In between the last post and today’s post my soon-to-be new landlady let me know that the rent on the new place was going to go up because the high price of fuel (in a heat-included apartment) was skyrocketing. So I bit my nails for a few days until she gave me the new dollar amount which was still affordable. Also Ola came back and brought a new puppy with her — Shamus led a long happy life but had to be put down in May, I’m sorry if I didn’t get to tell you before this — so the house is even more chaotic than usual. Also I was in Los Angeles for a few days. Oh and there was a big terrible incident here that rocked the community and made everyone alternately trepidacious, outraged and very very sad. Plus there was a library angle and a social software angle which had me concerned professionally as well as personally.

But a terrible weekend in Vermont is better than a good weekend in Los Angeles and I’m happy to be back. The next few weeks are seeing me on a vacation to Portland Oregon, a quick trip to DC on important goverment business (sort of joking) and moving my scant possessions up the street. It will probably be the first time I’ve moved completely out of anyplace in many years — I have that hippie-ish problem of leaving boxes in basements all over the country, like Mark Twain and his bank accounts — and the first time I’ve lived in an apartment on my own. Exciting.