Oh, Liese. Shit. Hard one.

Liese! OMG! Canton, Coshocton.... I grew up 20 minutes from Canton! Are you in Ohio now?!?

Stops a minute. Takes a breath. Has a cuppa. Smiles, and is no longer freakish at this late hour.

Nope. Just grew up there.

What's freaking me out now, on reflection, is how much I loved each of those places. Including the one I'm sitting in right now. But all past tense. All lost to me at the moment. I panicked more than altogether necessary when the folks moved out of their house in Z-ville, my last childhood home. I drive past our former residences during our annual cycles through those cities. They cut down the flowering bush outside the castle house. There are odd curtains hanging in the apartment over the Catholic bookstore. Losses.

We really do feel like we spend more time in the van than anywhere else. My own little bubble of security that I take with me. I like to put things in it. To know I could survive on what was in there -- food, warmth, clothing, instruments, books, love.

But it's stupid to feel like a shell of metal and glass and rubber is somehow impervious to death and destruction. Everything is transient. (All life is suffering. How Buddhist of me.)

And somehow, I have to spend this summer with one house boarded up, trusting it won't be utterly destroyed in one way or another while being trampled on by a multitude of friendly volunteers. I have to drive around in that van, believing it will still be there and in one piece when I go to sleep. I have to sleep in other peoples' bedrooms and talk to them in their living rooms and ask them for money to make the pipe dream come true.

Blargh. Whingeing, I know. But there it is.

the Pump Room was a Georgian conceit, I think; all the Dandy crowd and the Prince Regent hung out there.

How ... prosaic. I think I'll continue to amuse myself by imagining delicate lasses in Empire dresses and dandies in cravats and top hats wandering around pipes and turbines.

And Deb beats me to the Pump Room, as I was off meeting my daily page quota (just kissing and talking today--much easier to write than an action sequence if you're me). I've been there several times--I lived in Bristol my year in England, just 15 minutes by train from Bath. I love Bath, though I can't quite picture myself living there. Somehow it'd feel like I was either living on a film set or that I'd stepped back in time every time I left my door in a way that none of the other history-steeped places I've lived in or visited would.

You wind up in the Pump Room after you've toured the Roman Baths. I've never been able to bring myself to try the waters. I've also been in the Assembly Rooms, which look exactly like you'd expect a Georgian party hall to look. The first time I was there they were setting up for a wedding and reception, and the hostess apologized that one of the rooms was roped off. I squeaked something like, "You can get married HERE?" and next thing I knew she was trying to sell me on it--stuffing my hands full of brochures with their very reasonable rates, talking about the capacity of each room, etc.

At the time Dylan and I had been dating for less than a month. I was already pretty sure he was it, but I wasn't quite ready to shop for reception halls, so it was a bit discombobulating. I really think that lady would've penciled me in on the calendar then and there if I'd asked.

But still no turbines. Oh, well. (I have no idea why I have turbines on the brain.)

I've never been able to bring myself to try the waters.

I have. They're nasty in the extreme.

connie, there is actually a pump - it's how the bring the water up from the natural springs underneath. IIRC. But I don't remember actually seeing the thing.

Susan, you hung out in Bristol? Do you have any memories of Bruton, by any blessed chance?

Oh, BTW, Ailleann, I was in Cleveland two weeks ago for a booksigning with a wonderful crowd of Buffistae: Beverly, Deena, Cashmere, Nicole, SJ, Ginger, Teppy...

Sad that I missed it, Deb... Cleveland, only two hours away....

(but I haven't bought any of your books yet, so that might have been weird... bring the library's, see if they notice...)

Susan, you hung out in Bristol? Do you have any memories of Bruton, by any blessed chance?

No--sorry.