16 Comments

I grew up in the commonwealth but only visited Quabbin once, more that 20 years ago.

Clearly, I need to get back. Sounds like you had a great trip!

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It's a fun area. I'd move there if Sarah wouldn't freeze into a popsicle

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What lovely bokeh you captured with that very adorable princess pine! It’s so strange isn’t it that landscapes have these atmospheres. The south just *feels* like a good yarn-telling landscape, and I know just what you mean when you write about that New England spookiness. I like to think those coyotes you heard were some early Vyx characters, sneaking up on you long before you even knew such a novel existed inside you.

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Maybe! I like to be full of experiences to draw on for stories.

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‘Brain clutter’? I think I most likely have to ’fess up. But good clutter, I trust.

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It's all good stuff! Words are guiltless hoarding (except when I think I've made something up, google it to be sure it doesn't mean something appalling, and realize I unwittingly tracked it in from your repository.)

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You don't have to cover for me, I'll neither deny nor conceal my trunk kukri envy. Thomas, there is a scythe in my kitchen! And guest room! Why? Because the Honda is a compact car!

I will take issue with 'oldest friends' - one you've known longest perhaps (with new discoveries always to be made because we all vehemently contradict ourselves so much) but you gad about with some real fossils. (And if you don't, you should. They know all the good dirt.)

I'm not sure about the Quabbin graveyards, I thought they were properly disinterred, but even if so, who can say every tooth and phalange was accounted for?

A friend's dad told her they just flooded the valley with no warning to residents; said the church steeple broke the surface when the level was low in august, and if you took a boat out you could see roofs, and the swings on the old playground drifting back and forth in the current. She didn't realize he was BSing till she was in her twenties.

Come back in June and bring Sarah: magnet fishing, New Boston (in Denison!) rhinoceros visiting, and checkerberry ice cream!

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I'm sorry, I didn't intend to say you were olde! You're a very young friend. And I'll bring you a spare kukri for the Honda or to display. I've got a plethora.

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You're older than me, so it's alright. Thank you but no kukri! I can't abide the blade shape no matter the practicality: aesthetics over all, don'tcha know. Also it'd fly into my head if I braked suddenly.

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I love your writing. Entertaining and informative!!

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Princess moss, how lovely. I love mosses. So often overlooked.

It's funny, right on first glance when I opened this I got that eerie New England horror story feeling. But an old half-drowned plane crash site really takes the cake.

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The Quabbin has been inspiring that feeling for at least a century!

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Greenwich/Dunwich: have you encountered a real-life, but not wholly dissimilar Dunwich in UK: https://www.thesuffolkcoast.co.uk/suffolk-coast-towns-and-villages/dunwich

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Thank you, Jonathon! I've been wanting to take a road trip around the isle of England, as I've only visited London and a good bit of Scotland. I will add this to my list... that and the town that carves snake heads on ammonites so they look like coiled serpents. I'm fond of folk horror by Andrew Michael Hurley, and he sets his stories in the North.

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THAT Jonathon Green? I owe about half my brain clutter to you.

I'm pleased to say the Dunnitch-Dunwitch pronunciation debate continues as contentiously as ever.

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