At seven-thirty, as the Red Sox arrive at the tube from outer space—Spacenet Three, Transponder Three—I read through the letters I dictated the night before, correcting and signing them, explaining or expanding in an illegible script. Dictator’s errors are notorious, when you say one thing and it comes back something else. It is expedient to read your letters over before you mail them. Our mailing address is Eagle Pond Farm and two letters have arrived mislabeled, sort of, by correspondents who dictate. Former announcer of Red Sox baseball on radio, Ken Coleman, wrote me at Evil Pond Farm, an address I admire for its Stephen King touch. My favorite, however, is the inadvertent truth on the envelope of a letter from Stephen Jay Gould who addressed me (arguing a baseball point) at Ego Pond Farm.

Jane and I watch a few innings. She watches, if she watches. If she has something else to do—like writing a letter or looking at a magazine or listening to music—she shuts out the game. One world at a time for Jane as for Henry David Thoreau. Sometimes I tuck the sound in my ear and she reads on the sofa. Always while watching I do a second thing—flossing my teeth, looking through the weekly Argus Champion or PW, checking out the QPBC catalog for anything about work. Then Jane disappears into the bathroom to take out her lenses and attend to her skin. I plug the Red Sox into my ear, if I’m not already plugged, turn on my Sony, pick up the microphone and chat with my friends.

Or I tend to business, postcards and brief letters: I’m sorry but I don’t do blurbs; I’m sorry that I cannot talk to the children at your school but I’ve taken on four schools this spring; the proof looks just fine but in line twelve please change “and” to “but”; I can come to the bookstore Friday the twelfth, four to six, on my way back from the airport—if the plane’s on time; I’m sorry but I can’t read your manuscript now; I’m sorry that it will take me four months before I can read your manuscript. Or I write a researcher to ask about books on work; or I write an editor asking her please to tell me what’s going on with a manuscript I sent eight weeks ago; I write another editor with an idea about the design of a book. Then, maybe, I answer the letters of friends and acquaintances, responding to their news and adding my own. I tell them, “the game’s still tied in the eleventh.”

On the best day, I have enough strength to watch the game through, flossing in the eighth inning, and during a change of pitchers putting gel on my few remaining teeth. I look through The Nation; I look through half of The New Criterion. I pick up my Day-Timer and list things for tomorrow:

poems
prose
call Philippa about Friday
call about eye appointment
Celtics tickets with Andrew
New London, shop and pick up camera
Life Work