so much and so little. i find myself making excuses to people that i can't do this or that because i've got to do such and such. or worse: i haven't done this and that because i had to do such and such. august used to be a comfortable, lovable month. we've turned it into something less than its best and truest self. not that i'm really complaining ... much ...

i've had some good times, as noted (and omitted) in this space. it's just that i've also been haunted by school things all summer (though my contract reads "august 14 to june 5," it does not tell the tale). so as opening day approached, and i tried to squeeze in this family gathering and that friendly visit, i found myself becoming more frantic and -- no, that's not it. i don't know what it is - or was.

so here we are at the start of a new school year, at the end of the first full week of classes ... new courses, full of bright and eager scholars who find themselves, more or less by chance, in brtom's new classroom - 208 - inherited from the recently retired, deeply respected and loved, jim mccullough.

so here we are. what will we do? does it all depend on me? yes, to a sizable extent. am i ready for this? it doesn't matter. we will do it.

this is not the best moment to try to write here. i am tired. i have not had exercise. i have only had teaching, to come home every day this week and crash crash crash into a calamitous stuporous nap - which i absolutely needed if i was to do any reading or planning or thinking in the evening. (it's nice to read that my old pal amy has also been napping, for perfectly understandable reasons. she brings such good, crabby humor to her telling. i envy that. me not funny - just tired.)

it's friday evening and the cars have come. they're stretched out all over the asphalt, all over the grass. a sign of The Game, our first home football match. the one i will not attend. the one i never attend. because i harbor a deep ancient grudge against the game and sportkultur. how queer of me. i won't be missed. i will stay home and type this. i will stay home and finish reading oedipus rex just to find out if he gets the girl at the end. you will find me curled up with the unabridged version of "sinners in the hands of an angry god," weeping at the part where the little boy gets lost as the night closes in and the dogs come out to hunt.

Now blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep: it covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; 'tis meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. 'Tis the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap; and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise-man even. There is only one thing . . . that I dislike in sleep; 'tis that it resembles death; there's very little difference between a man in his first sleep, and a man in his last sleep.

Miguel de Cervantes