My folks stopped by yesterday because they wanted to get a look at our yard. There's not much to look at. It's just an old dusty patch of dirt where once was a tangled mass of trees and weeds. It's almost lawn-ready, but we're holding off until near fall, when we won't need to water.

In the meantime, I've got a full slate of projects. I've got to repaint our weathered and worn deck before my kid gets big splinters. I've got to frame out some stairs for the side yard. I've got to prune some hedges. Oh, home ownership, why are you so hard?

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I was recently asked to contribute work for a special section in a journal. I'm usually quite good at responding to personal prompts, but I've always had trouble when responding to prompts from someone else. Anyway, the poem got written, but it was a struggle. How about you? Do you respond well to writing prompts? What's strange is that's all I give my students--I make them write in response to a prompt.

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I "secretly" saw Inception. (Meredith's not supposed to know that I went to a movie without her. SHhhhhhH!)  I think Christopher Nolan is an interesting director . . . one of my favorites. And he seems really interested in how memory shapes his characters--drives their ambitions, their rages, their dreams. I'd argue even the Batman movies he's filmed deal with this subject. I may have to see Inception again . . .

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The etc. is this: Current Spin: