I simultaneously underestimate and overestimate the amount of work I have on a given day. It is hard to explain. The tasks themselves are not overly daunting. The time is ample enough. Yet the work seems to drain me inordinately.

Here's another poem from my "blindfold test":

The Guests

Our house was strewn with
people whom no one claimed
to know, people who had

been there for thirty years
or more. One might show
himself at dinner, cobwebbed

and thinner than the dead.
No one would speak of it,
unless the guest became

unpleasant, and then it was
in gestures, because our
voices were saved for something

better. Our dry lips flecked
with foam, our hammering hearts
out-waited our guests, and

now, at last, we are alone.

***

People keep telling me to read Dean Young, of whom I know almost nothing. When I say "people" I mean two separate bloggers, coincidentally, on the same day.

***

Whatever happened to the "Powell Doctrine"? There is no good way to fight a war, of course, but it seems that this way is particularly bad, both in its lack of justification and international support, and in its "prosecution." Part of the problem is that Saddam really is as bad as they say he is. He modelled his regime on Stalin's to be utterly coup-proof. No one would assassinate him unless they could also take out his two equally brutal sons. He will basically use his own citizens as human shields, making the final battle for the capital extremely costly in human life.