Well, what do you know about that?

We are just about there!!

THE AFTER TIMES looks like it's going to be ready to order on or about August 19th!

It's the final book in the Bean series, a time-traveler, and yes, it's got pretty much the whole cast of characters you've grown to love (I hope you love 'em, anyway).  Bean, Zak, Amp, and Claire are now elder advisers. The new younglings are self-proclaimed nerds, Shakespeare lovers, vinyl record fans, and all around misfits: Gracie (a time-traveler to 2020 from 1962) and her friends Zoey and Dylan.

There are evil time demons, a concert cellist with a promising career in three different centuries, and a highly unlikely save-the-day visit from  the last person you'd expect to want to smash the patriarchy. And yet...

This book took me two years and then some to write. I started at the beginning of lockdown, where the book is set. And then my pandemic pivot called me away from fiction. It was a real joy to get back in the saddle and finish THE AFTER TIMES for you. I'll be posting excerpts, details about my upcoming blog tour, and buy links as soon as I've got em!  Till then, start remembering just how crazy it really WAS right at the beginning of the pandemic--no vaccine, not enough masks to go around, testing hard to come by...and people locked in together.  That's where my tale starts, but I promise you a very happy ending.  (I rewrote the last chapter three times!)

I think you're going to like THE AFTER TIMES.

Well--hooray!  Evernight Teen WILL be publishing The After Times, my time-traveling pandemic YA book, and the conclusion to the Bean series. I'm awaiting my first round of edits.  And I'm writing poetry like crazy and just had an acceptance on Rattle Poets Respond in mid-April.  Have got a bunch of other poems bundled up and out in the world getting considered for publication, too.

But that world outside my office is about as stunningly terrible as I can ever remember it being.  Some days it seems like an evil spirit has put a spell on everyone--guns, war, anger...and I have been AVOIDING the news (well, for me, anyway.  I still read the papers; I just cut myself off from cable TV reportage).

It does feel like I live in a country under attack, and the tragic thing is that the attackers are its own citizens.

I have moments of gratitude and clarity: I'm generally impressed with how right President Biden gets most things, and how steady he's been during the war in Ukraine.  I'm wildly impressed by the Ukrainian people, fighting off an unprovoked attack on their homeland. And I'm grateful, as always, that the joint forces of my family have managed to secure this piece of land halfway between suburubia and ex-urbia where I get to sit and write.

And sometimes that's all you CAN do: write.  Try to put your best out there and hope that an editor or two pick up on it and someone gets to read what you've written.  The poetry group I participate in online competes in the IBPC monthly best poems contests, and I had a poem about Grand Central Station win recently.  That was a real up because I love Grand Central Station. It's what I love about this country when things work right: public grandeur.  I loved thinking about it when I was writing the poem, loved remembering what I grew up with--and hoping things could be that good again. There's nothing wrong with hope, you know.

So, I'll let you know (boy, will I EVER) when The After Times gets nearer to press.  Meanwhile, see ya 'round the Web.

 Is the pandemic truly over?  Actually, I know the answer to that question: it is not. We are making exactly the same mistake we made in the 1918 pandemic, which was getting tired of it before it got tired of us.  In 1920, there were still many people dying of the flu that finally killed fifty million people worldwide.  But people wanted it to be over.  Both sets of my grandparents lived through it.  None of them ever mentioned a word about it to me. 

We may be toward the end of the immediate crisis, but there are still 12 hundred Americans dying of Covid every day. In mid-March, 2022!  That blows me away every time I think about it.  What we have learned to live with is incredible.

I heard Stephen King interviewed about his latest book a few months ago, and he admitted to pushing its time period back to just before the pandemic.  He didn't want to write about it.  But I kind of felt like I had to.

So my newest YA book, the concluding novel in the Bean series, is set in the really terrifying opening months of the pandemic, back when we were wiping our corn flake boxes down with disinfectant. It's called The After Times, and the title is a riff on a phrase I kept hearing during the beginning of quarantine: The Before Times.  In The Before Times, we went to movies, we didn't wear masks, we didn't run through the grocery store to try to get out in ten minutes...

