Drains fixed!! Oscar got the frozen nut off the side of the house using WD40, a propane torch, and then the pipe wrench--with pipe. When the thing finally gave a little, it felt like turning the steering wheel on the Titanic.

Black sludge poured out of the opening. He used C's snake and got some of it out, then took the hose and stuck it up inside the house and the black river continued to flow. What looked like little tiny pebbles, fossils, dessicated animal parts, Jimmy Hoffa--were in the tide. The smell wasn't as bad as I feared--kind of musty and swampy, but not obnoxious.

He worked the hose in a good twenty feet up and flushed and cleared for almost half an hour. But when I went inside and filled up the kitchen sink, all the water flowed down the drain beautifully, just as God intended.

If I had known that solving a p0hysical plumbing problem could feel this good, I wouldn't have wasted my time on poetry, I would have gotten a license and set myself up with a second home in Mallorca by now. Of course I think the fun was because of my dream team. Now back to a big batch of student memoirs to read and write comments on, a play to write for my almost-eight-year-old nephew, and a couple of poems and an essay half-formed in my head. Just found out The Sun has taken two more poems, "Willing" and "Looking for Work."