Overhaul.

I believe that it was yesterday's arrival of the autumn Boden catalog that finally brought it home to me: I'm going Somewhere Else for the year. There, no one knows me. And I won't be flitting in and then flitting away again: I'll actually be living there. I'll actually have a chance to become a real person for the people I meet, and they'll have a chance to become real people for me. Not transient cartoons. Not strange ideals. Not caricatures of ourselves. Every move opens more new vistas than we anticipate, for good and ill. The closer my next one comes, the more my interest is getting piqued.

So part of what I've been thinking about today is, shall we say, self-presentation. I wouldn't put it at the top of the list of things I've been thinking about. But because today was one of those inevitable slightly-lower-down days, turning sartorial possibilities over and over in my mind wasn't such a bad way to fill some gaps and ward off some doldrums. And since I won't be dressing for the classroom or for gravel paths as primary means of transport, a whole world of sartorial possibilities is opening up.

I think it's time to take my winter coat to the dry cleaners. There's more than one way to redefine archival scholarship.