Texas, check
It's the year of the monkey, swinging through the branches of many trees. The year of extra space to fill with reading, writing, geography tonic, general wellness. It starts in Austin at my third annual MLA convention. I could have used a warmer jacket, but otherwise I brought everything I needed and nothing more; I did not arrive late, did not get sick, did not see everything and did not mind. The Texas sky was dark when I first saw it. Our flight from Seattle, which sucked up the ripest part of the Wednesday, finished by circling awhile over a carpet of spectacularly blushing sunset clouds. On the ground it was a drizzly night. Through the fissure where the plane met the gangway came enough air to let my nose know that we were in a happy place: it was southern air. Lots of people probably want me to call Texas "west" -- sorry, I'm not going to be able to call it anything but "south". Not Dixie south, but distinctly below 35° N latitude. That Aus...