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Yesterday I thought I was healing up well, but it seemed to be a fake out. I did manage to make it to campus to teach my two discussion sections, though I perhaps should replace the term "teach" with "witness," as my brain cells have faded--even if I weren't regressed, a prisoner in my own home, I know my mind has suffered greatly from this near-week of science fiction sick.

Good things, though:

- Loving Simply Breakfast's brief Paris return. My favorite is 4/17--both for the ranuculas (my favorite! no, peonies are my favorite! my tied favorite!) but also the way I can imagine myself sitting at a window, staring down at a busy city street, baguettes and newspapers, me writing little poems in my notebook, a feeling flush with productivity.
- These images of rooms on Wikstenmade. They remind me of the summer between my junior and senior year of high school, when my family and I traveled to Europe (England, Scotland, France). We stayed in an inn along the road in Scotland, on the way to the Highland Games, and I would call it a bed and breakfast, but the bar was rauckus that night, and the light in our room wouldn't shut off, and I had given myself these insane blisters on my feet after insisting on wearing my brand new bright blue Doc Martens around Manchester the day before.
- Uniform Studio's gossamar scarves. (I ordered one in a blue-black shade!)

- Inventing the Abbots by Sue Miller (short stories)
- The Beautiful Country (film)
- watching re-runs of The Office

I'm thinking about picnics... They've come up twice in my rapid internet perusing. Being sick, all I can do is stare out the windows, enjoy a little sun, but mostly, it's been bed-sofa-youknowwhereelse. And my body, while it has been curling in on itself, has been craving: watermelon, small berries, carrots, water. I'm loving my body wanting the right things; I'm so easily given in to rich pastas, bread, my huge cheese weakness, and a love of a good beer. Now, because of my stomach's turnings, I think of food that is wet and fresh, that my body can tingle a little bit to. Today is so windy, no picnics for me--the weather siren even went off twice this afternoon, and the only explanation the weather website gave was prime wildfire conditions. It's true: the wind is swooshing all about, our recycling bins retrieved by some kind passer-by, so I'm afraid any spread quilt would flap up in the gales. But if I stand out there, clinging to the storm door, and close my eyes, I can imagine a little picnic surrounded by little bursts of green.