The build-up to this has been too long, and so instead of a first entry, I give you a flowery dedication, like they do in the books:

My parents live on a little stretch of land far back off the main road; you can reach it by gravel driveway (for a few days around the end of May, the hedgeapples make for dangerous driving). On the city map, half of their driveway shows up as a little nubbin extending out from the street with the real name. My mom had always said that if they ever had the official opportunity to name their little nubbin, they'd call it Longshadow Drive. She has always loved the time of day when the shadows are long, just before twilight. My mother, who whenever I call her seems to be looking through someone else's lost treasures at an antique mall. Romantic, no?

These thoughts are dedicated first and foremost to those people and that little stretch of land that sits back off Longshadow Drive. Because, without that little piece of me, nothing else matters. Not my obsessive fascination with the original Fallon Carrington-Colby's haircut, not the old Shirley Jackson paperback I picked up for $3.95 while waiting out the rain, and surely not the hour I spent trying to think of a name that fit what I was trying to do here. Nostalgic? Please tell me it is, otherwise it was all for naught.