Worst Professor Ever

I once spent a summer in Italy on an archaeological dig; in the evenings after we finished work, a group of us would read Plato in Greek — and yes, it was lovely, but the university’s awesome policies put everyone in debt so don’t get too misty about it.

We finished The Phaedo but not The Apology. On the day me and my now-editor were scheduled to leave, there was a transportation strike so we had to use a van, and the guy was running very very very late, and we missed our flight, and barely wrangled another one out of the cranky Italians at Fiumicino. While searching for an available hotel that wasn’t scamming tourists, and negotiating about our luggage (three months’ worth) with the unhelpful taxi driver, and trying not to have nervous breakdowns, my now-editor and I traded off being totally useless and totally in charge, much like Thelma and Louise.

When we had a moment to breathe, we determined our misfortunes were the results of angering the gods. We had vowed to finish The Apology (I forget why) and hadn’t; we had maybe a page to go. Oath-breaking is a BIG deal in the ancient world, and when the gods are mad at you, you’re Odyssean toast. So, in the cigarette-scented room, eating cheese and cracker packets for dinner, we finished the damned thing. And got home the next day with no incident.

Flash forward to now, when I’m trying to close the book on the last chapter of my life. The Tennessee plates just wouldn’t come off my car; there was one bolt that wouldn’t budge. Took the mechanic an hour, three drill bits and (finally) a power saw to git ‘r’ done. Now there’s just a bank account, the very last vestige of Nashville, but of course there have been innumerable ongoing problems with that.

This is a very roundabout way of saying that I haven’t been writing much because in addition to good stuff like real work and interesting projects, I’ve been taking care of of my vow to be all the way moved back. It’s been nearly a year, and it’s time to close those doors.