spring is sprung, grass is riz, wonder where the flowers is, is kind of what we'd call this season, when every once in a while it appears to be getting warmer. you can see vague shades of green in the fields as you turn out by the countryside, and go outside without a jacket. mostly the whole family is sitting on nails waiting for a baby to arrive, but that could be any time, and time marches along like it doesn't mind waiting. i come home from work exhausted, some water still in my ears from the noon swim, unable to concentrate on uno or whatever the boys want me to play. if i get them to watch the television, they fight over the channel, but at least then i can check the facebook or play online boggle for a moment. actually i'm lousy at boggle too; too tired. i should quilt, but even my eyes are a little sore; maybe it's the chlorine, that got into my goggles somehow.

a couple of days away from a flight to new mexico, i wonder if the warm sunny air will dry out my soggy brain, and change the moldy directions of my thinking. i've been doing a lot of haiku lately, but airport haiku is a genre of its own- it has seasons like security, baggage claim, ticketing and gate; one can imagine the kigo and the inevitable feeling of suspension in air, time passing dully and aimlessly, security guards for whom life is a tiny space under flourescent lights. security is a kind of mass humiliation of a random group of strangers, but it's fairly common and you no longer get scenes where somebody is attached to his perfume or something he's not allowed to bring along. i myself have to remember to put my swiss-army knife aside, or i'm that guy.

so the question arises of whether to bring the quilt along, which would require scissors, a dangerous weapon, or whether to bring along a manuscript and computer, or whether to just wing it, hands free, dry out completely, spend a few days reading, if that's possible. the shuttle at el paso takes you right along the rio grande ex-river, where you can gaze across at mexico as the texas-new mexico border approaches. what happened to the river? oh there hasn't been any water in there in some time, but it's still a pretty wide shallow basin-valley that looks like, if you were to try to walk across it, you'd sink deep in the quicksand mud of ex-river.

back home we wait patiently for the baby, which may or may not be born before i leave, and this would be in washington state, not illinois or new mexico. this baby has so far resisted all the pressure coming down from the grownups in its life, and is stubbornly hanging on to what's right for her, which is actually commendable in its own way. the quilt is coming; hang in there. things are busy here, but we're watching, and we're with you all the way!