Posted on by Amanda Brooks

seriously (fixin’ to get ready to) travel

I know I’ve been MIA for the past couple weeks. Got serious about traveling and so had to make some changes in order to be on the road for the next several months. All my stuff is stored in Texas (including my car) and mail and bills are as taken care of as possible. My system isn’t perfect, but it’s better than it was a few months ago. I’m in Dallas taking care of a few more things, like replacing my luggage that the USPS lost when I mailed it in for repairs (next time: FedEx).

There’s a conference in Toledo where I’m co-presenting a paper about labor violations in the Nevada brothel system (yes, it’s focusing on one particular brothel but it’s not named in the paper and won’t be named here – ahem). That’s the week of my 34th birthday! That takes care of the first week of October. After that…probably wandering around the US for a bit. There are people I would like to see in Chicago and DC, if nothing else. Then out again. I’m looking hard at Asia right now. There are a lot of things attracting me and there are a lot of places to go and see on that side of the world. It should occupy my interest for a while.

No plans are set in stone and I don’t have dates until I have tickets in hand. I Twitter when I’m traveling and post stuff in my Personal Updates column to the right.

So there you go: The Plan — such as it is. For once, my silence has not meant anything negative, just busy and pre-occupied (and minimal Internet access).

Posted on by Amanda Brooks

dourly amused

I spent the night before I hit Dallas in a smaller city. I was carrying a block of Book 2 in my second bag. The books are thick, heavy and shrinkwrapped into a big bundle of five. It’s a massive block of paper, basically. I was very surprised to discover – unpacking my bags in Dallas – that the second bag not only had that TSA “we searched your stuff” notification, but that the shrinkwrap on the books was torn open. It wasn’t a “shifting around in the bag” rip, it was completely open and the top book had certainly been riffled through. This happened after flying out of the smaller city to Dallas.

The questions I’ll never get answered: was is simple suspicion of an explosive? Or real interest once they saw the book? Or were the books looked at by an unfriendly?