In Lieu of Middlemarch, a Tale from My Brain

First of all, Middlemarch post is delayed a week for international travel. For those of you asking "Where should I be caught up to?", the post next Monday will cover the final chapters (28-33) of book three, "Waiting for Death."

But, since I don't have anything on that story today, I'll tell you another one, this one from my own brain. Which is a strange, strange place sometimes.

This week begins a crazy time of conferencing. This weekend, I have a weekend symposium in Frankfurt. Next weekend, it's the Medieval Academy in Atlanta. I, meanwhile, reside in a place in the Pacific time zone. So this week has required a lot of mental preparation. Over and over again, I've been repeating the litany: "Teach on Monday; Laundry/pack on Tuesday; Leave for Germany on Wednesday; Arrive on Thursday; Return home on Sunday; teach Monday-Weds; leave for Atlanta on Thursday; present on Friday; Return home on Sunday; teach on Monday..."

It's a long litany, and not an interesting one, but it's been helping me by cementing in my mind that there's a precise order to everything, and if I stick to it, I'll be more or less fine. Tired, but fine. The papers are done, anyway.

So, today (Tuesday) I had set aside as my calm-before-the-storm day off, a day to charge the batteries before two weeks of chaos. I was going to meet a friend for morning coffee, then go to yoga, do laundry, pack, etcetera. And this morning, I woke up at 4:30, because I was a little cold. As I found another blanket and resettled in, I reminded myself that I needed to remember to take my passport info to the coffee shop, because yesterday when I had tried to check in for my flight, I didn't have what I needed with me.

And then it occurred to me to wonder: Why would the airline send me a check-in notification two days before the flight, rather than the usual one day?

And then it hit me.

Oh, shit.

And at 4:30, I was suddenly wide awake, checking my e-mail. Yes indeed: I had miscalculated my departure. I'm not leaving tomorrow.

I'm leaving today.

Happy travels!

How to Right the Universe (Blerg City Edition)

In response to yesterday's Researcher's Worst Nightmare, I received a couple of messages along the lines of "What will you do?" My answer, for today at least, was to try to deliberately turn things around by eating cheese and going shopping. But even that turned out not to be as straightforward as one would hope.

I set out on a beautiful Blerg City Saturday to do errands. Local SIM card for phone: check. A couple of cheap spiral notebooks[1] for the archives: check. Then: shoes. Blerg City is awash in nifty-looking shoes that you can walk all day in. Here's what I ended up with:

Basically a high-fashion sneaker.

Universal balance well on its way to being restored, right? Except... that while trying them on, I managed to throw out my back.

That's right: I threw out my back while trying on shoes. The indignities of middle age know no bounds. So now, with a cute pair of shoes, but with no archive and a wonky back, I'm still a bit in the negative column in terms of how things are going thus far.

Fortunately for me, this weekend is also the final weekend of Blerg City's annual booksellers' fair. Dozens of bookstores and publishing houses all with booths in a plaza in the city's old center. So I (slowly, carefully) made my way there. And for slightly more than the price of one of those two shoes, I came away with five small books, and the balance of my own personal universe more or less restored.

Of course, I couldn't be content with just "in balance"; I wanted to end the day on the positive side of the ledger.

Cherry with chocolate flakes, in case you were wondering.

And so I had ice cream for dinner.

Finis.


[1] I used to buy those moleskin notebooks. They are things of beauty in their simplicity and tactile perfection. But they are also damned expensive and the elastic on the band doesn't hold up. And they don't lie flat. So: practicality wins out over beauty: I buy sturdy spirals in small and medium, save a bundle,and don't feel at all bad about tearing out pages.

Waitress Nightmares for Researchers

I used to have waitress nightmares all the time. Those of you who have waited tables know what I'm talking about. For those of you who haven't: A waitress nightmare is when you turn around and all the tables in your section have not only been seated while you weren't looking, but somehow they've all been sitting there for 20 minutes, and their water is empty, and you've given some of them the wrong meals, and the others have gotten so incredibly fed up waiting that they've gotten up and left just as you were about to get to them, and how could this happen?

I always joked that my waitress anxiety nightmares were worse than any similar ones I had about teaching or comps or whatever. But every profession has one of these. Where you are actually good at your job, but in your dream, everything goes so impossibly sideways that it's ridiculous and you wake up half-sobbing, half relieved that it's not real.

Here's one for academic researchers: you are on a sabbatical or other leave that you hardly ever get, and you get up and get to the archive your FIRST full day there, jet lag be damned, because you know how short and precious your time is. And for once you have made a list and are totally prepared, and you even have a plan of this archive in the morning and that archive in the afternoon and you've done most of your advance work for the first time in ages, and then you get to the archive and sit in the reading room by yourself because the entire staff has gone on strike, indefinitely.

