Thirty- Six Hours

That is how many hours I have left to live my Colorado life before I drive away to my Indiana life.

I've packed four very heavy cartons of books and papers: books on Rousseau for the course I'm teaching in the fall, books on feminism and the family for the course I'm teaching in the spring, lots of poetry books to read just for fun, all the copies of my Honor Student Expelled novel with critique group comments on them for when I begin my round of revisions, manuscripts for two new children's book ideas, manuscripts for two children's literature articles (and all the books that go with them), manuscripts for two philosophy articles-in-progress (one that I had forgotten about completely until I found its heap of papers when I was packing) - oh, and old journals to rely on in writing my Pulitzer-prize winning memoir.

That's a lot to fit into four cartons.

Today I'll pack my clothes and sundries, as well as going in to the University to deal with our mandatory migration to a new email system (the horror!), and signing some papers relating to the closing of the house I salvaged this summer. I'll also go through the copy-edited manuscript for my chapter book Third Grade Reading Queen, and go out for a family dinner. And pet Snickers a lot.

Tomorrow Gregory moves into his apartment, and Christopher will load my stuff into my little car, and I'll start driving off to the Dusty Farmer Motel in Kansas.

All in less than thirty-six hours.