It grows hotter.

I found a paperback of Annie Dillard's found poems at a Crown Books (remember those?) and I bought it because I like A.D. and I'm interested in found poems. But I wonder: Are found poems legitimate? I mean, they are cobbled together from other people's writing, right? I mean somebody had to think of those phrases and choose those words. Then somebody comes along and snips up your article or headline or whatever and glues it next to someone else's line and calls it his or her own. I don't know... The collection is called Mornings Like This. Which shouldn't that be Mornings Like These? Maybe not.

I guess there is a place for found poetry. It certainly can be useful with students who feel like they aren't particularly poetic.

I am not fond of my dog right now. She is peeing and pooing freely around the house at night. She seems to have forgotten all previous housetrainings. And if we shut her up in her wee kennel then she just yips and whines all night long. I don't know what to do. The carpet is wrecked in the TV room and the rug in the diningroom, which was never a good rug, smells horrid. Do I have to even mention that the diningroom is not a good room for pet stench?

I asked the vet on rabies day how long Shih Tzus last, and she said, oh, this little girl should make it to 15 or 16 in fine form. That's a good eight or nine more years of this.

It's not that I want Dot to die, per se, but I am not happy with this leakage situation. I guess it's up to us (me) to retrain her. And I become so utterly lazy at this time of the year.

Laziness mixed with grand procrastination and a dollop of anxiety. Realizing that I have a list of things that really need to be done around the house in the summer, when classes are out, and yet I cannot make that call to the house painter and the person who installs an attic fan and the people who put in new windows and sliding glass doors.

Next week I go to Brooklyn for a mini-institute held by the Folger Library and I hope I shall learn how to better teach Shakespeare to my students. I hope it's good. It's going to be damned hot and sticky and I am really feeling unhappy about that. But I do get to see my sister and her family, and that makes me glad. I can see what she has on her Tivo which is always of great interest to me.

I also want to figure out how to speed up my reading rate. I'm slow, and I do a fair amount of re-reading when I get started. If anyone has any advice or ideas about speeding up reading, let me know. Thanks.