And then came Covid.  The After Times, like all the Bean series books, is a time traveler.  It centers on my newest, youngest characters: Grace, Dylan, and Zoey, but the old-timers from the first three books are there, too. Everyone ends up quarantining together.  There is a demon--or possibly demon(s).  And a tornado.  And some stained glass windows that do things that stained glass shouldn't do.  And also a cameo appearance by the Patron Saint of Music, who turns out to be a total badass. I had fun writing the book

At first I wasn't sure you could do a good book under Covid Protocol.  Turns out it shapes the plot in very cool ways: who might be contagious or exposed, how so much being shut-in is affecting peoples' heads--and the big question: can time travel spread the Virus? Read The After Times and find out!

Thing is, it'll take a while.  I just now submitted my working copy of it to my usual publisher.  I'm hoping they'll like it.  But it's never too early to get people interested, so--HEADS UP!

Otherwise, I'm writing poems, getting ready for National Poetry Month.  Here's the official poster, if you want one.  I've had a few publications lately: Rattle Poets Respond back in September, and I won the Internet Poetry Bulletin Board Competition in December.  Was honored to be in the excellent Autumn Sky Poetry Daily feed a little while ago. I have a couple of chapbooks put together, too--but I'm thinking of combining them into a full-length collection.  We shall see.

So, despite war and pestilence, the words keep coming because writing is the only thing I can do to keep from losing my mind.  Me and my desk wump of a cat Bella keep our office hours daily, and the work gets done. Speaking of which, I have one more submission to make today--and then I'm running out to get some caraway seeds for the soda bread tomorrow.  Hang tough, everybody.  We'll make it through.

So, just one week ago, I climbed up onto this porch and gasped at the view.  I was in Catskill, NY, right in the middle of (you guessed it), The Catskill Mountains.  I was with my husband Ken, celebrating my first non-pandemic birthday in a while.

Actually--it was a more of a quasi-pandemic birthday.  This challenging time is not quite over yet. Ken and I are still not dining INSIDE restaurants, but we do go away on overnight trips.  This one involved taking our fully vaccinated bad selves to a tiny house resort--and it really did feel like the beginning of something new.

For almost two years, I had stopped writing fiction.  My pandemic pivot was to engineer sound for the choir I sing in with my husband.  It wasn't safe for us to sing together, so we sang into our cell phones, and I glued it all together with Logic Pro X on my computer.  To say doing that painstaking work ate my life would be an understatement. But it kept the music program alive, and we're back in the church now, singing for a masked and vaxxed congregation--masked and vaxxed ourselves. 

And I have time to write again.

I did keep writing poetry during those months, though, and I had some lovely things happen with that.  Rattle Poets Respond took my 9/11 poem, "My Sister's Birthday Is The Day After 9/11." Autumn Sky Poetry Daily nominated my poem "On The Seven Canonical Hours" for Best of the Net.  I had a pandemic poem I'm really proud of in Mobius, and published work in The Main Street Rag.  I just had a poem accepted by Eclectica--a terrific publication that's been taking my work forever--and I have many of poems under consideration at other places.  The first thing I did when the music load lightened up was submit, submit, submit!

Here's some big fun: Daria Voss, a romance writing friend, asked me for a poem in the voice of a shape-shifting lion for a new story of hers in an anthology called Rejected Mates.  I was pleased to supply her with a sonnet. I've never done that before, although one of my own romances (my pen name for such naughty behavior is Aletta Thorne) has a sonnet of mine in it.  Generally, I write free verse, but it's fun to play with form and to try something different.

So--speaking about the non-poetry part of my life...  It's been tough getting those young adult novel writing muscles back into shape.  I've given myself until the end of NaNoWriMo to finish Bean 5, which is the series' second book with a younger cast of characters.  It's a pandemic story.  High school senior Gracie Ingraham, our new time traveler, is dealing with a  host of problems since she and her best friend Zoey are stuck in the same pandemic pod with Gracie's now-ex boyfriend.  The only way out of quarantine is time travel to the past--but nobody knows if viruses time travel, too.  I'm about halfway through a pretty solid first draft, and I keep combing back over it and sharpening character and plot.  It's funny and surprisingly cozy. It'll be good.  It has to be--I think it will close the Bean series, and that's a big responsibility.  Here's my Amazon page, if you haven't read everything yet. 

