Rainy Post-Trip Morning

It's a rainy post-trip morning here in bucolic Joshua. I'm only just coming back from that other life and settling into this one. I'm always surprised how long it takes. The last several days were just a sort of blur of answering emails, feeling my legs hurt, food shopping and not much else. I simply didn't have the energy and what I really think it was was simply becoming this Peter G again, versus the other Peter G that I am in Peru. How are they different? Here I work alone--and it's been particularly alone because Madeleina and Chepa are still in Peru and the babies, Alexa and Sierra, are up with their dad in Indiana or Michigan or some such place very far from here. So here I get up at 5 AM, get coffee, read newspapers on the net until I'm ready to work. Yesterday I did manage to get my SKUNK magazine column, Drug War Follies, out and that was good. But it's thinking work, figuring things out work and needs to be done quietly, with real focus.
In Peru, on the other hand, I've got a team of 10 people who show up at my hotel door starting at maybe 6 AM and by 7 we're off for coffee or juice or both and then we hit the day's work. We're either setting a trip up or breaking one down, both of which require a number of people, lots of interaction, lots of going to the most fantastic market in the world--Belen--where you get sensory overload in a matter of half-an-hour. Work finished, we're all off for a drink somewhere till it's time to take an afternoon wash and change clothes. And when my guests arrive, it's full on human interaction for 9-10 days.
So the Peter G who lives in Texas spends his days making phone call interviews and such; the me in Peru is a sort of whirlwind of activity. I can't even bring myself to go to the computer while I am there. Just too damned uninteresting. Here, I can hardly get away from it.
Those two me's are both me but after 6-7 weeks of one being pronounced it's hard to incorporate into a single entity again. Which is why I have not gotten much done in the last several days. I'm sort of breaking out this morning and by tomorrow I'll be hot. I've already got a few stories due, one with a deadline of next week; two big ones before the end of August and at least one of those will be very tough and time consuming because I've got to get into a pretty closed community--and get that community to share its secrets with me--in order to get the story done. Which means it's going to be a good adventure and a great story I hope. Ain't saying more cause I don't want to jinx anything.
Got boiled eggs on the stove and half a pot of coffee. I'm gonna do some more lawn today if the rain stops and then send some books out to people who either ordered them or might want to review them.
And then I'm driving to Marfa on Friday with an old friend from college 40 years ago. Marfa is a tiny Texas town that has some unusual lights--think Texas' Aurora Borealis--and an art colony and I've never been there so I'm looking forward to it and to the 1000 mile round trip drive. I should be my old stateside self by then and raring for the road.
Have a great day, y'all.