Nearly a rant. But not quite.

QUESTION: What do the following all have in common?

A.
FedEx

B.
Apple G4 Powerbook

C.
The Second Crusade
(illumination from BNF FR2813, Grandes Chroniques de France)

D.
Metro Atlanta interstate system during rush hour

ANSWER: None of them manage to get where they're supposed to go in a timely fashion.

And with the exception of (C), all of them have given me problems this week. Mostly interrelated ones, too.

I would add to the list "UPS" and a certain trans-atlantic freight company, but I'm not sure who's at fault yet, so it wouldn't be fair.

Who would have thought that getting things shipped to domestic locations in a timely fashion would be so hard? Obviously, I failed to reckon with the complete incompetence of many an employee. Getting my life in order to go the Land of the Engs is proving to be a quasi-Herculean task. Here is a sample conversation from this week.

Ring ring!

AUTOMATED VOICE
Thank you for calling Apple. If you know your party's five digit extension, please enter it now. Otherwise, remain on the line.

ME
(drumming fingers idly, humming)

AUTOMATED VOICE
...for iTunes, press 3. Para español, marque numero quatro. For an associate, please press 0.

ME
(pressing zero)

....time passes.....

APPLE PERSON
(cheerily) Hello, this is Lazy McUseless. Thank you for calling Apple! How may I assist you?

ME
Well, I purchased a computer from your company nearly two weeks ago. It has yet to arrive. I've spent all day on the phone with FedEx and with various people at Apple, and the computer is sitting on the tarmac at the Atlanta airport. I'm leaving town tomorrow. It must be here by the close of business today.

LAZY McUSELESS
(sunnily) I see! Can you give me the order number, please?

ME
123456789.

LAZY
(uselessly) Super! I'll just put you on hold for a second.

ME
No, wait...

LAZY
(has been replaced by synthesized trumpets playing Für Elise, followed by something that sounds like the demon love child of Raindrops Keep Falling on My Forehead and Pop Goes the Weasel. Played, naturally, on piano and triangle.)

LAZY
(marshalling a stunning command of the obvious) Hi! Thanks so much for holding! I've checked the order and it's currently sitting on the tarmac at the airport in Atlanta. The computer should be delivered to you on Monday! Thanks for calling Apple, and have a great day!

ME
Wait, Lazy, I don't think you understand. Is there someone else I can speak to?

LAZY
(incompetently) Sure! Let me get a specialist for you! Hold, please!

ME
(contemplating committing seppuku with the phone)

ME
(continuing to hold)

ME
(wondering what sort of specialist she's getting)

ME
(is it, for instance, A Specialist - someone trained in counter-terrorism and high-powered rifles who could star in a movie called The Specialist and who is-oh, shit, he's talking-)

SPECIALIST
-for holding. I am the Specialist.

ME
Hello, Specialist.

SPECIALIST
As I understand it, mmmmm, you want your computer re-shipped, is that correct?

ME
No. Perhaps it hasn't been explained. The computer was supposed to be shipped to Atlanta, because I was planning to be here the week it was scheduled to be delivered. That week has expired. I am returning home to New Orleans. I was assured that it would be delivered within five days, which, since it shipped on July 25, has not occurred. What can Apple do about that?

SPECIALIST
Mmmhmm. Well, we can certainly see about contacting FedEx and having it re-shipped to you in New Orleans, mmm, right away.

ME
And how long would that take?

SPECIALIST
Mmmmhmm, well, it has to be sent back to our distribution center in California and then sent out to you again, mmmmm, so, you know, six to ten days.

ME
You've got to be kidding me. Your company mis-addressed it when it shipped out of Shanghai originally, so it sat in Brooklyn for three days. Then FedEx screwed up, so it sat in Atlanta all day today. And now you're telling me that it has to be sent back to California to be sent to me in New Orleans, and therefore, a process that was guaranteed to take only five days will end up taking close to three weeks?

SPECIALIST
Well, mmm, six to ten days from now, mmm, so I suppose that would be accurate, mmmhm, yes.