That is some waitress-quality nightmare-ing.

But here's the twist: This time, it's REAL. And I don't get to wake up and shake it off. I get to wrack my brains for what to do, now that I'm here with no access to the materials I planned to consult, and no way to get this time back.

::sigh::

Ghosts of Research Trips Past

How times have changed. I think this post is going to be a little invitation to story hour, for those of us old fogies (okay, technically I'm a middle-aged fogy) who have been doing archival research for over a decade. This is a sort of remember-when kind of thing, and I can't promise that comments won't devolve into "those kids don't know how easy they've got it!" But that's not the point. I'm feeling a bit nostalgic (in neither a good nor bad way) for a time not so long ago (1998, I think?), and it started with seeing the following image:

I remember traveling to Blerg City with a stack of these. Which I exchanged for the local currency, which was not yet the Euro.

I remember spending my first three-month research trip making notes for documents I would order copies of... on microfilm.

I remember receiving that microfilm six months later, by mail.

I remember the switchover from the local currency to the Euro, and how prices for everything were marked in two different currencies so locals could start thinking in Euros.

I remember stepping into the street for the first time every trip and smelling that perfume of diesel fuel, hot asphalt, and cigarette smoke, and thinking how I was "home."

Put your (camera) phone away

I love taking pictures here in blargistan, but I've got a three-part manifesto on how not to do picture-taking when you're on your vacation-of-a-lifetime:

1. If you're taking pictures in a high-traffic area (and in a place like Paris or Barcelona or Rome or whatever, this is pretty much everywhere in the city), then be courteous of other people who are trying to see something or go somewhere: don't block half of that charming alleyway; don't take so long lining up your shot (it's an iPhone camera, fer chrissakes!) that the nice folks who usually pause to let you get it don't get annoyed because they can't get by you.

This is Blerg City at all times in the summer.

2. I'm starting to feel sorry for selfie-takers. Not because they are all alone. Quite the opposite, actually: most people I've seen taking selfies are with groups of people, or in pairs. So why not ask your friend? Or better yet, a stranger? And for the love of all that is holy, that selfie stick thing? Trust me: some day, you're gonna feel totally embarrassed that you owned one.

3. Going to a place full of gorgeous architecture? Fabulous art? Consider leaving the camera in your bag. A recent study suggests that you remember more about what you've seen when you just interact directly with all that stuff around you.

Of course, this may seem strange coming from someone who posts loads of pictures on her blog (when she posts at all). I love photography. And I love using the blog (and yes, even Facebook) to broadcast my observations on things. The irony of this post is not lost on me. But I'm gonna hold firm anyway: sometimes it's time to put down the camera (just like putting down the smart phone) and experience whatever incredible moment we find ourselves in, rather than obsessively documenting it.

Wide Awake in Blargistan

I. Am. Exhausted.

It's not just the work. Nor is it jetlag -- I managed to duck that this time. No, it's just that Blerg City goes to bed late, and it's taking its toll.

How late? Well, in the summer, in this neighborhood, it appears to be near midnight on weekdays; much later (earlier?) on weekends -- say, 2 in the morning. No kidding: go to any public space on a Saturday night at 9:30 or even later, and you'll see loads of kids out playing. Like, grade-school-aged kids. And maybe you're thinking, "Well, nothing says that you have to be out as late as a nine year-old!" But here's the rub: part of the reason that Blerg City goes to bed so late is that, this time of year, it doesn't get dark until sometime around 10 p.m. And my brain can't force me to sleep when the sun is shining. In fact, full dark is usually the "let's start winding down" trigger for my brain, which means I'm ready to sleep about two hours later. Which is untenable if I want/need to be up at a decent hour. I'm one of those folks who operates best on 8 1/2 hours a night, and while I can run a deficit for a night or two, I can't do so indefinitely.

But I think I may have it beat. Here, two weeks into my umpteenth trip to Blerg City, I realized something wonderful: my room here has blackout curtains. Now, these are meant to keep the heat out. But I also realized that I can impose an artificial sunset an hour or two earlier. So, I'm going to try that tonight and see if I can't push my bedtime back at least to 10:30. 'Cause carrying a 2-hour sleep deficit for every night for two weeks straight makes working in the archives next to impossible.

Arrived in Blargistan

And I appear to be mostly over my jetlag, though I may be spoiling that by still being on the wifi at 2 a.m. this is why I got rid of my home internet last year: because I can't be trusted with it.

First observations: 1. I like the fact that my dollar buys more Euros now since any time since that currency's inception, and 2. Blerg City, like the rest of Europe, is hot. 

More words later. Here's an arty photo, taken from my evening perigrinations.