ago the hot hung on past dark, threatened July. That's coming, too.