Nothing lasts forever.

I've been in Berkeley for the last couple of weeks. I'm caring for the world's most adorable cat (I've paid my tax, see above) while I get to see old friends and make appearances and write in an empty house. 

I am a champion house-sitter, I think mostly because I can be at home anywhere. My itinerant upbringing as an Army brat, and later as just another repeatedly evicted person in poverty, disposed me to quick packing and unpacking. I get my bearings and pick my landmarks early. I can sleep in any bed or couch you've got. I don't wake up confused. I learn the vagaries of the shower, the coffee machine. I have a million saved wifi credentials in my memory. 

The flipside of this is that nowhere feels like home. I've never been able to make a place stick, no matter what adhesives I've applied to it. Sometimes this thought drags me down with sorrow, and sometimes it makes me feel free. I realized that there are people who feel like home, even when there aren't places. No roof but the steepling of our fingers as we join hands, no hearth but the fire between two hearts. So what does it matter if home is a sign I hang up with tape?

I'm churning out pages on my Evil Dentists novel. I'm working at my various jobs. I'm editing for Uncanny, wheree I wrote about the horny body this month, and putting up new fiction on Patreon. I'm in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy again, this time edited by Rebecca Roanhorse. This one includes my space story, "The Pizza Boy," originally published in F&SF. I'm very proud of it, and so happy to be in such an illustrious TOC. 

Recently I fell in love with the work of Conor Habib, whose new novel "Hawk Mountain" had me in an absolute chokehold. I also read this short story that I'm pretty sure is going to win the Hugo. 

I got to do SF in SF while I was here, with Laura Anne Gilman and Trry Bisson. As nervous as I am about in-person events, this one was eminently worth it. It's one of the best events in the business: held at the American Bookbinders Museum, and so intimate and intellectual. Next month, they're hosting Adam Savage and Mary Robinette Kowal. If you can go, you should get tickets now.

Did a show with LitCrawl with Oghnechovwe Donald Ekpeki, Arielle Schussler, and Micheal Foulk. I adore LitQuake, and it was so good to be back. I also got to host a screening of The Wicker Man at Old Devil Moon, with Elguyra the great. It is my favorite movie of all time, and it was such a jolt to hear a house full of people who had never seen it gasp and sigh and sing along. 

My last Bay Area show for 2022 will be Happy Endings on Tuesday, November 8 at the Makeout Room. I am assured that the hosts will keep us posted about midterm results, and I'm joining science fiction luminary Annalee Newitz on that pink-lighted stage. I hope to see you before I head back into the snow and show of the eastern seaboard. 

All good things must come to an end. This cat-sitting gig. 2022. Twitter. A very good book. But knowing that the end is coming can make the whole of it pretty sweet. Just like having no place that feels like home can make every place feel a little like home, at least some of the time. 

A parade of kids came to the door last night. I handed out full-size Oh Henry bars from Canada. Trick or treaters came in all their butterfly wings and scary masks and excitedly thanked me for them. They don't care if I rent or own this place; they don't know a sitter from a squatter from a witch on her own ancestral land. Home is what you do with the space you've got, for as long as you've got it. It's a place to hold a little warmth and light against the cold November rain. 

So nevermind the darkness. We can still find a way, 

Meg