Up early this morning to prepare for my speaking gig at the NC Lit Fest. I have waited the CDC proscribed length of time to ensure that I am no longer significantly contagious (I wouldn’t recommend rubbing my mucus membranes, but honestly, I’d frown on that even in perfect health) and other than a terrific backache from laying down for days on end, and an occasional sporadic cough, I seem to be doin’ fine. Appetite’s still a little depressed, but since I’m trying to lose a few vanity pounds, I suspect that’ll wear off much too soon.

Got some doodling done yesterday–mostly phalloi, a few random rodents. I’ll post those later.

The nice thing about being up this early is that I’ve caught sight of a couple of birds that I don’t normally see. The fall warblers are starting to come through, I suspect–I didn’t catch anything beyond small bird-shaped flashes of black and gold and grey in the treetops, nothing you could ID from, but enough to make my brain go "Warblers!" Plus there were two extremely scruffy wrens in the garden this morning, one of them bopping around on the feeder, the other actually hopping cautiously along the gutter just outside my studio window. They looked a lot like winter wrens, but were so scruffy from molting that it’s hard to tell (plus I’m not sure when the winter wrens come into this area.) Could have been house wrens. Butt was wrong for Carolina.

Okay, enough staring out the window…time to get dressed!