So jazzed I got a good evaluation! 
I told Greg who said it was a self-
evaluation which is true but signed off
by the Dean, the Chair, and a tenured colleague
debonair and generous in a pinch.  
Another year of underpaid tenuous
semi-employment, in the bag. 
Tonight to celebrate I made my first batch 
of simple syrup. It goes with everything.
Alcohol with sugar added and a Meyer
lemon’s surely a recipe for, if not disaster,
then a fast path toward it, skating 
thinning ice at the edge of a pond 
or is it pasture where the margin’s 
marked by bystanders thickly coated, 
hatted, muffled and gloved. 
A semi-automatic investment plan, 
a call to my broker: these seem 
all but possible now. A sunken
conversation pit, a Giant Schnauzer,  
if I can just evaluate myself farther, faster—