a kind of indecision wracks my brain, as i carry on in a number of fronts: moving things out of the upstairs and back rooms, so that we can finish the house; starting a new school year along with 20,000 returning salukis and a number of new teachers and students; getting a son with a broken finger, home for medical treatment which apparently cannot be done in another state; keeping an eye on facebook, twitter, and the general swirls of the social media; preparing for a state-fair gig, a theatre-kind of production, and finally, watching bizarre storms pass through the area.

the rain appears suddenly out of a moving, restless sky and pounds us for a while, cooling off heated roofs and roads and making everything steamy for miles, but ultimately freshening the air and making the grass grow. it comes sporadically but violently & makes me think of the son, out driving a small car with a broken finger, in the plains west of here somewhere. he will hopefully be here tonight. so here's the problem: i've been invited to peru; the people there want a reading specialist, and will pay my flight. i've wanted to go to peru for years. but i'm somewhat unprepared to be a reading specialist, and worse, it may be that many of their teachers are elementary (k12)- slightly out of my range. i wrote back to them hedging, suggesting more appropriate people. at this point i am a little tenuous about the professional end of it. personally, yes, i'd love a week in arequipa peru, no matter how you package it. it will be spring there; just as, here, it will be starting to cool off.

what to do? some people say, relax, just do it, it'll work out. and i'm sure it will. at this point, things seem delicate; it seems hard to readjust, to less space in the house (temporarily), more noise, more people passing through, things happening. the kids are directly affected; they've lost their rooms, just as school has started. they protest in their own kind of way. the rain, and the steam, set the stage. we are busy moving; we get them movies, but, the movies end up separated from their cases at times; they watch, right in the path of the new furnace-guy; he tells a story about ringing in his ears, i need to concentrate; have an answer here, and keep on with the music. arequipa- dry mountains, sunny, not far from chile. drywall- soon to be put all over the upstairs; could be a little dusty. august- that time when dawg paws are painted on the streets, and people do their best to give incoming freshmen the best of their experience. the student drinking areas become quite wet- but it's not necessary, the humidity is already well over a hundred.