The heron wind vane on the train station roof oscillates between West and North. I once stood on this platform at night alone and had an epiphany by the light of the moon. Every time I pass by, I look for more magic. The heron is still vibrating. Could that be a sign? Of what? A long train ride home. I graded papers upstairs while looking down at a man grading blue books downstairs. Our eyes met and we gave each other a salute of papers with rolled eyes, the universal sign for midterms. Afterwards, I stopped myself from going to spy on AJ coming out of school with his new friend as they walked to his friend�s house with his friend�s mom. I haven�t seen him since yesterday and I�m going through withdrawal even as I am enjoying being sprawled on the bed in a quiet house in the middle of the afternoon. Instead, I walked to the butcher shop to order my Thanksgiving turkey. It is a holiday ritual I always undertake in person and on foot, even though a telephone would suffice. There is something Dickensian about the undertaking that seems to demand face-to-face contact. When I come back for my bird in two weeks, I will be in a shop crowded with worried women waving slips of paper and grabbing last minute items off the ever-diminishing shelves and AJ will squirm with the excitement of it all. I then returned to my car and drove the former school on the hill and voted. I gave my name, signed a form, colored in some circles and fed my form into the ravenous ballot box that seized it from my fingers and belched out a receipt afterwards. At 2:59 p.m., I became voter number 598. The morning mists have long since cleared, but the greyness lingers on, its weight seeming to bend the very branches of the trees. I am inside with my brightest orange sweater and a pair of red socks trying to find places for all the furniture we must move to make room for tomorrow�s carpeting. Tomorrow afternoon, I will not be sprawled on the bed. Tomorrow afternoon I will be lying on the floor and relishing the lack of a vacuum. [Second entry today. Click back for the playlist by which this entry was written.]
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