1. The rest area on Highway 287 a few miles north of Chillicothe, Texas has open wireless. I didn’t use it, but I was sorely tempted to blog from there, the middle of freaking nowhere, solely because I could.

2. I did a pre-interview with a public radio producer today, talking to him on my cell phone while riding north on Highway 64 toward the Grand Canyon. The call only dropped once.

3. The weather.com mobile site I pulled up on my cell phone earlier today told me that the low tonight at Grand Canyon, AZ, would be 26 degrees Fahrenheit. In fact, weather.com accessed through my browser confirms this. But the local news says it will be 38. The difference? The north rim is 1000 feet higher, and averages 10 degrees cooler.

Some stuff, I guess, technology can’t yet deal with.

(Should be arriving in SoCal tomorrow, and home on Wednesday. More then.)

This post has taken me an unconscionably long time to write. I didn’t have net access in Nassau—or, more accurately, I didn’t seek out net access in Nassau—and have had a bit of a hard time getting myself going again since I’ve been back. But at last, the Bahamas post, which begins with a cautionary tale of sorts. Or perhaps just a lot of whining.

Bottom line: never, ever brag about your fabulous weekend trip plans. The trip itself was wonderful, but I really paid for it in the getting-there part.
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This weekend, as others are celebrating the end of classes for the spring semester, I’m flying off to Nassau. This trip is in the main a girls’ trip, a long weekend with my mother and my sister, to be spent on the beach and by the pool and in other modes reflecting an appropriate state of torpor. Or even lassitude. The kind of thing where you wait for someone with a tray to wander by before you really begin to contemplate doing anything about your thirst.

This befits the other purpose of the trip as well, which is, for me, a toast to the passing of my sabbatical, an acknowledgment of the onset of summer, and a reckoning of what must (and indeed, can) be done before teaching resumes in August. It’s a weekend of taking stock, of assessing what I’ve managed to accomplish during this leave—which, frankly, has turned out to be not at all what I thought I’d do—and what I haven’t, and figuring out where to go next, and how to get there.

Here’s wishing all of you who are wrapping up a semester a speedy conclusion of spring and a well-deserved onset of summer. For me, however, a little delay would be good, a languorous last weekend of leave.

I drove into New Orleans late last night, and will be heading out to Jazz Fest later this afternoon.  Given the darkness, I wasn’t able to get an overall sense of the city’s state, though I did see, right off the bat, that big stretches of the city seemed much more unlit than they used to, and that nearly every streetlamp lining the freeway was canted at a slightly odd angle.  After leaving the freeway, the state of things became much more clear:  Canal Street north of Rampart (the part not focused on tourism) looks like a war zone, nearly every building boarded up, barricades everywhere.

This morning at breakfast, reading through the front section of the Times-Picayune, I ran across this:

I couldn’t get a clear image with my cell phone’s camera, but these are the paper’s Official Notices pages, three full pages, each with eight columns, each with entry after entry declaring that

The City of New Orleans gives official notification that it intends to demolish or haul away the home/property located at [address].  The City of New Orleans determined that this property [is in imminent danger of collapse/is in the right of way] and must be removed.  A legal owner who disputes the proposed demolition must present their objections in writing to the Department of Safety and Permits of the City of New Orleans before the thirty (30) working days are up.  The City of New Orleans makes no legal representation that relief will or will not be granted.

Column after column.  Home after home.  And I can’t help but wonder what percentage of these property owners will ever even see these notices?

More from Jazz Fest, later this weekend.

The alarm went off this morning at 4.30, waking me after a much too brief four and a half hours of sleep.  I woke up groggy and dehydrated and otherwise feeling the effects of the two glasses of Shiraz I drank last night.  I stumbled into the bathroom, put my lenses in, cranked up the shower, and…

By turning the knob all the way over to the far end of hot, I was able to obtain the barest trickle of water that hovered between tepid and flat-out cold.

At least it made me move quickly.  I got myself ready, headed to the lobby to check out, and managed to miss the airport shuttle while explaining the shower problem to the desk representative.

