Hey. I'm in Greece. No internet access as of yet - I'm borrowing someone's computer. -ma to all as needs it, and a small request for "Get a house for Raquel"-ma for me.

I haven’t been around much lately because I’ve had a lot of personal stuff going on. I was diagnosed with diabetes a couple months ago and had to make some immediate significant lifestyle changes. (The diabetes is a result of my wonderfully inactive lifestyle and the fact that I’m significantly overweight.) Fortunately, I’ve been accepted into year long weight management research study at the local heart hospital. It deals with the basics – diet and exercise. But it was designed for significantly overweight people with joint pain. So I’ve spent a month doing physical therapy, and today I officially started the program. I am thoroughly committed and excited beyond words.

Could I get debatema for my brother as well as Edwards? He's got a big one tonight.

I'll be dark for the next few days as I attend Bouchercon. See you Monday!

Have been darkest black recently to computer being banjaxed. I am trying to catch up, but it's entirely possible that my computer will once again decide that working is not something it's willing to do.

I am leaving tomorrow morning for a long weekend in New Hampshire, far from school and papers and parents and, yes, the Internet.

It has been a very hard couple of weeks for a lot of Buffistas. Before I go, I wanted to post this poem for everyone who would really like nothing more than for their life to be a little more ordinary. Hope from me to you that one like this comes along for you all soon.

Poem: "Ordinary Life," by Barbara Crooker, from Ordinary Life (By Line Press)

This was a day when nothing happened,
the children went off to school
without a murmur, remembering
their books, lunches, gloves.
All morning, the baby and I built block stacks
in the squares of light on the floor.
And lunch blended into naptime,
I cleaned out kitchen cupboards,
one of those jobs that never gets done,
then sat in a circle of sunlight
and drank ginger tea,
watched the birds at the feeder
jostle over lunch's little scraps.
A pheasant strutted from the hedgerow,
preened and flashed his jeweled head.
Now a chicken roasts in the pan,
and the children return,
the murmur of their stories dappling the air.
I peel carrots and potatoes without paring my thumb.
We listen together for your wheels on the drive.
Grace before bread.
And at the table, actual conversation,
no bickering or pokes.
And then, the drift into homework.
The baby goes to his cars, drives them
along the sofa's ridges and hills.
Leaning by the counter, we steal a long slow kiss,
tasting of coffee and cream.
The chicken's diminished to skin & skeleton,
the moon to a comma, a sliver of white,
but this has been a day of grace
in the dead of winter,
the hard cold knuckle of the year,
a day that unwrapped itself
like an unexpected gift,
and the stars turn on,
order themselves
into the winter night.

LAistas:

I'm going to be in LA for the weekend of my birthday, from November 12 to 15. If you're going to be around then and want to hang, send me an email, hillaryre AT gmail DOT com. I think I'd like to try to get together a bunch of people for dinner or something on the 13th, if people are free then.

Tom and I are just back from 5 beautiful days in Vermont, where, on Tuesday, October 5, we became man and wife, woman and husband.

So. Very. Happy.

(and tired)

No pictures yet, but we do have a website with a FAQ and a guest book, and we can let people know when there are pictures up - we need to drop some film off to be developed, but the wedding photographer is sending a CD of the rough prints along with the proofs, probably next week.

Tom and Nora's Wedding Site

The first wedding pictures are up. In black and white.