Summer Vacay

6/5: L. tells me that, when G. got sick in the night, the first thing she thought when she went in his room and smelled that smell was, 'Demons.'
6/6: The cottonwood trees are so heavy in some places, they look a little obscene. Like they are shedding. Or wearing boas. No longer the dainty puffs floating through the air; now the stuff falls in clumps. The trees, embarrassed as adolescents.
6/7: The weeds have taken over.
6/8: I live in the wrong part of town.
6/9: G. watches Barney while I read portfolios. I turn the volume way down. He turns it back up.
6/10: The plastic pig, on her side, submerged in rainwater.
6/11: When I return to the interurban rotary trailhead, one other car is parked in the lot. An older man sits inside, highlighting a book. His back seat is filled with cardboard boxes.
6/12: There are bees in my chimney, and the sound, filtered down, is ghostly.

Week Ten Prequel

*I'm posting this early, since we're finishing up this week. Your last required observation is Thursday, 6/4.

5/30: Luis Urrea says no one lives in cardboard boxes anymore. Uh oh.
5/31: I call home, but the line is busy. I'm perplexed; I try again. Still busy. So then I call L.'s cell phone, and when she answers, I say, "Why is our phone line busy?" She says, "Because I'm on the phone." I say, "Oh," then hang up, forgetting why I've called.
6/1: At the lab, there's a white board on the door with the title Random Facts. Today's random fact is that shark fetuses fight each other in the womb, and the one who wins is the one who gets born. I don't know if this fact is true, but I can't stop staring at the sign while the nurse inserts the needle. I'm thinking, Shark fetuses? Really?
6/2: It's eighty degrees, and I'm overdressed.
6/3: My dreams are like watching TV shows these days.
6/4: Cottonwood seeds out the spider webs.

Week Nine, Spring Quarter (remix)

5/23: We drive to sidewalks because there are none on our street. I miss them, and I don't know where to park.
5/24: Our yard would be good for playing volleyball.
5/25: I buy a volleyball net for our yard, then can't set it up. The directions make no sense. There are lines that lead to nothing, arrows that point up and down. It's ridiculous and infuriating. I don't even play volleyball.
5/26: We play volleyball for about twenty minutes, and I wake up painfully sore in one leg.
5/27: It's astounding what we can debate.
5/28: The clouds look like meringue.
5/29: We walk outside with our coffee. There's nowhere to sit. "Want to sit at the bus station?" L. says. "Okay," I say.

Week Eight, Spring Quarter

5/16: Burrata. The world's best cheese. (This is not a joke, people. Get thee to a Trader Joe.)
5/17: A slug on the carpet. We three bend down to examine it like it is a brand new species.
5/18: Even having lived away from Florida for almost ten years, I still compare too many things to Disney. Today: when G. went across a puddle in his wagon, I said, "It's like a real life Jungle Ride."
5/19: Awkwardfamilyphotos.com. If you haven't seen it, you really should.
5/20: The notes for my new novel ending are covered in dog footprints.
5/21: I have a hard time trusting my gaydar these days. It goes off at all the wrong people.
5/22: From an interview with Sam Ligon, on the seductive dangers of over-editing: "And I think many writers rewrite and rewrite and rewrite, and I think it occurs to many writers, as it does to me sort of late in the process: If I can just, finally, cut every single fucking word from this piece, it will be perfect."

Week Six, Seven....Ahhhh! (Spring Quarter Blues Version)

5/2: Mom says she's going to send butterflies. And this is the thing: I don't ask why.
5/3: The sweet woodruff on the stump threatens to open, then doesn't.
5/4: We wave goodbye to L. at 6am and make our own plans to leave.
5/5: My sister celebrates Cinqo de Mayo in Khartoum.
5/6: A tail wind shaves an hour off the first flight. During the second, we sit for an hour on the runway, waiting for a thunderstorm to pass.
5/7: The dogs refuse to eat in our absence.
5/8: We nap together in the basement, the floorboards creaking above us.
5/9: Let to our own devices, we wander, trailing an empty wagon.
5/10: A trampoline, a pond with no fish (and no water), a rusty swingset, a pool with murky water. "Let me pick up the dog poop," she says when I arrive.
5/11: When the plane landed, I thought G. was still asleep. He clapped without opening his eyes.
5/12: The popsicles are freezer-burnt.
5/13: The "family" parking space: who counts?
5/14: We drink $3.99 wine out of jelly jars.
5/15: The waitress refuses to bring us water.

Week Five, Spring Quarter

4/25: We eat veggie burgers at the Tulip Festival.
4/26: I find a live, green tree frog and a dead mole in the front yard while pruning ferns.
4/27: E. is holed up watching internet TV in an apartment in Sudan. There is another girl who's been there for two and a half years.
4/28: She calls to tell me she's bought a piano at a garage sale. Except it wasn't a garage sale. She asked a man if this was a garage sale, and he said no, but he did have this piano he wanted to get rid of. Then she bribed some random men to drive it home for her. When they showed up, the men said, 'You didn't tell us it was a piano.' She said, 'I didn't?'
4/29: I expected the sand we bought to be whiter.
4/30: Emails today: budget crisis, swine flu, illness, irritability. Things are bleak in my inbox.
5/1: We are washing our hands, washing our hands, washing our hands.

Week Four, Spring Quarter

4/18: The ownership of the waterfront here still surprises me. The beach is empty save for a single man on a cell phone. We don't go three feet before seeing the first sign: Private Beach. Private. Private. No Trespassing. Everywhere we try to go, the water is being owned.
4/19: We're an hour early for the ferry, so G. plays on a run-down playground on the reservation. We watch kids fly a kite in the yard of a discount fireworks store.
4/20: The Canadian radio loves this day.
4/21: I talk to my sister about her upcoming trip to Sudan, and when I ask if she's scared, she says, "I used to be." She wants a recommendation for a funny book, and I can think of none. When I ask what, exactly, she'll be doing there, she says, "Researching stuff." I laugh but don't pry. All the NGOs have been sent out of Sudan, but here is my sister, heading in.
4/22: My mom threatens to fake cancer to keep my sister home.
4/23: My baby sister leaves today for Sudan for six weeks. She loses her cell phone just before she goes.
4/24: Today, when I wake, I wonder where she is.