I wondered where I'd be. I got the answer tonight; an answer that was nearly four years in coming. As usual, the answer wasn't what I expected.

It was less.

It was more.

It became real to me as I watched the power lines swoop from pole to pole. No amount of packing or planning had managed to do so; the days after PHE had flown by in a fever haze that made the date of the trip slip up on me sooner than I could have possibly expected.

Last night, in the bathroom, having traipsed there with drinks firmly in hand, Eleanor and I were noting that we'd somehow, through the vagaries of time and distance, become wedding-and-funeral friends. I haven't seen her since my father's funeral, and she hadn't seen Dan and Stephanie since Jeff's and my wedding seven years ago.Some things about us have changed.

Some most emphatically have not.

Crazy, the lot of you (low-res version)
at , Tull, Arkansas, United States by domesticat.

Here's us, being dorks in formalwear, seven years ago when Jeff and I married. Yep, that's me in the wedding gown, all long hair and glasses. If you look to your left, you can see two people hiding under the skirt of my dress. The one in white is Kara, and the one in green is Stephanie. On the right-hand side of the photo, back in the back, Dan is in a green shirt and doing his best to be seen over jowilson.

Or, if you want a more standard photo, there we all are again at the wedding rehearsal. Dan and Stephanie are front and center.

We are off for several days in Detroit, for a trip that has been many years in the making. We will spend time with two of the people who are (somewhat) responsible for Jeff and me working up the bravery to actually, physically, meet each other all those years ago.

This is a shawl salvaged from a pattern gone desperately, desperately wrong. We're talking "throw the unfinished project across the room and screech out loud" wrong. I'd started working this yarn in an Irish net stitch, which looks like a large series of interconnected X's with open areas in between.

I just realized I hadn't posted since I got home from San Francisco, and subsequently wandered off to Atlanta.We're fine—busy, but fine—but we are also in the final prep phase for dragon*con 2005, and as usual, that is eating up most of our spare brain cycles. I can't promise anything more than sporadic posting between now and Labor Day.

I haven't forgotten about you guys, but I'm going to be neck-deep in code work, prep work, and logistics for the next two weeks, so it's unlikely you'll hear much from me.

Back soon.