tues / when i hit the brick new whip

nose to grindstone week.  grading.  joe lo came over to help last nite with journals, thank goodness.  i have like 90 of those to grade.  i took up 23 essays yesterday from U kids that i have to get done by fri morn.  then i take up final exams.  fun.  next week 50 something research essays.

it's cold in tucson.  all my plants are inside or either snugged up in old sheets.  bitter cold last nite.  righteously bitter.  i got takeout soup post-gym from el minuto.

i just got back from steve salmoni's intro to poetry class at nw.  recruiting for adv po--hoping to make numbers!  what a great class!

here's a poem i reread in the sauna last nite at the gym that i had read years ago & dog-eared & refound again:

sawako nakayasu's nothing fictional but the accuracy or arrangement   (she    
(Quale, 2006)

finds an urgent need to get away from

people who look familiar:  familiar gait,

familiar smile, familiar expression of

disappointment when losing the lottery.

After finding such a place, where the be-

havior of people is sufficiently unfamil-

iar, slightly disengaged, somewhat off of

her normal expectations, how much long-

er this can last before the need to move,

again and again, each time hopefully less

urgently, more slowly, in peace, with the

space in her heart to even carry along a

few regrets.