Which is less anxiety about the semester, per se, than anxiety about the fact that the break between semesters is all but over, and that I’ve still got an enormous pile of stuff that really needs to be done before the spring gets fully underway. And this spring — yeesh — promises to be nuts: between, say, February 28 and April 5, I have four speaking gigs plus a conference I’m organizing here in Claremont. And that’s just five weeks out of the fifteen ahead of me, which will otherwise be filled with teaching an overload, advising senior theses, and the usual spring administrative insanity.

So the countdown has begun: a precious few days remain in which I can hope to get anything done. If you don’t hear from me, you know where I am.

I have to admit, I’ve gotten a bit complacent these days. Since moving to an address that the postal system and the various private shipping companies actually believe exists — a place where my packages actually arrive, taking a reasonably direct route from the shipper to my very own front door — I’ve come to assume that as a standard of service: put the correct address on a piece of appropriately mailable or shippable material, pay the correct amount, and the item will appear where you intend. Call me naïve, but I thought my days of mail snafus were over.

As R. and I were packing for Paris, we had the great book debate, which went something like this: I really need a fair pile of books for the work that I’m doing this summer. I could attempt to put them in a suitcase, thus adding another twelve pounds to our already overloaded baggage — baggage that we knew would not only have to survive the various handlers on the way to CDG, but would also have to be picked up and gotten in a taxi, and then, most significantly, would have to be lugged up three flights of a fairly tight, creaky, slightly uneven spiral staircase to the flat we’re staying in — but would ensure their immediate availability upon our arrival. Or I could ship them to us, relieving us of the physical burden, though adding, I now realize, one a bit more metaphysical.

It appeared at first that we were going to go the baggage route, as FedEx wanted something like $150 to get the books to Paris. But then, alas, we discovered that the USPS now has flat-rate international shipping boxes: for $37, we could ship as much as we could stuff into the box they provided, and it would arrive — so they said — in six to ten days. That seemed the obvious choice: less heavy lifting, a not-ridiculous fee, and just as my head would start to clear from the jet lag, I’d be able to get down to real work. So on the 11th, the day before we left, we sent off the box.

When the books hadn’t arrived after eight days, I didn’t worry terribly much; after all, six days seemed pretty optimistic, and they may well have meant six-to-ten *business* days, which would dramatically change the ETA. At the ten day mark, though, I thought I’d start trying to figure out what was going on. On June 21, I started searching around the USPS website and decided, on something of a lark, to attempt to track the box using the only number that I had, which was a US Customs number. And lo but the tracking worked: except that what it said was that delivery of the package had been attempted on June 18 and 19. And there was no further information. This was when I realized that, armed only with a US Customs form and my crap French, I was going to have to brave La Poste.

One hears horror stories about French bureaucracy, though I’m not convinced that their systems or personalities are any worse than those in the US. My fear mostly came from the thought of having to negotiate such a bureaucracy in a language that I speak at the level of a five-year-old. I got R. to come with me, though, both for moral support and because people working behind desks just seem to like him, regardless of language barriers, and are often willing to help him out in ways that I’m not sure they’re willing to help me. So we went over to the neighborhood post office and waited in line.

The young woman who wound up helping us was utterly charming — a little perplexed at first, but very sweet. I haltingly explained the situation (j’ai m’envoyé un colis des États-Unis à Paris, mais il n’arrive pas; ce matin, j’ai suivi le colis sur le site de USPS, et il m’a dit qu’on a essayé de le distribuer le 18 et 19 juin, mais…) and asked whether the package might be there. She looked at the form and told me that the package number was an American number, and that when the package arrived in France, it would have been assigned a French number, and that she needed the French number in order to do anything. I asked her how to get that French number, and she said that perhaps I could call the United States, and someone there could inquire of the post office for me? After that, she did go look in the back to see if there might be a particularly American-looking package lying around, but, for obvious reasons, to no avail.

That afternoon, once they were open for business, I did call the United States (which suggestion, not incidentally, provoked an ongoing “allo, États-Unis?” joke in the flat), where I was most helpfully told that if the French had assigned the package a number, then only the French would know that number, and that there was nothing else to be done. So that evening, I asked one of our French flatmates, S., what to do next, and he volunteered to take things on from here.

