As you can see, I continue to fiddle with backgrounds, layout, etc. I like this bare tree wallpaper. I like bare trees -- when I first moved to this house, the living room had ice blue carpet, a pale blue and white sofa, and two pictures of bare trees in gray and blue tones. The room has a northern exposure -- you'd want to a put a sweater on in there in August!

The vista this morning was visited by two deer. Their appearance is always a moment of wonder, as if there is something magical about them. It's easy to forget that they lived here first. I think if I could see my area of the township from the air I'd see that the woods across from my window are a little island ringed by pools of suburbia. If the appearance of the deer in my back yard means anything, it suggests that\ we continue to make that wooded island smaller and smaller.

Traditionally, writing that has a strong sense of place tends to emanate from colorful spots like New York City or Dublin or Paris, or from some private world such as Walden Pond or Tinker Creek. Perhaps my niche is to be the poet of suburbia, the chronicler of life in an ordinary place.

Last night I attended a semi-playoff high school boys' basketball game -- two Single A teams battling for the right to go for the state championship title. (In the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association system, schools are matched according to size. Class A schools are the smallest -- under 500, I think.) 

Early in the day I went to the host school to buy my ticket. Classes were changing, and as I walked through the halls amid all that swirling young energy I felt a sadness for my old life. Moving on and out when I did was the right choice for me, but oh do I miss those kids.