So, flying today. Have apparently misplaced my paper ticket. Yes, that’s right. There are still people who ISSUE paper tickets. Rang United, who it was all booked with. Their response? “We have no record of you.” They said—you’ve lost your ticket? Well you’ll have to buy a new one and fill out an application. Then if there are no problems we’ll reimburse you. Seriously? So I rang Lufthansa, and they were great. Confirmed that, yes, as far as airlines are concerned I exist. Also, that with a handy six digit reference code I could go to a ticket counter and they would sort me out. And no mention of “oh, and buy your ticket all over again.” I hope I never have reason to call United again.

*

Rant over, I can’t believe I lost the ticket. It was all together, and I have the folder it was in. I remember the ticket, and am sure that when I pulled it out to give my ticket number to my travel agent to confirm my final flights that I would have put it back in the folder. Apparently not. Demonstrating once more that I apparently will be the sort of person who ends up keeping her tax information in the fruit bowl. Though I suppose if it’s all in the same fruit bowl that won’t be too much of a problem.

*

I anticipate a week of reading—being in places where I don’t know the language always leads to deep reading—and, hopefully, a little writing. Though I find writing hard during the period I am actually on the hoof. Notebook writing.

*

Reading Sontag’s diaries. Reading other bits. Books in the bag for over the break? Desnos. Darwish. Carson (of course). Perhaps I should add John Clare. A few novels. Am going to read Kafka’s diaries when I get home—they’re calling to me.

End of semester—exhaustion. Finished my final paper, and it wasn’t what it should be. But then, I always think those final papers at the point I hand them in are really a starting point, and not an end point. So, perhaps I have the start of something.

*

I’ve been sad since my mother sent me the news that Dorothy Porter is gone—too soon. I have a number of friends who knew her much better than I, but she is someone that I admired, and wanted more of.

*

Leave tomorrow for Frankfurt, then Bulgaria. I guess there’ll be a lot of sleep on the place.

*

Anticipating lying on Australian ground, trying to figure out what Anne Carson is doing with error, and exactly makes it different from how other poets might choose error.

*

Packing, now. Triage: must take, can take, don’t need to take.

The past weeks and the next few days are incredibly busy—such that I haven’t really had a chance to write. (Or update the Independence Day Project… a lapse I am ashamed of, though the project will be finished, when I am able to finish it.)

My prospectus is done, and now it’s just a matter of finishing the final paper. Oh wait—is it really just a matter of that? Okay, perhaps a little more complicated.

I leave the US on Thursday—flying first to Frankfurt overnight, where I’ll have about half a day before I fly onward to Bulgaria. I’m visiting the lovely Carolyn Emigh! (I’m hoping, too, that there will be time for a side trip to Macedonia, to visit the poet Nikola Madzirov. It’s not certain that that’s going to happen.) Then I’ll be dashing home, via a night in Singapore, with an overnight in Frankfurt… and then… home.

So I have a few days to finish this paper—which is due the day I leave anyway. And it will be done. Having written and made notes for the full length of the paper, I now have a thesis. One which I can make work. So. That’s nice.

I am also applying to MFA programs… which I am hoping (determined…) to have finished before I leave as well. Madness.

Then there’s that whole packing/making sure I know where my stuff is/paying bills list of things to do.

Oh, and I spent the weekend getting stuff in order my advisor’s study (since I’m also the research assistant.) Making a list of where everything is. How to contact me in an emergency. Etc.

So. That’s the status report.