I hadn’t been on my bike since Wednesday, which was far too long, but I wasn’t driving–I was just in New York, where nobody I know ever even thinks about cars. Oh, it is magical there! I didn’t have time for a bike ride, busy as I was with the fantastic Barnard Center for Research on Women conference and a side trip wandering through Harlem, visiting a couple national parks, but there were bikes and bike lanes everywhere, and C. reports the one on Second Ave is about to go all the way to the tippy top of the island. I can’t wait to bring my bike there and just go wild. Sigh. I took the train back to Baltimore, rested a bit, and then took my bike to the book fair to hear D. talk and lead the kind of discussion you hope to get at that sort of thing but rarely do–thing is, the state is the site of so much violence, we kind of need to think of strategies other than going to that same state for redress or protection if we really want all of us to be safe, in the most expansive sense of that term. It was a weekend full of reports, ideas, new plans, and old friends, such a treat. But it was good to ride my bike to the coffee shop, grade some papers, and then climb back up the hill, because that’s the sort of thing that feels like home.