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Image: Willow, aka Void Cat, is writing my novel for me.

The last few days here in St. Paul have been absolutely gorgeous. The temps have stayed below 80 F / 27 C and the humidity has been low. It's been windy enough that the smoke from the Canadian wildfires hasn't really choked us either. And have I been for a hike? No, I have not. I have barely left the house. 

To be fair, there has been a lot going on with Mason's imminent departure for college/university. Mason got notification of his housing and he lucked out, in my opinion, and got a pretty nifty place. He got slotted into a dorm that Wesleyan calls "Writers' Block."   You guys? This is like my personal dream home. The whole house is filled with other writers and they host all sorts of events like you would expect from lectures from visiting literature fellows and whatnot (there is some kind of on going "Distinguished Writers" series of lectures), but they also have things like READING CIRCLES, open mics, and BOOK SWAPS. And, you can do your own programming IN YOUR DORM ROOM. This is also a house that is full of upperclassmen as well as incoming freshmen. 

How f*cking cool is that???

I would have LITERALLY (in a figurative sense) murdered to live in a place like this... actually, I still might? Like, when the "if I had more money than god/had a million dollars" game comes up, I always imagine making a house into something like this. Honest to god.

So, I mean, even if Mason does have some trouble getting into the classes he wants (and he kind of has been having a bit of trouble because of Wesleyan's open curriculum -- the downside being if the class is cool, there are no restrictions on who can get into it,) he at least will have kind of an amazing living situation. DID I MEANTION READING CIRCLES AND BOOK SWAPS???

Shawn and I are also trying to organize this giant ass trip across the country loaded down with all of Mason's worldly possessions (including all the books he's going to want to swap!) in the back of our sad-a$$ junker car. We are trying to schedule in a sort of "farewell tour" of the grandparents, too, and I think that part is actually working out, but there will be at least one day where we're going to book it from Indiana to Buffalo, NY. 

And, of course, Shawn and I are planning to sob all the way home.