I’m waiting till 6:30 to go for my run so that we can stop at New Seasons on the way home to pick up tomatoes and avocados. Maybe cheese.

The sky is absolutely clear overhead—faintly aqua to pale gold around the edges with strands of pink clouds east of the city. Windows wide open. My coffee within reach. Gary reading news on his phone in the other room.

Friends came to the beach and stayed for a few days. We walked the shore and Madora and I talked so much my voice went all hoarse from talk about knitting. I guess I have become a more silent person during the pandemic. (Is it over? Is it actually over? Two people have tested positive at the MFA residency. A friend of my daughter-in-law with shattered leg tested positive after visiting her.)

We drove to the city yesterday through the forest and passed the rose garden where everything seems to be in full flower. Steve and Madora took us to lunch and then went on their way home. (They are the only ones who visit and remember to call us when they get home—setting Gary’s mind to rest.) Our HOA annual meeting was yesterday. So much about the repipe still up in the air. “Sharpening pencils” has become an unwelcome cliché, but I am optimistic it will all come right in the end.

At the coast, a house up the shore is pending after 13 days on the market—two buildings, not ocean front—likely for over a million dollars—listed at 1.2 million. Zillow still thinks our home is worth almost two. We’re curious what the house next door will eventually sell for and how that will impact the market.

On the writing front nothing has happened. I have agent queries and three small press submissions out for All the Daughters Sing. These will mostly require months to result in responses, if I ever receive responses. Most agent websites warn that after waiting a stated period of time (45 days, 90 days, four months, eight) I should assume rejection. In my experience, most agents do send actual rejection emails. I have received two and assumed another from an agent who “tries to respond within 14 days.” Another submission system rejected my query because “it appears to be lewd span.” Fourteen to go. Presses take longer than agents. I have a list of six more presses that will open in the next six months, and I will submit to them. A relative has urged me to self-publish if I can find publication—kind because she has read the short story and likes it, says it should exist in the world. Mostly, friends and family have said nothing about the story on Metaphorosis. Perhaps they have not read the story or listened to the podcast or they did not care for it. Just as well I do not know which. The story of my writing life.

I am between creation-projects and should swatch something, a scarf or sweater or pieced cushion-covers. I might start pieced Christmas stockings to sell at the gallery show in October? Instead I am reading and reading.