i am immensely susceptible to beauty today.
the tiny white flowers, dewbedecked and starshaped. the sound of my own breathing. the curl of a wave and long, heavy skeins of kelp beside the weightlessness of a little orange crab, floating dead in the tidepool. the skyline of this city, comprised entirely of topheavy pine trees, their edges blurred by fog. deep violet morning glories pouring over a neighbor's fence. chai with steam rising against my skin. the pull of muscles. drums.

i want to spend today with a book, a handful of dried apricots and my yellow mug, curled on the couch and letting words sift through me as my toes scrunch the blanket. i want to walk through the woods with my poor blind dog and let her sniff her way along oncefamilliar trails. i want to clean my room and decide which of my fewhundred books are coming with me to philadelphia. i want to bake bread and make thick vegetable soup, full of barley and zucchini and kidney beans. i want to write a fourpage letter to everyone i know.

i am supposed to be at work in an hour.
tomorrow is my last day.
i don't do anything there anyway.
and they aren't paying me.

i should go, fulfill my obligation and sit in the stuffy office and eat too many starbursts while the day pads away on little furred feet.

but oh, how i want to stay home.