i moved to western massachusetts in 1998 when i was something very sad called abd. as in all but dissertation. i had finished all my coursework and everything else for my degree but not my thesis. my idea is that i would live in undistracted bucolic bliss in order to finish the darn thing. it took me years but i did finish. to the extent that finishing the darn thing meant having to work in libraries, i did most of my work at the web dubois library at am hertz. it is the tallest university library in the world, almost 30 stories. western massachusetts is more of a 19th century barn and a couple of cows kind of place. but the campus library is this big tall brick tower. you can see it from everywhere. and here's the weird thing. the whole time i was squeezing blood from that stone, the whole time i was writing my des sertation, there was this temporary looking chain link