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The back yard
I'm safely back in New Hampshire and beginning to settle in. Most of my time has been taken up with packing and unpacking -- moving into a house that was already fully lived in is quite a task. My father's aesthetic was not minimalist, and he'd lived here since the early '70s. I'm also discovering all the many joys of home ownership as I realize how much work needs to be done here (windows that really should be replaced before winter; dry rot that has to be dealt with; the many surfaces that need a coat [or five] of paint; the flying ants that have a secret entrance into one room...)

It's magnificently peaceful here, though, and more than anything else I needed some peace, so really I have no complaints.

Posting will resume within the next day or two. (During my absence, the entire internet seems to have gone insane, but I shall not confuse correlation and causation...)

Readercon is coming up next week, where it looks like I'll be on a couple of panels: one on "Triumphing Over Competence" (ways of finding -- and writing -- short fiction that is more than competent) and one on the career of James Patrick Kelly (for which I am currently now rereading Jim's first novel, Planet of Whispers, and will, I hope, have also reread Look into the Sun and a lot of the short stories by then. We shall see...)

For now, though, I shall leave you with an image from my back yard, a sign my father put up a long time ago and that has survived the passage of years surprisingly well:

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