Whee! What a wonderful day I've had . . . I'm most decidedly in pre-conference mode; the 4 C's takes place in Chicago next week, and, well, I love Chicago and I love the C's. It's at the Palmer House (as usual), and I'm staying with two colleagues from Where I Teach Now, neither of whom have ever been to the C's. I'm rather looking forward to dragging them around to the various functions and - well, parties . . . The Bedford/St. Martin's party is at the Field Museum this year (shuttles will run from the Palmer House, my buddy Nick says), and I'm scheduled to go to a session on Friday about an online essay grading system (not machine scoring; just randomizing of essays so people can grade anonymously). (I can see Russ rolling his eyes from here . . . ) And in between, there will be all kinds of sessions . . . No Michigan Tech party, alas, but I am happily anticipating running into all sorts of people I haven't seen in years, and just generally having a Good Time.

And I'm working on my presentation - in not even quite the last minute! (There was a year when I wrote it on my PDA on the train . . . that was the last time the C's was in Chicago, come to think of it . . . ) I found two books I wanted at the UM library, so tonight after dinner, I called them to check the status of my account and to ask if I could get a new library card, as my other one has gone missing. After a little bit of shuffling about, wherein I discovered that they still have me listed under my uniqname (which also tickled me pink, for no good or explainable reason - my uniqname truly is uniq! I suppose my fantasy is to someday return to UM, although that'll never happen if I want to be a faculty member, unless I get a brain transplant and become a gung-ho researcher) they assured me I could get a replacement card (at no charge, thanks to the generosity of the night supervisor), and that my account was fine.

So I wrapped myself in a down vest and my Pearl Izumi Screaming Yellow Zephyr jacket, tucked my hair up under my helmet, turned on all my lights, put on my Hello Kitty mittens, and pedaled off to the library.

There's very little in life that pleases me more than biking into town at night. I love living close enough to bike down there, and I love it that it's a town I really want to be in at night, and what I love absolutely most of all is that I always, always, always feel safe here. A few weeks ago I was trying to explain this to my sister-in-law, and I mentioned that Emma had gone for a walk at 2 am a while back; my sister-in-law was just horrified. But the crime rate here in general is negligible, and in this particular neighborhood, it's nonexistent, if we're to believe the monthly crime report. I might feel some qualms about walking around downtown at that hour, but I would ride my bike anywhere, any time. Since, being female, I've spent a lot of my life worrying about being a potential victim, the feeling of safety is just luxurious. Part of it is that I suppose I've reached the halcyon age of cronehood; I imagine that male predators are looking for sweet young vulnerable things, which I'm not. (In a few years, I'll have to worry about being a vulnerable old lady, but not yet.) But part of it is certainly that this is a safe place to live.

And, oddly enough, I love the library. Of all the things I miss about UM, I miss that the most. Go figure. I certainly spent enough time avoiding the place in the years when I should have been there . . . And my love was just inflamed when I got there and discovered that the supervisor had already made out my new library card. All I had to do was pick it up, and get my books from the stacks, which took all of ten minutes.

And then I pedaled back home, stopping at the little corner store for cat food on the way. How cool is that? I got to stop at the little corner store, while riding my bike home from the library at 10:00 at night . . .

Now I'm back home with my books, having gotten a brief burst of vigorous exercise, and I'm ready to tuck up and read before toddling off to bed. A satisfying evening, indeed.