- The following portion of the conversation has been omitted lest Apple sue me for libel, and also because I was not, at all times, a model of patience and decorum. I fussed. A lot. -

ME
So look. Just have it delivered to the address in Atlanta and I'll have my parents send it to me. Since Apple and FedEx, both major businesses, seem incapable of completing a transaction on time or in a competent manner.

SPECIALIST
Mmmm, yes, well, thank you for calling Apple, have mmmma nice day.

Click.

This is only a sample of what my entire week has been like. What fun. But not fun with only computer and shipping companies, oh no! I have had the privelege of navigating many a phone menu only to be handed off to Lazy McUseless and his/her brood of cousins, who seem to have landed jobs everywhere.

Editor's Note: Let me just say, I have cruelly selected Apple as my example, but this is not intended as a criticism of Apple products in any way, shape, or form. I love them. I think they're fabulous. And I've never had this sort of service (i.e. crap) before. Hopefully Apple will redeem themselves soon. And not sue me. Oh, whatever, Apple doesn't read this blog.

249 lbs.

...is how much stuff I've just sent to New Jersey.

We're allowed 250. "250," I thought foolishly, "that's quite a lot - I can take roller skates, the kitchen sink, shoes and ships and sealing wax, and even pigs with wings."

Wrong.

You know in the Harry Potter books, whenever Harry has to move his trunks, he ususally does it by magic? There's a reason for that. My spell was a lot less fun, and involved several rolls of duct tape, an exacto knife/cardboard-box duet, and heavy-duty trunks which looked like they might store automatic weapons, but instead contain 250 pounds of (mostly) books. And sheet music. And coats. And then, for a change of pace, some more books.

I found out this week what a strong emotional tie I have to my books. Not to the words themselves, but to having my books around me. To be able to look up on the shelf, and say, "oh yes, that's where that is" means that I am settled in, ready to work. I had to cut down my pile of books three, four, five times before I was under the allowed limit for the container ship. Ah well - the excellent thing about books is that one can always acquire more of them.

In a related story, the shipping company (whom the administrators of the Fancy Fellowship have retained to ship our crap to the Land of the Engs) observes on their website that occasionally, containers fall off the boat despite their best efforts to keep them from sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic. But, they say, this happens only during stormy passages with high winds. I might observe that my crap will be steaming across the Atlantic at the height of hurricane season - one of the busiest hurricane seasons, I'll add, that we've had in some time. So now I don't know whether to encourage St. Scholastica to send hurricanes away from the Gulf (in which case they could send my four boxes overboard) or toward the Gulf (thus saving the boxes but turning the Big Greasy into a floating, scummy cereal bowl). I guess we'll have to settle for Mexico. Are you listening, St. Scholastica?

Grammy nominations welcome

I love the Gulf Coast, I really do. I grew up in Mobile, went to school here in New Orleans. I'd love to move back here after I finish school (presuming, ha ha, that there is a job somewhere, which is not excessively likely).

But there is one thing about the Deep South and the shores of the friendly Gulf that I will not miss in the slightest while I am gone: roaches.

I hate them. I hate them because I am mortally, irrationally, desperately afraid of them. I exercise my right to scream like a girl whenever I see one, and often perform circus-worthy acrobatic feats (usually variations on the classic "picking up the knees very high and attempting to place a total of zero feet on the ground," first brought to the West by accomplished Chinese acrobats in the Venetian courts...lies, all of it).

Well, anyway, tonight I was doing my laundry (the laundry-room here is in a downstairs sort of utility closet thing, you go down the outside stairs to get to it). I was turning on the washer when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye - and yes, of course, there on the white wall (so it stood out, the filthy thing) was a roach which lazily waved its nasty antennae at me. I let out a bloodcurdling scream - which fazed it not at all - and it slowly turned and meandered down the wall toward the floor. WHICH, I might add, due to an unfortunate accident of gravity, I had no option but to stand on.

Did I mention that it was THREE INCHES LONG?*

*Editor's Note: I recommend that you take a ruler in hand and measure off three inches. That is a big damn roach, even for mid-July.

So, after waiting for it to go away (it wandered out the door), and hoping that no one would call the police under the impression that I had been foully murdered while laundering, I was back upstairs, achieving for the very first time in the history of science a speed faster than that of light.

