Dickens' Favorite Kid

He wrote 15 novels, and the story goes, his favorite of these well-regarded children was David Copperfield, the 877 pages of which I recently finished, and found myself moved to believe it one of my favorites as well.  Now, to be fair, it is to date my only cover-to-cover Dickens experience, so calling it my favorite Dickens is accurate by any standard.  I mean then it's become one of my all-time favorites, and one to which I may return.  It was touching, compelling, poetic, and everything else a novel should be.  What's more, you'll find in the opening chapters maybe the most poignant description of childhood in not only the Victorian canon, but in all of literature.  It isn't surprising to find

Indian Summer Blues

I've been acquainting myself with a collection of solo piano tunes called Indian Summer by jazz legend Dave Brubeck.  Of course, I made it through another working summer seeking enrichment and renewal in many ways.  But in the end, the seemingly endless parade of concerns concurrent with my job take their toll, and I resolved to spend the last two weeks of summer vacation keeping an intentional distance from work, a kind of Indian summer in itself.  And Brubeck helped. 

Summer school's a pretty relaxed and straightforward enough gig, though not entirely conducive to a sense of real "staycation," especially in light of all the fun and trip-taking so many close family and friends seemed to have enjoyed.  I had plenty of fun myself, for sure: saw my lady quite a bit, swam and barbecued, read and wrote, and otherwise tried taking it easy as often as I could afford to.  But here's hoping this was my last summer spent teaching.  Altogether it really wasn't so bad; the kids were great, and all went fairly smooth-like, everything considered.  At the same time, I'm naturally anxious to have a bit more balance,