Reading Rambo

I brought upwards of 20 books back with me from England. Following the excellent advice of Jenny from Reading the End, I packed an empty suitcase so carting the inevitable bookhaul home wouldn't be a problem. Which turned out to be a great idea, because this was the (almost) final product:



The thing is, you're there and you're like "WHAT IF THESE ARE NOT EASILY GOT IN AMERICA" and sure, you could check your phone, but that's not fun. Also sometimes you're at Blackwell's in Oxford and you're like "you know, maybe I need these £4 secondhand copies of Necropolis and Bedlam, because it's not like I DON'T want to read about London as a graveyard and how it's historically dealt with its mentally ill residents."

And then it kind of continues in that vein and then you have all the books except for those giant biographies of Catherine of Aragon and Jane Carlyle, because they are MASSIVE and you just don't have the room/upper body st…

Or it was New York Time. I went to NYC week before last to visit my oldest brother, see Hamilton and meet DOMA-defeating lawyer Robbie Kaplan, which made for a pretty kickass five days.
First we had the mismatched socks debacle at the airport, which consisted entirely of me realizing with increasing horror that I had put on different socks (BUT OF COMPARABLE THICKNESS) that morning, somehow believing no one would see them in the course of the day.


I arrived in NYC around 11 PM Tuesday night, where I immediately made my way to my brother/brother-in-law's in Astoria. They got a cat! Her name is Numi! She loves one particular crinkle ball very much.


WEDNESDAY was the Big Important Day, so I put on my favorite blouse and hit the town.



I was having lunch with Robbie Kaplan (whose book was my favorite of 2015) at 12:30. It was a disgusting day out, so when I arrived downtown much too early on 5th Avenue, I proceeded to walk around inside the Ritz while thinking how little the interior now …

I left my job of seven years two weeks ago, and have been footloose and fancy free ever since. Haha, jk, I have a new job! But as it is a job that takes its employees to Charleston, South Carolina for a team meeting, I remain relatively footloose.


A fair amount of the trip consisted of bonding, as my team members and I are spread out across the country. We stayed on the Isle of Palms, about 25 miles from downtown Charleston, and right next to the ocean. By right next, I mean it took appx 60 seconds to walk to the ocean. 



Where there were jellyfish! Jellyfish that I thought were dead, but then someone told me that nay, they were SUNNING THEMSELVES. However, I have just googled this, and it turns out that's a load of crap because jellyfish evaporate in the sun because they are 98% water.

Aside from amazing memories like hot tubbing  next to the ocean at night and being able to see All the Stars (note: no one can actually see all the stars, but you know what I mean), I also went to dow…

Due to my extreme interest and involvement in Frances Willard, I was invited by someone who works with the Frances Willard Historical Association to attend the Illinois League of Women Voters' luncheon in honor of its 95th year of existence AND its founder Carrie Chapman Catt AND women in politics.

This was held at the Place of Fancytimes, i.e. the Union League Club. Would you like to see its fanciness, yes of course you would:


The speaker was Dianne Bystrom, the director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics. The main reason I was excited was because there was going to be a talk on Carrie Chapman Catt. WOULDN'T YOU BE SHE IS VERY IMPORTANT. 


She was the president of NAWSA (National American Woman's Suffrage Association), which is the group Alice Paul SPLINTERED from because she wanted them to be more radical. But Catt worked with Susan B. Anthony and Jane Addams and Elizabeth Stone Blackwell and Anna Howard Shaw and basically everyone important to the suf…

Last Saturday I undertook a trip I've been meaning to take for QUITE SOME TIME: Cahokia Mounds in southern Illinois.

COME WITH ME ON A JOURNEY to the largest urban settlement in the Mississippian culture of the Native Americans.


Cahokia existed from about 600 AD to 1400 AD, right around St Louis (so where southern Illinois and the Mississippi River meet Missouri). The people who settled there built up giant mounds of earth, the tallest 100 feet high, by carrying baskets and baskets of dirt to one spot FOR DECADES UPON DECADES. The highest is Monks Mound (seen above, it's the one in the distance), which got its name from early 19th century Trappist monks setting themselves up on it. One of them later baptized the son Sacagawea gave birth to on her trek with Lewis & Clark (Jean Baptiste Charbonneau).

Illinois is pretty much all about Abraham Lincoln, and occasionally we sneak in some Mormon history (prophet Joseph Smith was shot in one of our jails: repreSENT, scared and preju…