There was fire in two of my dreams last night. In the first one, I was in a family’s basement. I discovered my little brother playing with matches. It was not Mark but some generic brother. I fussed at him, “Are you insane?” I told him he needed to go tell Mom while I proceeded to try to put out the flame.

The second fire dream took place in a church loosely based on First Presbyterian Detroit. I was at the organ. I don’t think the service had started yet. There was a soprano from Grace Episcopal preparing to sing a solo based on Ralph Vaughan Williams organ piece Rhosymedre. I was fumbling around looking for my music so I could accompany her. In my fumbling I moved a switch. This seemed to be a significant event because as I continued to look for the music and orient myself to the large organ, I noticed smoke coming from the pipes. Smoke was pouring into the room. There were shutters on either side of the huge pipe case. We shut them. Then we or somebody decided to evacuate everyone while we tried to put out the fire. I remember feeling relieved and thinking, “Now I don’t have to play the service.”

Back in real life, I broke my phone over the weekend. I left it sitting precariously on the kitchen table on some bunched up tablecloth. I had bunched it up because the coffee carafe turned out to be wet on the bottom and I was trying to dry the tablecloth out. I hadn’t noticed that the phone was perched in such a way as when I took a few steps to move out of the room the phone fell on the floor with a slam.

It was already cracked but when I picked it up it the screen had cracked further and formed a tree like pattern over the top of the screen.

The phone still worked but I decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to use since for some reason I didn’t have a screen protector on it and the glass seemed to be gradually shedding fine glass dust.

So today Eileen and I went and upgraded the silly thing.

I am starting to understand Ben Lerner’s poetry better. It helps me to listen to him read his poems. I did this this morning with this recording from 2019 while I exercised. Since I understand them better I find myself liking them more. I finished his essay, “The Hatred of Poetry,” this morning.

Eileen brought the Christmas tree in and I held it while she secured the stand. She is definitely in Energizer Bunny mode lately. I on the other hand continue to enjoy relaxing, reading, and practicing. I’m also messing with books constantly as I sort them into the new shelves. I find that a pretty pleasant task.