A mess.

Don't you love it when you clean something over and over and over and over again, and it never looks any better, and then you clean it over and over and over again, and then miraculously it's 155% better than before? And as an unexpected bonus, you now have awe-inspiring biceps?

That's the story of my basement.

**Literal** It was a mess. Filthy, desecrated by cats, filled with cobwebs and dust on both finished and unfinished sides, barely-lit thanks to electrical problems and blown fluorescent bulbs, and just generally nasty. I'd lie awake in my bed disturbed at what was looming downstairs. I'd sprint to the washing machine and back. If I dropped something on the floor I'd wash it again.

**Figurative**My basement was a hideous, looming metaphor. There were other metaphors inside the metaphor. I hired a guy and his wife to come remove several of the metaphors. They put those metaphors on a truck and I will never see them again. I hired an exterminator (this is literal, fyi) to inspect the basement and put an end to the cobwebs. I used a shop vac on the metaphor. I used a shop vac for hours at a time. Then, finally, I used my upstairs vacuum on the metaphor. I started washing the floors of my metaphor over and over again. I scrubbed my metaphor's floors on my hands and knees. Some days when I'd already washed the floors of the metaphor I snuck downstairs and washed them again. I got rid of some detritus in the metaphor. We fixed the lights and the metaphor was illuminated. I let my children start playing in the metaphor. I woke up one morning and walked right through my metaphor, and marveled at its brilliance.

In non-basement news, we had an amazing time with Matthew Guenette. I did not want him to leave. I want him to come back. I am kind of impressed that I was able to put his poem on youtube.

I am entering the final weeks of the semester. It's glorious. Or, rather, it will be soon. Much like a heavily-rehabilitated basement.