Sadly, I still had to go and put my damn clothes in the damn dryer. And take them out again. Which brought up the possibility that I might - God forbid - run into this giant bug again. So, rationally, coolly, calmly, I did the only thing possible.*

*Editor's Note: the only thing possible in light of the fact that there was no brave soul with a shoe about who could save the day.

I sang the roach song.

It goes like this (to be sung in wavering voice, while the singer investigates every dead leaf suspisciously before descending another step):

Go away, roaches, go away.
sotto voce: icky bug!
Go away roaches, go away.
repeat

*Editor's Note:

On a completely unrelated note, I only get three channels of TV, one of which (thank goodness) is PBS. And may I just point out, Mystery is pretty stupid but Inspector Lynley is desperately hot? Thank you, that is all.

In which our hero finally does something grown-up.

Update #2: Hooray! I am officially not a tool - a Big Name responded to me this morning, saying (and note the quotation marks), "Katie - these are good and very interesting questions. To my knowledge, words words words (continues helpfully for several paragraphs)..." Yay! AND his suggestions were helpful - he also confirmed my suspicion that basically, nobody knows anything about what I want to know about...so, hello, master's thesis topic!

Update: So, I did it. I sent the big scary email to the Big Name Listserve. Now we'll see what happens...with my luck, it will be completely ignored.

This is an academic post, so anybody not particularly interested in medievalia and the hang-ups of a nascent academic, consider yourself warned. You may be bored. Although I will obviously try to forestall that with witty prose, clever remarks, and generally compelling writing. Oh, whom am I kidding - you will probably be bored.

**************************************

So, about a week ago, I stumbled onto a new project that could be really interesting and would tie in well with the project I have already done some work on (for those of you who care, it's on the active sacred image, and the inadequacy of current approaches, art historical as well as anthropological, etc etc etc). Anyway, I happened upon it during Episode Number One.

Episode the First: In which I am asked a validating question.

During a meeting of a dead-language translation group (read: gossip circle more than that translation group, but we do translate sometimes), a professor who has published beaucoup beaucoup in her field and is very well respected etc asked me a question. She was writing an article on a particular dead medieval poet and in one of his poems he makes an odd sort of reference to a sacred image, something along the lines of "my girlfriend is amazing, but if she didn't like me, then I would be like a sacred image, for I would think only about eating and keeping warm." Having been a reader on my thesis, she knew that I'd done a fair amount of research on active images (i.e. sacred images who do things - cause miracles to happen, move, talk, appear regularly in visions, etc) and wondered if this was an instance of that. We had the following conversation:

PROFESSOR
So I have to have a footnote on this line, because it occurs right before the bit I'm writing the article about. And I have no idea what he's talking about.

ME
It's pretty strange. Do you think he means that he would stand in the place of a sacred image, or something like that?

PROFESSOR
Maybe. Like I said, I'm pretty clueless on this one. Listen, would you mind looking at this over the weekend and talking to me about it on Monday? I would really like to know what you think.

ME
!

PROFESSOR
(blithely ignoring my reaction and assuming I'd said "yes") Great, then, I'll see you on Monday. So, did you hear about so-and-so....

No kidding! She wanted me to look at it! And so I spent the weekend in the library, trying to live up to her expectation. It turned out to be worth it, too, since a lot of interesting material surfaced and it turns out practically no-one has written on this (admittedly obscure) topic. On Monday, I gave her everything I had found, and she was thrilled. We then had this conversation:

PROFESSOR
Can I keep these? (gesturing to the photocopies I'd made for her)

ME
Of course, I brought them for you.

PROFESSOR
This is great, it's more than enough for my footnote. You know, you should really keep looking into this. There are several other places this sort of thing shows up - you could do an article on it. I would, of course, see to it [emphasis hers!] that it be published.

ME
!

PROFESSOR
I'll lend you my concordance, you can check the other instances...let me know what you find, this is great.

And I believe her, too. She is friends with EVERYONE - at Kalamazoo, they should have an association called "people she knows who owe her favors" and they could sponsor sessions on whatever she wanted. So now we come to Episode Number Two...