But at least this gave me a chance to grab a cup of coffee in the lobby.  Even if they did charge me for it.  And the next shuttle did come just a few minutes later, and the driver helped me with my bag.  Of course, I did manage to spill my coffee on myself, but it seemed to clean up okay.

And moving through the airport went reasonably well.  Even though I had to undress, practically, going through security, the TSA guys were really helpful in getting my stuff through the machines, and the guy ahead of me helped me drag one of my bins along the table.  And for once, the gate I’m flying out of is not at the far end of the terminal, and it turns out to be right across the hall from the President’s Club.

So here’s the thing:  4.30 am lightly hungover wakeup, cold shower, LAX—and I’m still in a good mood.  Inexplicably so.

Good gravy, but I’m useless on a Friday afternoon.  I’ve gotten nowhere in the drafting process today, not least because my usual morning yogalates class completely and totally kicked my ass.  Since then, I’ve changed clothes, eaten lunch, drunk a diet Coke, and sat here hitting refresh on my browser over and over, to no real end.

I must, however, get my act somewhat more together now, in order to pack.  It’s been a blissfully travel-free six weeks, but alas, it’s over.  Tomorrow, I leave for L.A. for a meeting, about which I’m really excited.  I come back here Wednesday, and then leave again Thursday for this.  (Yes, poor me.) Then back here Monday, and then off on Thursday once more for here.  (Life is very, very hard.) Then back again on Monday, at which point there will be something less than two weeks left before I load up the car and head back to California.

Trust me when I say that I’m not complaining about any of these trips, including the return to California.  It’s just how fast the time is going, and how quickly I know the next few weeks will speed by, that’s got me dragging my heels a bit, wanting nothing more than to stay put, right now.

I’m back in Claremont for a few days, for a couple of departmental events.  Because I’ve rented out the condo, I’m spending these few days crashed on a friend’s sofa.  Not to mention hiding from anyone who might want to take advantage of my presence to ask me to do something for them.

Note to the world:  I am not available to do things for you!

It’s fascinating being here without really being here, living on the margins in the town where your home is.

I’ve been in New York for the last couple of days, and though I’ve had the computer with me, and have been having a fabulous time, I haven’t felt the least bit compelled to post.  I’m here for some meetings which are beginning tomorrow, about which more later, but have taken advantage—literally—of the opportunity to see my sister and some grad school pals whom I haven’t gotten to see in years.  Or what feels like years, in any case.

More thoughts forthcoming soon, if the stars align.  In the meantime, I’m just soaking up being back in the city.

The trip to SoCal to gather the last of my stuff, cram it in my car, and turn the condo over to my tenant (which concept weirds me out a bit) passed in a bit of a blur.  There was something surreal about finding myself back in California after what seemed like months away, but that could have been nothing more than exhaustion.  I landed at ONT at 7.30 pm Tuesday last, which was something on the order of 4.30 am Paris time, which my body most definitely still thought I was on.  A pal picked me up and dropped my delirious self off at the condo, where I said hello to the cats, opened the mail, and completely collapsed.  36 hours later, I rolled back out of town, driving to Louisiana.  And four days later, here I am, back in the town I grew up in.

Here is my impersonation of the MapQuest directions for getting from Claremont to Baton Rouge, for those interested:

1.  Start out going SOUTH on INDIAN HILL BLVD.  (1.2 miles)

2.  Merge onto I-10 E via the ramp on the LEFT toward SAN BERNARDINO.  (1787.4 miles)

3.  Take the COLLEGE DR exit - EXIT 158.  (0.1 miles)

And it’s a thrilling drive, needless to say.  Today has been spent unpacking and settling in.  Most of that is done, and I’m hopeful that actual work will begin tomorrow.

Yesterday:

– 4-hour train ride from Paris to Amsterdam

– 3-hour layover in Amsterdam

– 11-hour flight from Amsterdam to Houston

– 3-hour layover in Houston

– 1-hour flight from Houston to Baton Rouge

Today:

– 1-hour flight from Baton Rouge to Houston

– 1-hour layover in Houston

– 3-hour flight from Houston to Ontario

9 time zones; 27 hours on the road.  When am I?

Tomorrow, cleaning and packing.  Thursday, driving east.  More soon.