I read A Confederacy of Dunces in 1995, when I was living just off the Tulane campus in New Orleans.

I remember sitting in our living room near the window reading, and at one point, a character was being described as walking down the street near my house, in such a way that if he had really been walking there, I could have looked out my window and seen him.

And, of course, I looked. Because you never know.

He wasn’t there.

I am reading The Time Traveler’s Wife, an excellent romance/sci-fi genre blend that I hoarked from Stacey. In a recent scene, the characters are walking around Evanston, IL. I looked at the date related to the scene (the date when each scene occurs is listed at the top of the section, as this is a book about time-traveling), and it was on a date when I would have been in Evanston, possibly even in the area where they are walking.

I don’t know why these little things give me a thrill… they just do.