Getting down to it

One more day 'til August, one more day to laze away 'til some imaginary screen door bangs shut on the most summer-y part of the year. Right now, unable to concentrate on anything--my nagging schoolwork, my cluttered kitchen table, my list of second-opinion doctors to call--for more than moments at a time, I might as well be a neighborhood kid wandering between the air conditioning and the humid summer air, waiting for somebody's mom to yell: "In or out!"


On the one hand, it's hard to blame that kid, exasperating as she might be. It's hot out there.

Then again, the a/c ain't free.

Good grief.

Hours later, the table cleared and the calls made along with all those other little tasks that add up to nothing but a way to avoid the real work that I should do and the mysterious queasy feeling I'm not sure I want to identify, I feel better, a little more focused. Fake accomplishment is apparently better than none. Perhaps I'll run for office!

Or perhaps just try to get through tomorrow instead. One more day of July, one more day of what I'll call summer. And then really, I'll do school. A month later than I said I would, though I've already been to the building twice, been thinking about it, I swear, but still more than a week before I have to be there, more than two before I have to teach. That's so not what I intended, but it's what I should have figured, me and the last minute having worked so closely together for so long now. Honestly, it's more of a running start than I've ever given myself before. And tomorrow--tomorrow's still July.

Maybe I'll even feel up to driving, go stock up on cheap notebooks or whatever the ads say is marked down to nothing-- that's school, that's preparing, even if it's not a lesson or syllabus. Because I guarantee you I'll have students who'll arrive that first day with one notebook for everything, or a pencil and no folders, or some other combination of just not what they need, and fixing that and giving them a good start is just what I do. So maybe tomorrow I'll get ready for that, and what do you know it'll still be July--and I'll be ahead.