Like the rest of the world, I'm trying to figure out who I am now, and what my life is going to be like.  I'm lucky.  I managed to avoid being sick.  So did my husband, thank God. And I'm a writer.  Writing is the best tool I know for figuring stuff out.  It takes time, though, and anyone who has stuck with me--THANK YOU.  I'll be getting some kind of new collection of poems together soon; I have a couple of chapbooks circulating that will either get published as the short collections they are or will become a full-length book of poetry.  I've got poems sitting in the inboxes of some good editors and publications.  And I'm WRITING again, really writing.  That's as good as the view off Thomas Cole's front porch.  Stay tuned!

AND WHO is this Gracie Ingraham I keep hearing about?  Surely she's not important enough for me to wake up from my nap.  By the way, your computer mouse?  I caught it and it's under me and if you move me to try to make a blog entry, you are going to be sorry.  Blog Tour you say? Have you heard of the Bella The Deskwump Blood Drive?  It's starting right now!

Good thing the GRACIE'S TIME is moving to other blogs this week and next.  Bella has had about enough of being disturbed by my insistence upon writing promotional articles, updating my bio...and most horrifyingly, thinking about the newest addition to the Bean series instead of petting the best kitty on the planet.

Here's the tour schedule:

October 14: Lisa Haselton's Reviews and Interviews
October 15: BooksChatter
October 16: Andi's Young Adult Books
October 17: Fabulous and Brunette
October 18: Viviana MacKade
October 18: Books in the Hall
October 21: Read Your Writes Book Reviews
October 22: Locks, Hooks and Books

October 22: Straight From the Library
October 23: All the Ups and Downs

October 24: Kit 'N Kabookle
October 24: Long and Short Reviews
October 25: Harlie's Books

I've already had lots of fun interacting with the good folk who read Lisa Haselton's blog and meeting folks at BooksChatter.  There's a 30 buck gift certificate for Amazon or B&N to be awarded at the end of the tour (helpful when Christmas shopping!) And it looks like Gracie's going to get reviewed in a few new places, which is both scary and really exciting.  Come on along with me!  This kind of book tour doesn't require plane tickets, TSA checks, or (alas) long train rides.  Honestly, I miss the train rides, but hey, a time travel author can't have everything!

Thanks to Goddess Fish Promotions for the smooth ride. 

Bean Four, Gracie's Time, is almost here! Ready for a little time travel?  It should be available in ebook by the end of August, and in paper soon after that.  How about that gorgeous cover by Jay Aheer?  If you look very closely, you'll see the "Bizarre" man down on the lower right.  That's because although there's a new cast of teens and the "base" year in the book is 2018, the original cast is very much with us--with their roles slightly adjusted.  You'll see.  And I think you'll like.

Haven't read the other Bean books?  Don't worry--this one stands alone just fine.  

Gracie Ingraham's a sophomore in high school when the Cuban Missile Crisis convinces her time-traveling parents that the safest place for their daughter would be far in the past.  But her dad's the mayor of Stormkill, and can't take her himself.  And her mom, a beloved local art teacher, feels too much responsibility for her students to leave.  Grace is left to navigate her first trip in time with  a smooth-talking, Corvair driving neighbor.  

So maybe that's why she ends up in 2018.

Here's her arrival at the Stormkill train station in early February of that year:

