Tonight, one of my summer students requested an evening conference about the paper he's writing, and since we're not in full session, the only place to meet him, really, was the classroom where he was working, nearly a mile away. I strapped my sandals back on, grabbed my good old (old old) hooded sweatshirt, and skipped out onto the street. Somewhere a few steps down the block, I realized how good it felt to be moving swiftly, and I lengthened my stride out, dropping my center of gravity just a bit, squaring my weight over my hips, and off I flew. Within a quarter-mile, I was about to burst into a run, just to run and run, following the cheerful insistence of the music in my ears, more of Sufjan Stevens's Illinoise (2005), the second in Stevens's projected fifty-album set, an album for each state. The sky was grey but not too low, the evening darkening but not too dark yet. By the time I hit the lawn outside the classroom building, I actually had broken into a run, bounding over the grass, leaping down a low-rising hill, springing through the swung door. It's all the energy of the underslept and overworking.

I am not trying to ignore everyone in my life, but I'm doing a pretty good job of that anyway, even without effort. I'm back up for air and human contact once I make it to Friday.

In the meantime: today, I shot the dragon for the first time in a long time. Somewhat on a whim, I lay down in the yard where he lives. Because I had headphones on, I couldn't hear my landlord when he came running over to find out whether I'd passed out on the lawn--and my not responding, of course, made things all the more frightening for him. Much blaming of technology ensued. However, I had already secured this image when the panic went down:

I suspect you can guess why I might have wanted to lie down for that one.

The real photographic business of the evening, though, consists of my giving you a much overdue installment of LRB personals. I will let them speak for themselves until such time as I can say something more useful of my own. I may never, ever agree with the classified manager's choice, but this week, in particular, I can say that I adore both his methodology and his prose.