Friday, September 01, 2017

Already needing a do-over

I started the week in pain, muddled through the middle while sniffling and sneezing, and ended it incommunicado. Can I get a do-over?

My plan to stay on top of work so I could focus on writing and research on Thursdays fell to pieces in the face of sleeplessness caused first by hip pain and then by a nose that wouldn't stop running. I rarely use sleep aids but I confess that twice this week I reached for the Nyquil. And then my home internet connection failed so I spent a good part of Thursday trying to get answers from Verizon guys, both face-to-face and on the phone.

Kudos to the Verizon guys: they were uniformly friendly and helpful, and they apologized profusely for my inability to make my new wifi hotspot work. A solution is in the mail, though, and they didn't even charge me for overnight delivery. If the new antenna doesn't work, my brilliant son-in-law is ready with Plan B. (Which, given everything else we've tried, is probably really something like Plan Q or R, but I choose to go with the less discouraging nomenclature.) 

Despite all that, I managed to spend a few hours Thursday afternoon wrapping up some research for the next big conference paper. It turns out that it's pretty easy to focus on books and note-taking when you have no Internet or cell-phone connection. No distractions! 

So the week was not a total loss: I've written notes, taught classes, read homework assignments, conferred repeatedly with Verizon guys, and even cooked up some delicious meals to ease our massive influx of garden vegetables. (Anyone who needs eggplant should just drop by my office today because we're overwhelmed.) Best of all, I'm not in pain and my nose is not running, although it's still glowing like a red beacon, lighting the way forward. Look out, weekend--here I come.

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