Brain clutter.

Then there are the days on which one doesn't get out of bed until 1 p.m.

It seems clear to me that both my body and my brain are struggling with pretty much everything happening right now: the fact that in the seven days since my last major trip, I've run down to London twice; the fact that I've had these ridiculous itchy bites; the fact that I've had to resort to antihistamines to make my itchy bites get uninflamed; the fact that, over and above it all, I have this article to revise. The fact that in three weeks, d.v., I'll be back in my flat in mid-Ohio.

I'm now actively fighting a drift toward letting my imminent return home, with all the good and mixed emotions attendant upon that return, dwarf the intellectual tasks before me. At the same time, I'm actively fighting a drift toward letting the article-for-revision (the biggest of those intellectual tasks, and possibly the only one that will get done) balloon into a referendum on my intellectual worth.

I have a lot to do. I feel as though I am no longer particularly disciplined. These two things don't play well together. So, now my goal is simply not to run away from the whole mess, hiding its messiness under a cloak of justifications for being distracted. More distracted than usual, that is. I will not give myself permission to mulligan on this one.