Pennsylvania has an overabundance of life, and consequently, death. This makes life in PA simultaneously luscious and brutal.

On RT 641, there's a white cat on the side of the road. It's been there for the last two weeks. We'll see how long it's there.

The sunrise this morning gave new depth to the epithet rosy-cheeked Dawn. The far east had no cloud cover, but closer to me, there was a dense layer of stratus type clouds. The rising sunlight was red-shifted by our atmosphere and played dark red on the underbellies of the stratus clouds, while the sun's halo lit the far east with its golden light.

This past weekend, I travelled (Screw you, Mr. Webster!) back to VT to enjoy Thanksgiving and my 10th HS reunion. Thanksgiving was a blast, as we hung out with the Marvins (family friends since before I was born), and walked along the shores of Lake Champlain. Beautiful, but also bitterly cold.

The reunion was a completely different story, it seems that fully one-third of my class (who showed up) is teaching or coaching. Thom, Jen (his wife, now pregnant!), and I hung out downtown early in the day and at 2pm, met up with Ben Gutman, Nat Ives, Eric Fisher (Google's got his number), and Toby Ayer at Borders where we proceeded to kick a bunch of hours catching up. Surprisingly, no one is writing creatively much, or at least when I asked them, no one owned up to it.

Katherine Kerr was at the reunion. I had at least mentally prepared for everyone else, but for her, unprepared I had definitely been. She had continued her German studies in Germany, after which she had worked in a legal firm there. Now she is back in the US, working in a legal firm. If there is anyone I should have dated in HS, it was Kathy.

The best I can make of this, is to know that there are always elegant, intelligent people somewhere around you. You just have to take the time to find them.