Time for lemonade and Cracker Jacks

So, I'm old again, and having all the attendant feelings about that. Last weekend I had a nice dinner with the family, and on Sunday Phaedra took me and John and Katie to Disneyland to celebrate our mutual oldness (except Katie, who is not old).

I'll give my usual travel mini-observations later, but for now, suffice it to say that the conference went well. The paper seemed to be well-received, and I got to hear lots of interesting talks. Plus they fed us really well.
My biggest worry going in was that, instead of feeling like I was getting back into the scholarly life, I would just feel alienated and out of place, but that definitely didn't happen. In fact, it was a good crowd to be talking to, in that they were all basically doing some kind of cross-disciplinary work, and many of the younger ones in particular had recently chosen (or were still in the process of choosing) between several of the disciplines I am currently considering. And of course they were all very gracious and interesting, and I met plenty of exciting new people. The next (non-international) meeting is in San Francisco in May, so I'll probably try to go that that one too, just for fun. And now I'm off to polish up my draft; man, this is so much more pleasant when one's not doing it for a living.