Here I am on the verge of another unemployed summer. I am making plans in my head on what to do with this time, if I am, as usual, unable to find a job. They have not coalesced into any form that I am able to discuss coherently at this point but they include: spending more quality time with Mary and not so little ones, finishing my novel, interviewing the extraordinary people I have found who are not writers and writing up their stories, and taking my ideas for using art to teach a broad range of skills and developing a curriculum around these and trying it out at various local private school summer programs. There are also many more vague ideas: Traveling around the county on bike, foot and car taking pictures and writing about what I find, reading my poetry at spoken word events etc. . . . As I am writing this I am feeling a little twinge of excitement. It is amazing how much space in a life a full time job takes up. It is like an elephant in a one room apartment; you can live around the edges, but the whole middle is taken up.

I have a long weekend to think things over and one more day of work, a big fat ornery paperwork day, and then glorious summer of no money and lots time to spend it in. I wonder what I will be doing with it?