I went to the future! That made me feel shivery-sick inside. I didn’t mean to do it, though! I really didn’t! If you didn’t mean to, maybe you wouldn’t get in trouble. 
But wait a minute. If I really had Traveled far enough forward for things to have changed thismuch, it was proof that the world had survived! That thought should have had me celebrating, but I was way too busy being lost.
My clothes were all the wrong colors. Everyone else was wearing grey and blackand I had on green and orange plaid slacks under my corduroy jacket. Nobody seemed to notice. Maybe I didn’t look strange enough to make people stare. I wandered back over to the coffee stand and saw a copy of The New York Timesfor sale. It looked the same—sort of. But the photos were in color! And the date said February 12, 2018. So that’s where I’d landed. I wanted to read the news stories, but I didn’t get any further than the price. It was two-fifty, even more than coffee.
I sat back down on one of the ugly chairs to think. Commuters hurried through the station—a parade of padded coats that looked like quilts with zippers on them. Some people wore black leather jackets and dungarees—that’s what I called jeans until I came here. The glowing green numerals on the clock over the coffee stand across the room said 9:25.
I decided to see if I could think my way into Traveling home again. I didn’t even care if someone saw me doing it. I was tired from having stayed up half the night before, listening to my parents worry and plan. I closed my eyes and tried to relax. I focused on Mom and her pretty apron, about the kids I was just getting to know in my new classes. I didn’t have a real best friend, but there was Debbie Gold, who liked to sew as much as I did, and she had a big brother on varsity football. Everyone said he was much smarter than he seemed. He had a great laugh…
“It’s the time and the place. Go on back, Gracie,” I whispered to myself over and over, but I didn’t Travel. I fell asleep instead…
And then someone was shaking my arm. I jolted awake in the too-bright train station to a man about my grandfather’s age. He was skinny, and he didn’t look much taller than me. His round glasses had clear plastic rims, and his reddish-blond beard was partly white. I could tell he was a priest from his black shirt and white collar, but he was wearing it with jeans and one of those padded coats I swear I will never get used to, even though I have one myself now. 
“Gracie?”he said. “Gracie Ingraham?” 
“Yes?”
His voice was a whisper. “I’m Father Higbee. I’m—a Traveler, like you. I saw you on your way. You seem to have taken an … unexpected turn.” His eyes were a pretty greenish-blue. They looked kind. And worried.
“You saw me coming?  Are you a Master Traveler?”
 He smiled and put a finger to his lips. “We don’t call them that anymore, but yes. You must be simply terrified. I’m here to help.”
“Are you going to bring me back home?”
Father Higbee’s eyes got even more worried, and the corners of his lips turned down. He looked even sadder than my parents had the night before. “This is complicated stuff, Gracie. Very.” He pointed at my suitcase. “Yours?”


What happens next?  You'll know by Labor Day!

And I'll be back in the USA by then.  I'm writing these words from Amsterdam in The Netherlands, on a houseboat in the old Jewish Quarter, a now-very-gentrified section of town that is still fascinating, especially for someone like me who loves to dream about traveling in time.  We're here until the end of next week.   

Amsterdam is very much the father of New York City, and it has the same multicultural open arms--but a European sweetness instead of our toughness.  I like it.  As long as you stay away from the hordes near Centraal Station and the Red Light District, it is a very livable city. Every evening that the weather is good enough, Ken and I climb onto the roof of the houseboat and watch the traffic on the canal.  Our favorites are the you-drive-em boats with confused tourists trying to avoid being squashed by the giant Lovers Canal Tours behemoths.  It's probably not nice to laugh at them...

By the way, if you find yourself here and you need a canal tour, go look up Those Dam Boat Guys.  Those are little boats that can get into the smaller, more interesting canals, and the captains call themselves Pirates.  A little hipster-cute, but fun.

Last night, Ken and I took in the last night of the Grachten Festival--a big group of percussion students from the local college playing Gamelan-style jazz on a huge barge in a canal about a mile from our place.  Total fun.  About two thirds of the way through, some local showed up in his little boat which was outfitted with a large stuffed lion head with a mechanism to make it open its mouth.  He cruised around the musicians a few times, silently roaring.  That's Amsterdam in a nutshell. (Heavy on the nut)

"Okay," I said, shaking my head.
"Why not?" said the Dutch woman next to me. 

Or as Zak would say, "Bizarre!"

​Hey.  I've got a new book!  Watch this space. 

So, yeah, like I said on Facebook, it's really happening!  A few days ago, I signed the contract on Gracie's Time. That book is going to be Bean Four! 

So what's the creepy map doing on my blog?  Well that scary document is a relic from the Cuban Missile Crisis, where Gracie's Time starts.  It's 1962, almost Halloween, and fifteen-year-old Gracie Ingraham wants nothing more than to get to know her friends at Stormkill High a little better, listen to The Tokens, and maybe get a ride in the hot new Corvair the cool bachelor down the street just bought.  

But her parents have other plans.  Gracie's dad is the mayor of Stormkill and a local history professor who idolizes President Jack Kennedy.  But he fears even the man he respects the most in the world won't be able to keep his daughter safe if the nuclear bombs fly--and it looks like they just might.  He's not convinced about fallout shelters, but he's got his own secret weapon: he and his wife Alda are Travelers, people who can go back in time.  They are certain that their daughter has inherited the Traveling gene.

So why not a trip back in time to the days before there were any such things as nuclear bombs?  Problem is that Gracie's parents can't just disappear. Her mom's a beloved local art teacher.  And the mayor of Stormkill--well, his sudden absence would be hard to explain.  Gracie, who has never time traveled before, will have to go alone!

