I’m on the front porch, the sun setting, kids more hyper than they should be for a Tuesday night at 8:30. N just kissed me good night and tore upstairs with Ducky. T and S are strewn across the house, reading. If I weren’t so tired I’d consider checking out a late night film. There’s something magical about checking out a movie late on a summer night.

So I started the assessment class yesterday. If there’s any class I can run on cruise control at this point, it’s assessment. There are a few areas on which I could improve (today I thought I could clean up the traditional testing handouts) but I can go in robot-mode with the material and emerge no worse for wear. Still, four hours a morning of pure teaching is exhausting when you haven’t taught in a while. And don’t give me that bullshit that K-12 teachers teach, what, five or six hours a day. Whatever. Anyway, I’ve stayed on the workout schedule since yesterday morning and in fact did a full eighty minutes on the bike in the morning (I think a bird dive-bombed my helmet just south of Belgium) with weights in the afternoon. Normally on weight days I stick to thirty minutes of cardio. This morning I might have blown off the cardio and picked up an hour in the afternoon but I managed thirty on the elliptical than another thirty on the modified stairmaster (I can’t get the regular stairmaster to work) at the Y in the afternoon. In between I taught, refined plans, and sent out stray emails. Before dinner I dropped 150 bucks on Costco (detergent, razors, and Alleve pumped the tape) then sat under a tree at T’s game. I find myself occasionally slipping into a state of mild wonder at the boys’ games. I don’t know why, but the impending sunset and the open field and the reflective sense of solitude (I always sit way off by myself) brings that “holy fuck, I moved to Wisconsin and I live here now. In a small town in Wisconsin. How the fuck did I get here?” feeling. I listened to the new eels and read TC Boyle until the air grew cold and I pulled the car over to where I could watch the game in relative warmth. Tonight, by the way, I’m sleeping upstairs as last night I tried to sleep on the porch but woke at three freezing my ass off.

Ten days to Chautauqua. I’m looking forward to the trip.

I’m not in the mood to read, as I read at the game, but I’m ready to curl up in bed and when I curl up in bed I read. Tonight I’ll sleep. Hope you do too.