After a near-to-year-long silence it is time to revive and sally forth.  One of the best things about being an academic is the periodic opportunity for sabbatical.  I have one approaching.  An entire year’s worth.  So as I sit in my living room looking out across Burnham Harbor (never mind the railroad tracks and the parking lot for Soldier Field) towards the Lake, watching The Tudors while the two cats doze, I anticipate.  35.  35 days until the sabbatical begins.  35 days to my liberation.

Ate oatmeal this morning with one of my colleagues at Yolk and remarked as we walked out into the rain afterwards that we’d gone from a Chicago winter to an English winter and probably would go from there directly to a Chicago summer.  He agreed.  And so we walked in the English-ish rain to a meeting with our peers and considered, discussed the status of an institutional effort to reorganize, or reprioritize, or something along those lines.  The purpose of this initiative is unclear.  Some of us wonder if the potential consultant identified will even WANT to undertake the project should he determine we are “ready” for it, which many of us believe we are not.  That said, I do a virtual handspring and a frisky cartwheel and toss pearls aloft because I will be on sabbatical all next year and am shortly loosed from the immediate bonds of these concerns.  I don’t have to worry about becoming “tight, nimble and sparkly.”

In anticipation of the adventures ahead, I also here report that my ticket for Tel Aviv was purchased this afternoon.  This on the day that NT sent a long email with advice and information about everything from security at TLV (extremely high) to how to dress at religious sites (modestly) to where to take a day trip (Masada at the Dead Sea).  Kathy G., travel gal extraordinaire, is now vigilantly watching for an upgrade into business class for the long haul.