If Not Night It Will be Evening

Having cleared my desk of one major concern -- by sending off/reluctantly letting go of the proofs of The Exquisite, which will come back all grown up as a book later this summer -- I find myself groping around for something else to fill whatever gap has been created by seeing one of the main projects of the past 7 years sent off to be bound. I opened up one of the other longer projects I've been cooking for a while, and read 10 or so pages, and wasn't unhappy (because there was a good deal of work that needed to be done and that I saw could be done), but I kept sending my eyes over to the little notebook I took with me to Barcelona where a brand new project had a few words thrown its way. The idea -- and who knows if it will ever go anywhere beyond those few words -- was prompted by the realization (surely re-realization) that The Impossibly, which revels in, among other things, twisty ways to say straightforward things, was simply a translation of all the twisty, bulging and straight spaces that your average old city has on offer. Wrought iron bulging off of 500 year old stone + someone's laundry + someone speaking into a cell phone + a feeling of deep and valued (if misunderstood) history being examples of the kinds of bulges and twists one encounters constantly as one navigates snaky alleyways with bits of ancient fortification jutting out of them and so forth. So we'll see. Likely, I'll just keep knocking out short things for a while. And hefting boxes. But also, now and again, looking at the notebook.