I just got home from a day at work. 8 hours of serving "the public." Among "the public," however, were old friends - a wonderful poet, craigy-faced and handsome, who looks like he could be a cowboy but has a passionate soul (though I guess some cowboys are of the poetic passionate soul genre); a old friend/journalist who has recently adopted a teen-aged girl who was a child/soldier in Sierra Leone and who is now flourishing in the barren soil of Blair High School - so perhaps it is not totally barren; etc etc. Those were the two connections that come instantly to mind from the 8 hours of manning the Desk. There were more. A few frustrating encounters, but that is to be expected. I am so fortunate... and so exhausted.