a good feeling

Last week, the leaves were blazing yellow up and down our small block. Today most of those wet leaves are on the ground, on the parked cars, being swept downtown. Today I stepped out of the door wearing one of the AV's scarves, just as she had predicted a few weeks ago. I'm getting the hang of this routine: office, teach, office, teach, work, run the dog, cook something, work, sleep. I get the way the streets meander down to the river.

I've been getting up early to drink a cup of coffee on the back deck with the dogs and watch gray-red cardinals. I haven't been writing, but I've been reading and dog-earing things. I've been wearing sweaters and my H&M plaid teacher trousers from way back in the day--the ones that someone made me buy before I headed off to Kato. It feels good.

There's a rhythm to the days: to the teaching days, and the work days, and the weekends by myself. The students know what they're working on: the thick middle of the semester is here. I can finally back off from the notes and the lectures and turn things over to them: they're the ones writing, writing, writing. I'm making Jean call me when she needs help with dinner idea. P calls me Tuesday nights on her way home.

I've been conferencing in my office, in the glow of the two SalArm lamps. There's a not unpleasant smell to our building; it's sort of a cherry Chapstick scent, and my students like to comment on how good the office smells. I don't tell them that it's not my doing. We sit at the little table, under Anskov's old "Bad Habits" poster, and we talk about writing. I draw a lot of arrows and stars and question marks. They ask me where I got the poster from. I think of our old Speedbird days, then I say, A friend in Minnesota.

We're talking about getting a Writer's Bloc-type-thing up and running in this town, putting together a reading, trying to put on a play in one of the abandoned storefronts. Other times we just drink rum punch and try to play Mafia. Turns out I am horrible at Mafia.

Sometimes in class I tell little stories about what it's like to work in marketing; sometimes on in-class group work days we listen to the songs I listened to last October. It makes everything feel like last year, but only for a second; then I keep going forward, keep talking about marketing strategies for killer robots or tiny roller skates for cats. That's a great feeling.

Darren's here soon and then we're all reunited in Green Bay for another Highland Days weekend. There will be wedding dresses and pumpkins and wine and lots of oh my gods. I'm headed back to WNY in a few more weeks, then back again for Thanksgiving. The B and I have figured out how we'll travel this holiday, how to make it to upper Wisconsin and then back through Chicago and then to Buffalo and then Cincinnati. Planning feels good. Three weeks off in December are pretty fine too.

In the evening, Truman and I walk; we loop our way through Heritage Hill and the people who are coming home from work, or out raking leaves, or hanging up decorations say hello to us, and we say hello right back.

And this afternoon: there's work to be done. But I can do it here, in the kitchen, drinking cider and marinating chicken and listening to the Supremes over the sound of falling rain. I'm grading. I'm waiting to run downstairs and change over the laundry.