I have been at home for almost two weeks. I don’t know where the days slip away to. Some kind of timeless void that eats hours and memories. August will be December and I’ll be dragging my artificial trees up from the basement and trying to fit the damn things together. There is a dampness in the air today. That subtle hint of orange and red and yellow leaves that fills your nostrils… The trees are looking in at me through the windows at night and counting down until their big sleep. I know it seems hard to believe, but all the stores are filled with fall fashions, if that’s what you can call them. I myself, have never been on the cutting edge of anything fashionable. I was the kid that kind of always wanted out of the in crowd. I am still that kid. If you like something wear it. Don’t worry what size it is. Just wear it.
I had a bowl of organic granola with dried cherries. I puckered up and managed to swallow it all down. I love cherries, any time of year, I love them.
About an hour ago I had a 100 calorie ice cream sandwich. I am now thinking of having a dill pickle and a big chunk of cheddar cheese.The trees are waving at me out there. Every so slightly back and forth, like they are bobbing on water. Sometimes the wheat fields here look like massive oceans. You can actually see waves crashing into the barbed wire fences. Cows look like they’re swimming in a sea of grain. I am such a prairie person. Every part of me is in the dirt here, the gravel roads, the rolling foothills, the collapsing barns and endless fields of barley and oats and rape seed.

I have had to pee for an hour and am too lazy to go down the hall….

I am going to have a quiet day by the looks of it. I need to water plants at some point, and yes pee. Mom and I are going to walk the bonker dogs down the road. We should go before the rain rolls in again over the mountains. We have had weeks of black clouds and thunder storms. It’s been fairly odd. Summer didn’t come at all. It waiting for some kind of invitation that never came. It’s kind of sad when you only have so many summers left. I am going to Italy in a few weeks…well, not even. I hope summer is waiting there with bread sticks and wine and dried salami and vats of fresh pasta and lemon chicken and olive oil and cheese.

I knew summer would be somewhere. It’s over there so I am going to go chasing after it.