5:13 PM:

The only time I notice that I don't live near the ocean anymore is when it rains. I keep smelling the air, expecting that oceanic tang, and it's just not there. And then I mentally slap myself on the forehead. But I can't help myself.

And because I have to do everything my sister does... this week's Friday Five:

1. Where were you born?
   Brooklyn, New York. In a hospital. I don't know which one. My family moved to Far Rockaway not very long thereafter; until that point, they'd been living in a small apartment my father and maternal grandfather had built in the latter's basement.
2. If you still live there, where would you rather move to? If you don't live there, do you want to move back? Why or why not?
   My grandparents' part of Brooklyn had a large Jewish population when my mother was growing up. By the time I was growing up and visiting my grandparents, this was no longer the case. Eventually, my grandparents moved, too. And the kosher pizza shop that was ten blocks away from them, possibly my favorite one, has since moved to a different part of the borough. You can't go home again.
   

   The bigger question is whether I'd go back to Far Rockaway, in Queens, NY, which is where I grew up, and where I've spent most of my life. I don't know. Assuming I end up sticking with the whole Orthodox Jewish thing, quite possibly. One could do much worse.

3. Where in the world do you feel the safest?
   Hmm. I guess my apartment. At least, I can't think of any place I'd feel safer.
4. Do you feel you are well-traveled?
   Nope. I've spent most of my life in New York, with the occasional trip to Teaneck, New Jersey. Two trips to Memphis when I was much younger. Two years in Israel, during which I never went anywhere. And now I'm in Ann Arbor, and making the occasional trip to Chicago. That's about it.
5. Where is the most interesting place you've been?
   If you're asking me this, you obviously haven't seen my apartment. (Any incarnation of it. My room from Far Rockaway just keeps expanding to fill the available space.)

Check this out: True Porn Clerk Stories. I've only read the first three or four entries so far, but they're good. I'm definitely going back for the rest later.

(Found via Josh, on The Usual Suspects.)

9:19 AM:

#include <apology.h>

That said, I finally have some good news! Well, actually, two bits of good news, I guess. The first is that I've got another nephew, as of very early yesterday morning. And, for once, I was among the first to know, rather than the last.

The second is that I'd submitted an abstract to an academic conference Mary Anne alerted me to, in hopes of being able to present my Harry Potter paper there. The abstract itself wasn't bad, if I say so myself, but I didn't know how to format the page properly, and I forgot to include my phone number and e-mail address, and I generally figured that it had the word "UNPROFESSIONAL" stamped across it in vivid hot pink. So when I got a letter in the mail from them yesterday, I assumed it was a form rejection.

It wasn't. I'm scheduled to present my paper on the afternoon of Thursday, October, 3, at a conference at Charlotte, North Carolina. Looking over the schedule, I'm a bit bemused at my paper's inclusion in a panel on Harry Potter and computer role-playing games (I don't mind, I just don't see the connection), but I also see a bunch of other papers I'm already looking forward to hearing. Pity the Buffy panels are on Saturday, though... [sigh]

Anyway, I'm still a bit freaked out, but mostly in a good way.