it's a big time of year for deer, and the authorities say that's because it's mating season, which may well be true, but i can't help but wonder, it's also because by instinct they know hunting season is coming, and they have to find a place to hide. get out now, cross the road, and then go so deep even the hunters can't find you. i wonder if, year after year, deer don't teach each other about the hunting season and how this one time is a bad time to let people see you.

it was also homecoming here, and that meant apparently that people wrote in chalk all over the campus sidewalks, and all those "so-and-so for king" signs are still there, only faded, because of the general lack of rain. a heavily contested election, apparently, with almost every inch of sidewalk covered up one way or the other, in the central campus. but now another group has got out there: the nanowrimo people, who want us all to write a novel in november, and of course these signs are directed straight at me, who probably could do it if i set my mind to it.

in fact i sit down to this very blog, and write piles of useless junk, just because i don't have the nerve to start one more big long novel, only to lose my spirit (or sense of direction, or possibly purpose) somewhere after chapter two. it's been my lifelong dream, and yet, i just don't have a plan that would sustain me through a few hundred thousand words. i get started, then i fade away, and other things come up, yada yada. a nanowrimo community might really help me get started that way; i'll keep you posted.

the weather has backed off its utterly clear, blue-sky fresh-air thing and now is looking more changeable, like a cold wind might just rise up over the horizon any day now, and set winter in motion. we started a new term, and i have twenty grueling teaching hours, as well as a marathon of supervisory duties, so i'm looking at a pretty frantic schedule as i try to get my calendar, christmas card & letters, & holiday season-type stuff going. but what bothers me really is that this is such a beautiful time of year, and i really want to get out in it.

orion reappears in the sky, and if you get out in the country, which isn't hard or far rom here, he's got lots of company. he sits there with his arrow pointing at the plaeides (sp?)- possibly because that's where the black hole is. or maybe because it's in taurus, and he wants to pick up a bull to mount on his fireplace. i've got no idea his reasoning, maybe he just wants to shoot those arrows off into space just for the heckuvit, and maybe he was just frozen in place there by someone who just couldn't bear to see a cute little animal die.

i suppose it would be possible to make up a whole set of modern myths, based on the stars as we know them and see them, based partly of course on what is already there, but also keeping in mind that we live in an entirely different world than those greeks did, so we have to find ways to include all the things that are relevant to us today. things like don't ask-don't tell, transgender/nongender, litigiousness, international adoption, the drug war, the idnr's roadkill policy, the northern lights, the second amendment, and clarence thomas. you see, i think about all this stuff, but some days, when i manage to get home without a deer jumping in front of the car and ruining my life, all i want to do is come home, wrap myself up in a ball, and go to bed.