Since pixels don't come with smell-o-vision, I must tell you that these words are being typed in a quiet house that smells of fresh salsa and roasting bell peppers.  The laptop (old, beaten up) is positioned so as to block out the setting sun, which does not come directly through my front door but close enough to force my pupils to readjust.  I have a small party to be at in an hour's time.  I must not be late, so I must write fast and speak rightly the first time.

The place, now: Huntsville, Alabama.
The place, then: rural Arkansas.

I was a child of the late 1970s, whose memories just missed Jimmy Carter but remembered Reagan dimly through an apolitical child's eye.  Those who read this site know my story well; I came from a union family in a former mining town.  My tiny hometown, well under three hundred souls at the time, all looked like me because they were almost all related to me.

Coming home from my mother's wedding, with thoughts of Washington and Arkansas and Alabama mixing reluctantly in my head like oil and water, the thought hit me.

Last Q standing.

The standard life photos go up a lot faster than my version of the 365 Library Days project. I know from watching the other photos posted to the photo pool that what I'm doing is very different from what the other participants are doing. I'm not sure if my version quite qualifies as subverting the intent, or celebrating it in a different way.

For those of you far and near, a hug and a toast. We are in our comfortable clothes, Jeff and I, me tapping out words on a keyboard while he tidies the computer room behind me. We have plans for the evening, quiet plans with a new set of friends; with PHE falling shortly after New Year's, this holiday tends to be a calm weekend of preparation for us.It's found me doing everything from replacing burnt-out bulbs in the foyer to doing initial prep work for the PHE bar. I'm best described as living in a state of constant, low-level nervousness and excitement.

Slip out at the end of the day, purse strap over shoulder and CDs in hand, and look east; the hills, visible over Huntsville's skyline, are darkening fast. Look west, toward my commute, and the sun might've hung around for one last metaphorical cup of coffee but is more than likely on its way to say hello to the next time zone over.

When we drove by, it was tantalizing. "Right over there, over that wall, there's the beach," Gareth said. It was dark, and all I could see was a vast expanse of nothing that might, or might not, have held shifting shimmers of reflected light from the streetlights around us.

Gareth gunned it, and we were gone. The water would have to wait for the next morning.