Problem is, newbies make mistakes sometimes. And Grace ends up in Stormkill, 2018.  There's a whole new cast of young characters in this book, but if you want to know what happened to Bean, Zak, Claire, and Amp, the answer is here.  There's an abandoned mansion--but also iPhones, Instagram, and active shooter drills, which as Gracie learns, are  even scarier than duck-and-cover.  There's also a love story.  And a demon.  I think you're going to like this one.

IN OTHER NEWS, I've been writing poetry like crazy, too.  Just finished the April poetry marathon with the good folks over at The Waters, and I'm having a great time revising and sending out new work.

And then there's the poetry reading in Northern Jersey--Bergen County to be exact.  I'll be reading at the RIngside Pub, which is at 379 Bloomfield Ave, Caldwell, NJ.  7 PM on Saturday, May 25th!! The beer will be cold and the poetry hot--Rick Mullin and Hilary Sideris are often my partners in spoken word crime, and I can't wait to get onstage and ham it up--er, do a Very Serious Reading.

Actually, I'll have copies of Unforgetting, my latest poetry book, and some new work to try out on the crowd.  You'll come, woncha?

So yeah, there's a lot going on! 

And I think it's time to move away from my desk and repot those weary house plants I dragged outside yesterday.

Onward and upward!

No, this is not my book, but I wish it were!  And it's not just because I'm partial to other Christines.  In Forgiven are the Starry-eyed, Christine Doré Miller takes on an issue young women need to understand: intimate partner abuse.  Chances are, you know someone who's dealt with it--or maybe that someone was you.  First love feels amazing, but it also leaves you vulnerable.  Miller's heroine, Andrea Cavanaugh, learns the hard way.

Naive sixteen-year-old Andrea Cavanaugh is elated when Josh, a charismatic, bright-eyed piano prodigy, becomes her first boyfriend. But the closer she gets to him, the more she realizes that he is not the boy she first fell for. In its poignancy and emotional darkness, Forgiven Are the Starry-Eyed takes you deep into the delicate and devastating web of shame that spirals from the depths of dating violence when dreamy teenage love turns dark. Andrea must find not only an escape, but a belief that she is even worthy of freedom.

Friends, meet the newest author at Evernight Teen (my patient and lovely publishers), Christine Doré Miller!  I asked her how she came to write this, her first novel.  Here's what she told me:

Andrea's story has been inside of me for a long time now and I can't even express how good it felt to let it breathe and exist outside of my head once I started writing it down. I was inspired by a lot of things, some from my own experiences as a survivor of teen dating violence and some from the stories of many other teens who have suffered abuse at the hands of an intimate partner, whether it be emotional, physical, verbal, and/or sexual.

A new study shows that 60% of teens in the U.S. have experienced some form of abuse from a person they were dating. This is a staggering statistic, especially considering it's not an issue that is often talked about. It became my mission to spark a dialogue on this topic through a novel that could be crafted from the voice of a modern teenager. I spoke to many teens and adults alike, some who experienced dating violence themselves and some who witnessed it. Both groups felt helpless and isolated by the shame that spirals from this type of abuse, even if you're on the outside looking in, so I created Andrea Cavanaugh to be a voice for this topic. She is a fictional character but her struggles and experiences are quite real and represent things happening on a daily basis.

If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, or if you have questions about abuse, please call 1-866-331-9474 or visit www.loveisrespect.org


                                                                                *********

Buy Links: 
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2W9JEa6 
Evernight Teen: https://bit.ly/2UTGp9Y
Nook: https://bit.ly/2IKkGuW
Kobo: https://bit.ly/2UF9noY
Smashwords: https://bit.ly/2Gz485m

That thing over on the right is the last Super Moon, as seen from our yard in Rockland County.  It feels like there have been a lot of super moons lately--or am I just imagining that?  I saw  a comment on Facebook about how the words "the moon" in conversation are almost always preceded by "Oh, Wow!  Look at..."  I think that's true.  If you notice the moon enough to comment on it, it's probably huge.  Or blood red.  Or really bright. 

