…for one thing, which encompasses so many other things that it's hard to continue calling it just one thing: that, over the course of this year, I walked to the lip of an abyss, faced it, and came away alive, human, and still capable of reaching out to the people who cared about me.

So many things - that I got to have time with Dad before he died. Jeff - for making it bearable. For Jeremy, Suzan, and Colter, who among all my friends stand so high in my memory for being so much and giving so much when I had so little to give in return.

For the cat-feeders, and the voices on the end of the phone during all hours of the night. For those of you in different time zones or on different sleep schedules, who were around to see me during the ugliest parts of the healing process.

For my friends for understanding, not asking questions when they probably wanted to, and trusting that one of these days I'll wake up again and be me again...

In the time when man reckoned his life by season and snow, it was called the hunter's moon. The hunter's moon meant many things, sinking low in the sky, gravid with the promise of winter; the time to procure the beast and fowl that, preserved, would be the mainstay of winter.

In the time of rapidly shifting electrons, it is nothing more than an impediment to the Leonids.

Not exactly a site change, not exactly a sleazy update: nautilus-blue.net is now open for business. I strongly suspect that none of you will care, and if so, then I've done things right.

I'd said some time ago that I was thinking of putting together a second site that does nothing but provide a home for the linkfood I run across as part of my daily reading. The posts just don't fit on cat.net, but I was getting really tired of bookmarking and bookmarking and bookmarking endless sites.

You just thought I was teasing you with a subject line such as "eggbeater Jesus." Trust me. I'm not.

You know how every town has its share of odd and bizarre landmarks? We've got our share. If you ask most residents about the most memorable landmark in Huntsville, anyone who has been here for five minutes will tell you that the full-sized rockets standing upright by the Space & Rocket Center are the most memorable sights in Huntsville.

*Anyone who has been here for five years will laugh at the idea of Sprocket being the most memorable landmark in town. Any old town, they'll tell you, can put up a fake rocket (see also, that little visitor's center on I-65 at the Alabama/Tennessee border just north of here). They'll drive you down I-565, turn south on Memorial Parkway, take the Governors Drive exit, and tell you to keep looking to your left.

It takes a truly special town to have an Eggbeater Jesus.

It's just criminal, these days - a girl can't even settle in to write a good chunk of PHP without being asked if she wants to have an affair. Whatever is the world coming to? How will I ever manage to get this silly alphabetizing function to work properly?

Today's winner is Yahoo account jon4hotfunn, whose profile (or complete and utter lack of it) can be found here - perhaps we should all say hello?

Past the "recently on winamp" list, I rarely acknowledge when a particular piece of music is flooding through my mind as I write, despite the fact that it happens often. Tonight—an exception. You can pick up an MP3 copy of "Story of Your Bones" at jennifernettles.com (it's under 'media'). She's an independent artist based in Georgia. Might not be to your taste, but it's worth pointing out.