I woke up in disbelief at 6:30 this morning, my body still full of lactic acid and torn muscles. I had spent the better part of the weekend picking up splinters from the arm of my sixty year old silver maple that crashed in an ice storm a couple months back. My old beagle’s “summer house,” a miniature A-frame that had been abandoned since his passing, was a casualty of the tree’s limb loss.

Spring’s first tease had me energized and hypomanic. My expanding girth didn’t hinder my ability to stand hunched over, picking up sticks to drag back to my now illegal firepit, since my bungalow has now been annexed into the city limits. To Hell with them, I’ll burn brush if I damned well please. So I did. Dog house and all went up in a conflagration Saturday and Sunday. I even got a decent hot dog roast out of the deal. Not too shabby.

This morning, however, this wonderfully mild Monday, I hit the snooze three times debating whether I should crawl out of my bed at this hour to sit under harsh fluorescence in the limestone castle that philanthropy built, listening to the whir of the scanner, while maintenance sheets flash at my face in awkward timing.

Yes, I will rise, wash, and grumble. In protest, I think I’ll wear something just short of business casual. My dated western shirt I used to wear clubbing with a long-sleeved T underneath should do, untucked of course. And the crown jewel shall be my muddy clogs, singed from kicking at the fire. With any luck, my hair will be a mess all day.