And thank god. The next day (the 22nd, if you’re keeping track), S. and I headed back to La Poste, where he talked to a different woman from the one I’d spoken with before. This woman not only looked in the back for a package, but also looked through a notebook in which I assume were written the various bits of info about packages whose delivery had failed, but came up with nothing. She suggested that we go to the next Poste up the sorting and delivering chain, which was about seven or eight blocks away, so S. and I headed that way, joking to ourselves that I might get a proper tour of Paris this way, being directed from Poste to Poste.

At the second Poste, things were a bit more technologically sophisticated. The guy behind the counter took my Customs form and scanned the barcode, the first time that had happened, but of course came up with nothing, as it was an American barcode. He then flipped through that Poste’s notebook, which also provided nothing in the way of results. He took, however, a photocopy of my Customs form, saying that he was going to fax it somewhere, where they might have more info, and that he would phone S. if he found anything out.

Apparently he did phone S. very quickly, because within half an hour of returning to the flat, I realized that the conversation S. had been having on the phone was about my package. I sat and listened, attempting to be helpful however I could, but only comprehending about a quarter of what was being said. S. was able to come up with the French number (and not only that, but for future reference, a phone number at La Poste that one could call in order to get the French number in the future), and the information that the delivery had failed because the person to whom the package was addressed didn’t actually live at that address. (I’d of course been careful, however, to address the package to me *chez* the woman who actually lives here, and all parties to whom S. spoke agreed that that should have been sufficient, and the package should have been delivered.) The package had been sent back to the United States on the 21st — the day before. From there, S. was directed to French Customs, where we might be able to intercept the package on its return journey aux États-Unis — but to no avail. The package was already on a plane, headed home. Rather radical efficiency, I’d say, though unfortunately not in the direction I’d like.

Somewhere along the way, someone warned S. that we would need to talk with the United States again (”allo, États-Unis?”), because a package that gets returned like that is often deemed suspicious by US Customs, and could be held up there for weeks before making it all the way back to southern California.

So here I am, rather seriously underbooked, really ready to get down to work, and not quite able to do so. A Canadian flatmate who’s currently working at the Bibliothèque Nationale is checking today to see if a book or two that I need might be available in the open part of the library, which might tide me over a little longer. In the meantime, though, I do feel I’ve learned a couple of things: first, that I can make myself understood in French if I really need to, but, as I already imagined, it takes fluency to really navigate a bureaucracy; second, that French bureaucracy may be a bit harder to penetrate but is no more stupid than is that in the US; and third, that the most important sentence in the French language may well be “on va voir,” said with the tiniest of shrugs.

What will happen? On va voir.

Today, somebody figured out how to overcome my trackback URL randomization and leave me 20-plus spam trackbacks. All from different IP addresses.

Here marks the (hopefully temporary) end of trackbacks on Planned Obsolescence.

A big fat reward, however, of a type to be negotiated later, to whomever can devise a properly secure trackback technology.

This is just to say that the guys who are tearing down the building that is directly outside my office window—and, conveniently, directly outside the window of the classroom where I’ll be spending two and a half hours this afternoon—are currently jackhammering all over my last nerve.

Or, Threatening Other States Not to Follow Our Lead:

I’ve long been aggravated by gas prices in California, prices that, where I live, average about 30 cents a gallon more than prices for comparable fuel in Louisiana. But I’ve always known better than to complain much—after all, prices here are still pretty tiny compared with prices in other countries. And even within the US, there are worse places; after all, prices in Hawaii are inevitably 25 to 30 cents a gallon higher than in Los Angeles. Which only stands to reason; every drop of gasoline that arrives in Honolulu must go through some system of trucks, ships, and more trucks before hitting the pump.

Imagine my horror, then, during last week’s trip to Hawaii, when I discovered that gas in Honolulu was 30 cents a gallon cheaper than in SoCal. This is not an exaggeration; the day I flew out, gas in Clareville was going for approximately $2.97 a gallon, and when I arrived on the island, the first place I spotted was charging $2.69. And that price stayed relatively stable during the week, while gas at home was at $3.09 by the time I got home.

What gives? The story that’s been told (scroll about 2/3 of the way down the page) as long as I can remember is that because California has banned MTBE from its fuels, only a very few refineries can supply the state. But I’m deeply dubious—particularly when that gas is now 10% more expensive than it is on an island in the middle of the fucking Pacific ocean. R.’s theory is that the oil companies are both punishing California for its emissions-control regulations and threatening other states not to follow in California’s footsteps. I’m pretty convinced. After all, can the proximity of the recent spike in gas prices and last year’s passage of Proposition 87 be entirely coincidental?

