I'll sleep on it.

When Boss starts preparing for a class he seems to be all over his work area, his room, even the kitchen, looking for things.

People things. Books. Pads of paper. Magazines. Journals. Not a damned piece of duck or chicken jerky in the lot.

When he scratches his ear, I get the sense he is starting to hone in on things. It would be so much easier for him if he had a better sense of smell. But he makes the best of it. The pile of materials grows at his feet. I think, he will tell me, we're closing in on it.

Then he says, okay, here it is, and be begins scribbling notes, going so fast he sometimes has difficulty deciphering them when he gets to the typing-on-the-computer stage. I can see the shift in energy as he settles in, sometimes smacking himself on the forehead, his way of remonstrating himself the way he sometimes remonstrates with me about barking at the Cudahy place, Why hadn't I seen that before? he will go. Then he seems to grow larger, swelling with the enthusiasm of it, and soon thereafter, he is singing in the shower, then rifling through closets to find something to wear, which is silly because, as I try to explain, if he had just one suit, he would have no problems. You don't see me looking for things to wear. My suit is perfect for any occasion.

By the time we get to class, I'm ready for a nap. It helps that I've already heard the material as he shuffles it around and plays with it. Some of my best naps are in the classrooms he takes me to. Graduate-level naps are far and away the best, but writers' conference naps are not to be dismissed lightly.