Rest Day, Friday May 24, 2024: Madison, Wisconsin

It’s time to take stock. I’ve been on the road for three and a half months, and I’ve now traveled just over 20,000 miles. Along the way I’ve visited (or at least taken pictures of) 182 Carnegie libraries and at least 519 libraries in total (or about 6.5 libraries per day). I’ve been on the road for 81 days, not including days where I have traveled elsewhere or stayed in a town for two nights. According to my current itinerary I have 73 more days on the road. I’m more than halfway through the trip, and well more than halfway through the number of miles I have yet to drive. I’ve had two flat tires, one busted utility port, and no other automotive problems. I’ve couchsurfed only two nights and probably will not do so again. I thought I would want to couchsurf more often, but I have come to love sleeping in Goldfinger and showering at gyms. I have visited more ice cream shops than restaurants; I limit restaurant meals to one per week, although I don’t think I go even that often. I have spent four nights with relatives (not counting breaks to visit Ayse and nuclear family) and four nights with friends. I’ve slept in five hostels (New Orleans, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Park City), two campgrounds, and only three hotels (Berkeley, Deadwood, Santa Fe). I’ve written 145 pages of my manuscript. [Update: When I revised this on May 26, 2025, my manuscript has ballooned to 352 pages.]

Since Seattle I’ve been focused on writing about my adventures (or its antonym) rather than about women in libraries, as the details about the libraries were added after my trip was completed. I know my memories of the day’s events soon fade, and I can always write about the information I have gathered later. I’m also celebrating eleven months (and one day) of sobriety. That’s a pretty big deal for me. Every day that I’m sober adds to my all-time record of abstinence since I began drinking almost exactly 50 years ago.

I went on a bit of a nostalgia tour today. I found the apartment I rented when I enrolled in graduate school in 1982. It was an efficiency, maybe capacious by New York standards; it was big enough. It had mulch brown shag carpet and one north-facing window, at the corner of Henry and Doty, and the state’s capitol building was a short walk away. I believe the house containing my apartment was the closest private home to the center of the state’s government. Restaurants and bars were just around the corner, and on rare occasions I would go to the Friday night perch fry at Crandall’s restaurant which, sadly, no longer exists. On Saturdays, I almost always visited the farmers’ market, which lined the streets bordering the capitol building. 

My First Apartment

I was in heaven, most of the time. It was the first time I had ever lived by myself, and I spent a lot of time there studying, cooking (I had one cast iron skillet and one pot, and a typical dinner consisted of homemade french fries, which I would season by putting the fries in a brown paper sack, adding salt, and shaking. The one piece of furniture I remember buying was a component desk I bought from Sears. I wrote on an IBM Selectric knockoff with a self-correcting ribbon. Sometimes in the evening I would sit on the front porch and play my guitar, while one of the other tenants chatted with me while smoking pot. When I hosted dinner parties for other grad students, which I enjoyed doing, I would clear off the desk, and move it into the center of the room. One guest would sit on my bed, another on the couch (both couch and bed came with the apartment), and I and another guest would sit on folding chairs. On Saturday evenings, I would lie on my bed and listen to A Prairie Home companion, and then albums by Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, Will Ackerman, and Bill Staines. Later in the evening, I would join friends at a local pub for beer, pool, and music. I lived there for two years.

1303 Vilas Avenue Home

At the beginning of my third year in grad school, I rented a house in a quiet neighborhood at 1303 Vilas Avenue, near Vilas Park and Lake Wingra, and found two roommates: Libby and Laura (who was later replaced by Nanette). I found my roommates by posting notes on local bulletin boards years before the internet made such tasks easy. When I interviewed potential roommates, I’ll admit to being sexist. My preconception was that women were more likely – all else being equal – to be tidy, quiet, and responsible and – all things considered – with female roommates I would more likely exemplify those characteristics as well.

We got along well and had a happy home. Their boyfriends would regularly visit, and we had a communal kitchen for common meal preparation. We shared chores and expenses without problem although eventually, I remember we had a house meeting to discuss the fact that one boyfriend was essentially living there without contributing much to the common good. I don’t remember how that conversation went. I do remember that they got married within the next year or two.