Episode the Second - In which a daunting proposal is made.

Well, perish the thought that I should actually publish something in a real grown-up place. I wasn't too worried about that, as it would be ages away from happening. But I did think that my professor was right, and that I should keep looking. Plus, I thought, it would keep my petrifying brain from rotting away at my pointless stupid job. So I called another professor, who likes me well enough to keep talking to me now that he doesn't have to, to ask his opinion. Since the larger research topic is more or less within his area, I thought he might have an idea about where to start looking. This is what he said, after thinking out loud for an hour or so:

PROFESSOR #2
Yeah. I have no idea, really.

ME
Okay.

PROFESSOR #2
You know what you should do? You're subscribed to the Big Name Listserve, right?

ME
Yes.

PROFESSOR #2
Well, post the question there. If anybody knows, it's someone there. And of course, if none of them know, it's a pretty good bet that you've found something nigh-on unresearched. Which could be very good for you, for obvious reasons.*

ME
Oh, yes, of course, for obvious reasons...to Big Name Listserve, hm? Are you sure? I mean...

PROFESSOR #2
Oh, don't worry about it. They're nice.

*Editor's Note: Professor #2 is a wonderful person, but I really hate this expression. Because it makes me think, if they're so obvious, why don't you say them? And then especially if I don't think the reasons are obvious, who feels dumb? Me, that's who. For obvious reasons.

Now, I happen to know from reading Big Name Listserve for over a year that they are, indeed, knowledgeable, but they are not, in fact, unfailingly nice. Especially with people who ask stupid questions. And even after the assurance from Prof. #2 that this wasn't a stupid question, I was irrationally afraid to toss my question out there. So I delayed and pretended I had to "do more reading" until...Episode Number Three.

Episode the Third - In which I finally stop being a pansy.

So today, I was checking my email and read a question from someone on Another Prominent Listserve. Bear in mind, cognoscenti, that it is not uncommon to see people answering questions on these lists whom one would be unlikely to ever speak to in real life. It would be like being on a physics listserve with Oppenheimer and Einstein, who occasionally answered questions about routine gravity matters. Or something. Anyway, today a question went out, and as I read it, I knew the answer. I did. And it wasn't something everyone would know, because you had to read a pretty obscure dialect of medieval French to know about it (which I only knew because Professor #1 studies it and made me learn it). So I sucked it up and...responded. To the whole list. Without qualifications. No, "so, I basically suck because I am NOBODY but here's the information you're looking for," or "so, sorry for taking up space on everyone's email, but...". Because that is how I felt, believe me. And there it was - in my inbox:

From: Me
To: Another Prominent Listserve
Re: Question

Blah blah blah, helpful information.

And do you know what? Nobody cared. Of course they wouldn't! People post on listserves everyday! It's not like publishing a book, for Christ's sake. An hour or two later, a Big Name (whose textbook I have used) responded to the same question, saying basically the same thing I'd said. Which made me feel pretty darn good. I (sort of) knew what I was talking about!

The point is, all this has (I think) given me the cojones to finally put my question to the Big Name Listserve folks. Tomorrow. No, really, I am going to do it. Because what is the worst that could happen?

Snarky response: They could mock you mercilessly for not knowing something so basic and then send letters to all institutions EVERYWHERE indicating that you are NEVER to be given a job nor allowed to publish anything nor to complete a degree because of your staggering display of incompetence.

Yes, thank you. But it's unlikely, if only because that would take a lot of work. And it's the summer.

De musica citharae*.

*Editor's Note: I'm going to talk about the harp, not the cithara. But still. I don't know the Latin word for "harp." So live with it.

The tea service at my hotel

The thing about working at the hotel is, I play for about three hours, broken up into two sets. However, I have in my repetoire about three and a half hours music, total playing time, with some repeats taken and others ignored. My respectable repetoire, mind you, which spans the spectrum from ultimately shameful (Surrey With the Fringe on Top, or, even worse, Some Enchanted Evening) to entirely legit (Vivaldi, Handel, other Broke composers). The unrespectable repetoire includes Brave Sir Robin (of Monty Pyton fame), the theme from "Gilligan's Island," and, of course, a reduced version of Stairway to Heaven.

