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.