With all the traveling I do, you think my suitcase would be trained to pack itself by now. Seriously. Wednesday night as I went to pack for my trip to Indianapolis for Bouchercon, I hoped the clothes would line up and just fold themselves in. Atten hut....fold and march. Of course, I needed to rethink for cold weather. I had missed the "it’s getting colder" memo and walked around the block from my parking garage the other day with a light fleece sweatshirt on and realized everyone else had on winter coats, and scarves. I had not even added socks with my loafers! Flipping to the Indy forecast I saw numbers I had not seen in a while --- 30 and 40. I like 70 and 80. So I unboxed my turquoise cowboy boots and pulled out my turquoise vest --- and smiled. Sometimes it’s the little things. Forgot how much I loved those!

Last weekend I was down in Baltimore for the fall conference of the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association. When I was sitting at lunch with a group of booksellers and authors on Sunday, I realized how interesting --- and invigorating --- it is to be a part of the book community. Over lunch we talked about books --- the ones we loved and the ones that disappointed. We talked about authors --- the debut ones we wanted to champion; the established ones we wanted to hear the latest news about. We talked about readers; I got feedback from booksellers about the people who came into their stores, and I shared stories that readers had passed to me through the years. Hearing their stories and telling mine created a real spirit of community for me.