What, a license plate report on the very first of the following month? Is the sky falling? Am I high on some anti-procrastination drug?

No, and no, but this unusual (though not unprecedented) behavior does have a cause: I saw Arkansas outside the West Tisbury library this afternoon, and I can’t put it on the map till I’ve closed out August.

A very good August it was too. Kansas, West Virginia, New Mexico, and Indiana have turned blue on the map. (Fat chance three of the four will turn blue in the 2024 election. I’m not worried about New Mexico.) This late in the year any state that hasn’t been spotted is by definition hard to find, although it’s true, New Mexico isn’t usually this late. Maybe it’s payback for seeing Mississippi and North Dakota in January. West Virginia is chronically elusive, but early in August there it was, right outside my dentist’s office on State Road, Vineyard Haven.

So when August came to an end, there were five states missing, but as the sun sets on September 1 there are only four: Hawaii, Alabama, South Dakota, and Nebraska.