I'm in a Super Moon moment right now.  I just sent in a manuscript to my usual young adult publisher.  Don't usually admit that in public, because I believe it jinxes things, so as I nervously wait for the direction of the acquiring editor's thumb, all I can do is stand slack-jawed, gazing at the sky.  Oh, wow.  I finished another book.  And we shall see what comes of it it.  Cross your moonlit fingers for me, OK?

Suddenly there is--gasp--time.  I could actually READ a book (I've done some of that these past few days).  Or perhaps revise some of the backlog of early-draft poems I've built up and get them submitted (doing that, too).  There's a book I just read by a friend of a friend that I want to review: Passing Through Humansville by Karen Craigo.  It's a really terrific collection of poems, and now that I've actually blown the dust off my blog, I think I'll get that review taken care of this afternoon.  Ever read a book by another writer working your side of the street, LOVED it and NOT been jealous?  Karen's book is good enough to disarm writerly jealousy. There's a Super Moon moment for sure. Oh, wow. 

I've also been planning another poetry reading in NYC with my friends Rick Mullin and Hilary Sideris.  Those two and I had a great time at KGB Bar in downtown NYC a couple of years ago, and I'm looking forward to a Saturday afternoon in May when we can put on another show.   KGB's a really fun place, full of Soviet-era nick-nacks, dark and broody, and very literary indeed.  Watch this space.

It's Ash Wednesday today, and being as Ken and I work for the Presbyterians now, I'm not going to go get a dirty face, even though I'm still officially an Episcopalian.  (I've fallen out of the habit of making New Year's resolutions lately also.  I'm much more of a play-it-as-it-lays kind of girl. ) But I do like liturgy and annual traditions, so perhaps my Lenten discipline this year will be to keep this blog a bit more active.  It's good to write about writing, and it's good to do the kind of essay that blogging requires. 

I was going to say something about the atrocious state of American politics right now, but maybe that's too much discipline.  Next time.

So onward and upward.  And do cross your fingers about that manuscript for me, willya?

And so I'm past the first flurry of the new poetry book dropping.  I've got the friends and family autographed copies out.  I've got my first few Amazon reviews.  I have what amounts to a launch on Sunday afternoon, November 4th at 3 PM with Carmine Street Metrics, down at our favorite Tiki Bar: Otto's Shrunken Head on 14th St. 

Fact is, I'm a can of ham, and while most folks dread public speaking, I actually enjoy the whole poetry reading experience: picking out the most crowd-pleasing poems, getting dolled up in my boho best, and being  (God, I hope) highly entertaining.  Okay, so I do tremble a little while I'm doing it, and I'm always relieved when the thing's over, but I'm not going to lie and say I don't like standing there in front of the mic. 

Plus, Tiki Bar.  And my husband's driving.  So rum it is--after I read!

Carmine Street Metrics are a cool bunch of folks, too.  I'll be sharing the bill with Midge Goldberg and Bob Crawford, terrific poets both. I'm looking forward to seeing old friends and new at the shindig, and I'll have books to autograph.  The East Village is not a tough place to park on Sunday afternoons, usually.  If you're even a little local and you're reading this, I hope you'll join Midge, Bob, and me.

In other poetry news, I still haven't gotten into Rattle's Poets Respond (one of these days, dammit).  Got a few packets out here and there, though.  Stay tuned.  Did place a poem called "I Was Awakened By A Nearby Lighting Strike" in a new and good little online 'zine called The Lark. And the gorgeous Peacock Journal is back in action and was good enough to take three more of mine. 

I'm about halfway through the first draft of a yet-unnamed spin-off from The Bean Books.  I'm really loving writing it.  It's a time traveling departure: first person and contemporary.  But there are characters from the original trilogy, now grownup...so yes, you will get to see Bean and Zak again.  And Amp.  My main character is a refugee from the Cuban Missile Crisis who time traveled in the wrong direction and ends up in 2018, effectively going from duck and cover to active shooter drills in school.  Which sounds a lot darker than the book actually is.  This one is a bit of a tear-jerker in places, though.  It has younger characters: high school 9th and 10th graders, and could easily be read by tweens. More on it as it develops.

Anyway, you can get a copy of Unforgetting at Amazon, Kelsay Books, or autographed one directly from me by messaging me on Facebook or using the Store page on this blog. 

So that's what's up in the haunted house by the creek lately.  Hope your autumn is crisp and golden and that you're bearing up under the onslaught of depressing news by eating well, reading well, and taking sun-dappled walks in the October woods.