After waking up at 3 this morning, utterly unable to sleep, and after struggling both before and after lunch to take a stupid nap, but finding myself too exhausted, and thus too hopped-up, to doze off, I finally fell asleep for a little while this afternoon.

And immediately had a protracted dream about sitting in a committee meeting at my institution.

And it was a committee I’m actually on!  Discussing an issue that we actually need to discuss!

And just to add insult to injury, a senior (male) member of the faculty whom I’ve never seen before wandered in and disrupted our meeting by telling a joke about how feminists have no sense of humor.  To which I responded with the ever-witty “if you said something funny, I’d laugh.” Except the rest of the committee was laughing.  And so I wound up appearing unreasonably bitter and uncollegial and sense-of-humorless.

Can you blame me?  All I want to do is get some freaking sleep, and I end up in a freaking committee meeting.

The thing that has taken up the vast majority of my time this semester—and something on the order of 95% of my emotional energy—is something I absolutely, positively cannot write about.  Not even in allegorized form.  And it’s less of an exaggeration than I’d like to think to suggest that this unmentionable thing is killing me:  I’m developing an ulcer, I’ve only gotten a few decent nights’ sleep in the last few weeks, and my stupid floppy mitral valve has been producing intermittent chest pain.  All stress-induced, of course, and precisely the kind of thing that it usually helps to vent about.

But I can’t, not this time.  Instead, I cut my hair, bought good ass-kicking boots, and am counting the days until I can get the hell out of here.

This is not how I want to feel about my job.  And this is certainly not how I want to feel about my life.

She’s at it again. I’ve just gotten an email message from tagged.com asking me to confirm my new account with them.  I didn’t sign up for any such account.  And it’s the same bloody email address this kid has been using, over and over again.

Do I:

1. Write to the abuse folks at tagged.com and ask them to do something about this?
2. Confirm the account, log in, and:
   
   1. Attempt to figure out who she is, in order to get her to cease and desist?
   2. Post all manner of unseemly stuff about her love for Laura Ashley dresses and the Anne of Green Gables novels?
3. Just delete and ignore?

I think my judgment may be off here, as I’m feeling quite wrath-of-webgod about it.  So your advice would be most appreciated.

1. I was awake from approximately 1.30 am to approximately 5.00 am, for no apparent reason. And when the sun rose, and when the construction guys commenced jackhammering outside my bedroom window, I was awake again. And none too happy about it, I might add.

2. I got July’s electric bill today. June’s electric bill was not terribly shocking, though it was five dollars shy of the highest bill I’ve had since moving into the condo. July’s bill is nearly TRIPLE June’s. It’s enough higher that I’m considering calling somebody out to make sure no one’s siphoning off my meter.

3. I lay down to take a brief nap after lunch, and had to drag myself up after only half an hour of dozing, in order to go to a meeting. ‘Nuff said.

4. I’m now heading to the dentist, where he can take a look in my mouth and come up with a figure with an annoying number of digits, representing the amount he’s going to charge me to repair the crown I cracked on Friday. Which crown I cracked while eating sushi. And I will pay said figure, which will represent a sizeable chunk of my already dwindling savings (see #2 above), at the end of which investment I will not have a vacation in the Bahamas, or a new piece of electronics, but will merely once again have a working fucking crown, just like I did before this one decided to make for the territories, one small chunk at a time.

5. Oh yeah: t-minus 36 hours until R.’s departure. That, too.

Seriously pissed.

Remember this?

It just broke again.

And it’s got the disc we were watching last night—disk 3 of 6 of season 3 of 24—stuck inside it.

I’m about to take the fucker apart to see if I can get the disk out.  The cursing you hear is probably me.

[UPDATE, 8.34pm:  Unbelievably enough, I fixed it.  With my very own screwdriver.  The disk changer was stuck in an eject-loop, trying to get rid of the disk in slot 2—except there was no disk in slot 2, and it couldn’t figure that out on its own.  And poor Jack Bauer was stuck in slot 1, waiting.  I took the thing apart and found a way to slip that disk down into slot 2 while it was in eject mode, and voila.  The amazing thing is that now it seems to believe everything is hunky-dory.  I’m still pissed, but I can at least feel righteous in my indignation, as I apparently fucking rule.  Sony still sucks, and it’s clear to me now that this thing need replacing, post haste.  But for now:  on to what remains of the evening of Veronica Mars I had planned.]