One eighty.

Bit of a turnaround. Really it's just inspired by the last trip up to the attic. The grooves in the upstairs windows are filled with the tiny sunbleached corpses of a thousand ladybugs and their housefly nannies. Regina's lost brood. I'd long suspected her to be something of an absentee dam, but being sole witness to the slide of a generation into its own golden dust demands documentation.

All that is seen and unseen.

I miss the village. At my sentimental weakest, I allowed myself to be coaxed to a sermon at the Unitarian on Ferry where I could at least hear the bustle of Elmwood, smell the rotting dog shit on the sidewalks outside. It was strange and unfinished. We kicked nonexistent kneelers, looked for invisible icons on empty podiums, stumbled over every secular verse. It was Mass without amazement, a gathering for an irreligious elite that could never shake the feeling that they needed to be somewhere on a Sunday morning. But we got a good turkey sandwich from Globe out of it.

And, in homage to our missing Madonna, I give you Regina. Queen of the Ladybugs.

"Except little Nan who sits in a pan..."

"...weaving gold laces as fast as she can."

Been a bit dazzled lately by the upstairs workroom. Lots of glittering glass and ice and two brave windows with their eyes on the sunrise have had me experiencing something close to solar shock. Right now I've been going through the brown-grey motions, but the mole-ishness is overdue for a fade.

Oh, and I've met our first guest. A ladybug. Apparently good luck if you find one in the house during winter. Her name's Regina--so tip your hat if you catch her in her curtains.