It’s Tuesday.

_Just_ Tuesday.

No broken plane.

No shuttle math.

No wet track
   glistening under
       a grey Montreal sky.

No engines tearing the air open
   and making everybody grin like idiots.

No grandstands.

No checkered flag.

Just the regular Tuesday machinery:
                            laptop,
                             inbox,
                          meetings,
                           laundry,

            the small negotiations
                  required to keep
                     a week moving.

Normal Tuesday,
       allegedly.

Except F1
       is still humming
          somewhere behind me.

Not loud anymore.

More like the little
     high-frequency whine
     your body remembers
     after the real noise

     has already stopped.

Montreal behind us.
Chicago ahead.

July Fourth
     starting to take shape
            on the calendar.

Cards at Cubs.

Wrigley.

Summer baseball in a city
       that knows how to dress for it.

Little plans becoming reservations.

Reservations becoming countdowns.

Me pretending
   this is normal behavior
           for a grown man
                with a job.

Then the weekend
     still sitting there too,

          yucky

     in ways I don’t need
     to relitigate before lunch.

And Georgia Tech
    out of the College World Series
    after Oklahoma
 did what Oklahoma

          apparently woke up and chose to do.

Fuck Oklahoma.

There.

That helped.

Thursday is still in the mix too.

That fabulous evening
       not asking for
         a full recap,

         just leaving a little warmth behind the ribs,

         and making Tuesday
         less convincing
              in its attempt
                 to act ordinary.

Because that’s the problem today.

Or maybe the best part.

Nothing special
        is happening.

No crisis.

No race.

No big reveal.

Just one day
     in the middle
        of other days.

One flag behind us.

Another one
        waiting in Chicago.

And you,
    somehow,

    in every square
       on the calendar
          between them.

Not loudly.

Not urgently.

Just there.

Still humming.

Still impossible
      to get off my mind.