In any event, when I play more than one day in a row, I end up repeating a fair amount of literature. Now of course, I try to mix it up, and it's not like the patrons know. Nor the staff - they rarely work all four days in a row (I play for tea Mondays - Thursdays). But I know, and I get bored fairly easily. After about two days, I have to do something to entertain myself. Because let me tell you, Vivaldi is pretty predictable when you haven't heard it. When you have, it's deadly.

So I watch unobtrusively as people have tea, and keep my head down but listen to their conversations. Sadly, most people talk about boring things. So to keep myself entertained, I try to decide what mood the guests nearest me are in. Sometimes it's easy - ladies in high heels with shopping bags and tired expressions who come in and flop down expensively... well, my dear Watson, they're worn out. So I select the most calming and restful music I have: waterfalls of sound, pieces with stupid names like "Sea Anemones" or "Waving Grasses" or something like that, that you might hear in an aquarium when you visit the jellyfish room. Very therapeutic. There were two ladies in last week whom I managed to put to sleep with a careful application of lullabies and then wake back up again fifteen minutes later with gradually more lively pieces. The best part was, they didn't seem to notice at all. People wander past and say, "oh, look, a harp," and that's about it.

And then sometimes there are serious people, working on complicated-looking papers or doing the crossword puzzle. These people, I am quite sure, would not appreciate Eleanor Rigby on the harp. Even if they like the Beatles, their attention is on their work, and having to stop to go, hmmm, that's Eleanor Rigby, dum dum dum dum dum, oh, look at all the lonely people, da da da da da da da, ohhhh... rather defeats the purpose. Although I will play Beatles tunes if they look like they need a break or if they push everything aside for awhile. Plus it makes the doormen happy. But nevertheless. So for these people, I usually pick baroque things, or sometimes even the more interesting études I have lying about. Very precise, no nonsense, good for clearing off the desk in one's mind.

But enhancing the mood someone is already in is easy. The difficult one is changing the mood, especially when they're particularly committed. My favorite one is tense married couples who obviously have spent a little too much time together. For them, it starts out slow with very predictable classical stuff, boring, so they keep not talking to one another and pretend to listen. But then it moves into Debussy and the Romantic composers. And I don't care who you are, you can't listen to Debussy or Ravel or Fauré without feeling better about life in general. Or at least, much less irritated. It's just the harmonic progression. It's keyed into the human psyche to feel good about complex harmonies resolving. Just ask Bach, he knew that better than anybody. From the Romantics or the Impressionists, a couple Irish folk songs, some English country dances, and voilà, the mood is much more upbeat. I end up with Danny Boy, which I don't particularly like, but which everyone knows. And the reason is because almost always, one of them turns to the other and says something like, I know that song, my sister sang it at our Sandra's wedding....

But when there's nobody at the hotel, and I'm playing lobby music, well, then, you'd better watch out. Because it's entirely possible that between a theme and variation set and a concerto, Some Enchanted Evening will rear its ugly head, and you will meet a stranger...you will meet a stranger - across a crowded room.

Yes, I hate myself for it. But I also enjoy it way too much to stop. It's the musical equivalent of eating ready-to-bake cookie dough right out of the tube. Not that I've ever done that.

Please, St. Scholastica, please...

A request most fervently desired, sent out to St. Scholastica, patron saint of inclement weather (or some such):

Please, please, please let the weather be foul enough (in a completely non-damaging to anyone's property or well-being way) that I don't have to go to work tomorrow. Please. I really don't want to go. Please? I will light a candle if the electricity goes out. Which is a pretty poor ex voto, I don't mind saying, but still. I really don't want to go to work.

Thank you, that is all.

Update: Whoops, due to St. Scholastica's laudable quick action but her regrettable tendency to hyperbole, it looks like I'm leaving work early tomorrow, too, as the university closes again and another hurricane approaches. St. Scholastica, I'm not complaining (even though I had to throw away all my groceries), I'm only saying, you know, just the one time was fine.