This part of Vermont is so postcard pretty that it seems slightly fake, but maybe that's just because I live in unscenic central Maine. In Tracing Paradise I write about how much I love Harmony, but there's no getting around the fact that it's not beautiful. There are beautiful things there, but one has to concentrate to find them. They don't fall out of the sky, like they do here in the Champlain Valley.

Went for a walk yesterday and looked at Fort Ticonderoga across the lake. Ticonderoga is one of my favorite words to say. And Dixon Ticonderoga Number 2 pencils are my favorite writing instruments. When I was a teenager, I was attached to Kenneth Roberts's historical novels about Rogers's Rangers and Crown Point and Ticonderoga. There is also a large paper mill puffing and smoking in Ticonderoga, which takes the edge off of Vermont's prettiness and gives me that homey polluted Kennebec River feeling.

Reading tonight, in a tiny tiny cute brick library. My sister has bought the wine and is arranging a cheese plate. She is such a hostess. Nobody has ever arranged a cheese plate for any of my readings before.