1. I've taken up running again. At least 4 out of the last 7 days have included running. I hope to improve this average.

2. Thoughts I can't turn off except by running: David Byrne singing, "This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!" intercut with "I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled." I'm in a Prufrock state of mind.

3. Someone dumped a tire at the end of my driveway yesterday. So far I'm driving around it, assuming that if I ignore it long enough it will magically disappear. Updates to follow.

4. When I arrived home from work, Miss Blue was trapped outside. Mysterious.

5. Shortly thereafter, a fully formed and otherwise nondescript bird flew into the house. Much excitement ensued. After successfully convincing the bird that she did not, in fact, want to take up residence in either the bathtub or the kitchen cabinets, I went to meet Bathsheba and Wolf for food. When I told this story all Wolf wanted to know was the genus and species of the interloper. Darlings, I did not and do not and shall not ever know. (Says Wolf, "Mockingbird? Was it a mockingbird?")

6. I wrote two poem-ish things earlier today and driving back from the lake tonight I suddenly remembered in a flash something that happened long long ago. I was little. My mom was playing a Joni Mitchell album. She said, "Did you just hear that? That's poetry." And she played it again so I could hear: "He stood looking through the lace at the face of the conquered moon."

7. I give it another year and then I'm out of here.