Last night I went home after two days of intense training (as facilitator, not trainer or trainee) and urgent work. I was bushed. Yet, my mind remained somewhat active. Right after eating supper I couldn’t get on the Internet on my Nook. So I went to look for something printed on paper to read, and pulled out a literary magazine special issue about Thomas Carlyle.

Now, except for occasionally reading a little in the Carlyle Letters Online, I haven’t thought much about him since some time in April. But reading this caused me to think about my two unfinished Carlyle projects: the book about his book Chartism; and the composition bibliography. I spent a little time in both last evening.

Now, today, my mind won’t leave the composition biography. I’ve been fixated on it all day, to the detriment of it getting in the way of thinking about my day job. Oh, I’ve done my work, but with half my mind elsewhere. Fortunately I didn’t have any tasks requiring major concentration laid on for today.

How long will this sojourn with the sage of Chelsea last? I don’t know. I don’t want to leave my Civil War book for long, nor abandon Father Daughter Day. But, for a day or too, or even a weekend, this is a good, intellectual pursuit that should stimulate some atrophying gray cells.