The Numeral 3 on a Dumpster

Since April 20th, I've been traveling almost every day, flying first to Montana, returning to Schenectady for a couple of days, flying to England, returning for a day, driving to Virginia, driving back after a few days but only to New York City, and finally driving home tonight.

I am behind on plenty of work now. Work work. Yard work. Professional association work. Even some poetry work, though I somehow managed to write a poem in the form of a letter every day. I'll spend at least this week catching up, and this is the busiest week of my work year, the week of our grants review. Everything gets done only just in time, if that, in such a life.

During my travels, I saw many of my far-flung friends, attended two professional associations, gave two full-day workshops, one talk, and one performance, took nine plane flights, visited eight states, attended the Text Festival, and saw, just tonight, an exhibition of Stephen Vincent's art in Tribeca. I keep telling myself that I have to stop doing too much just to keep in touch with the poetry world, but I still decided to attend Stephen's show, knowing it would mean I'd return home no earlier than an hour before midnight. I've cut back some, but not enough.

While I was in Manhattan today, I spent most of my time taking pictures, particularly pictures of text (such as the 3 above), and I'll start revealing these over the next few days, just as I'll continue writing about the events I've witnessed over the last three weeks of travel. Tiring weeks but enjoyable and valuable.

Now it is time for sleeping, and I am not even dead.

ecr. l'inf.