Not dead yet...but not exactly in top form

While I was in Siena, Italy, at the New Chaucer Society biennial congress, I caught an exotic conference cold that had been imported to Italy from Leeds by my hotel roommate, The General. Now that I'm back in Rust Belt, I'm still congested, although the cold is in its final stages, I think. Still, the 95F temperature here combined with the dense midwestern humidity is not helping with the feeling that my head is some sort of giant, stuffed, pinata-like thing really to burst. Somehow the cold was more bearable in Siena. Perhaps that was because it was dryer there (but also about 95F), or because the gelato made it all better, or maybe just because I was in freakin' *Siena,* for pete's sake! But at least here I have robust American air conditioning and Bullock's homemade ice cream to replace the gelato.

Anyway, why am I telling you this? Because I'd planned to write a long post today about NCS to re-inaugurate the blog. Now that more and more people know who I am in real life, they can actually *bug* me in person to get back to posting, and I promised a number people at NCS that I would get back to it as soon as I got home. And I will, I swear, but right now my head is too muddled.