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Where I come from

I’m back in Harrisburg, helping Emily pack and load the truck. I was woken up early this morning to get some yardwork done, but was finished with that around noon or so. The rest of the afternoon will be spent making sure Em has everything she needs to get along at grad school—she assures us she doesn’t need to bring her printer—and then getting on the road.

Once in Philly, things’ll get a little more interesting, as she lives on the third floor of a crowded house on the southwest edge of University City. Can’t wait to finagle her mattress and box spring up those tight stairways!

I love and hate to see Harrisburg change over time. Driving around today, I argued with mom about how much development had happened, and actually it was even more than I’d thought. I remember green fields absolutely everywhere, and now there are cheap housing developments, full of almost windowless McMansions with a garnish of foliage placed too strategically along the sidewalks no one will use. They don’t even have lawns yet, just mud and the crosshatching of seed nets, maybe some straw strewn about.

It looks like a deformed concept of opulence fell out of the sky and crushed a village.

I had a great day fooling around with Em and Mom, and was reminded of how I’m going to live my life. It was most excellently summarized thus by my most eloquent sibling:

Mom, thanks for tolerating my crazy equine neuroses.

My sister is absolutely spectacular.