(no subject)

Strange dreams last night. One involved playing a Changeling game in a closed toy store with someone who was either Klae or Alex, alternating from moment to moment, even though I don't normally consider them interchangeable; in the dream I didn't notice any changes. Some woman who did not correspond to anyone I know in real life was also there. I impressed them with my parody of "Que sera, sera" ("Que chihuahua, chihuahua," which is, I must admit in the cold light of morning, in addition to any other deficiencies metrically impossible). We were trying to stab a weasel that had swallowed some magical key. And in the meantime her man was creating Star-Wars-related sculptures with Play-Doh in the women's restroom.

After the alarm went off, I fell back to sleep and had a dream involving an all-nude production of either "Annie" or "Oliver" with Winona Ryder, but she used a body double.

I'm seriously.

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I have to go to the post office today and complain. Blah. We have received mail only once in two weeks, and there are pieces we know should have reached us that haven't. There's always been some weirdness with our mail delivery, thanks to similarly named streets in town and the fact that we're on a corner, with the front of the house having a different street address than the back, but this is the worst.

J. is especially bummed that the latest issue of "Saveur" has gone missing, and she'll probably have to shell out six bucks for a newsstand copy, even though she's already paid for one that should rightfully be hers...

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Finally, need to work on the expanded barbarian chicks paper. I should really stop calling it that, as it's as much about Roman chicks as barbarian, and the blurry lines between their characterizations when it comes to interference in military matters. I'm thinking of retitling it "Agrippina, Warrior Princess? Roman and Barbarian Women at War in the Works of Tacitus." But we'll see.

(no subject)

So J.'s copy of Saveur is safely in her hands. Well, actually she's put it down to do something else right now, but still.

I went to the post office and, when I got to the correct window, mentioned that we had had only one day of mail delivery in the last two weeks, and we should at least be getting LL Bean catalogs by the score on a daily basis if nothing else. The mail guy asked me for my name and address, which I provided. He immediately nodded in recognition. "Figured there'd be a problem with that," he said, and walked away.

I waited.

A few minutes later he came back with a pile of mail. "I don't know why he's not delivering these; I'll ask him when he's in next and tell him to let you know what the problem is," he said, after verifying that we had a clear path to the mailbox and all that. "You guys are in the rear of the house on A--- St., right? I never liked that address."

See, the thing is, gentle reader, that our house sits on the corner of A--- and B--- Streets. The landlords' mailbox is a A--- St. address, where as ours is B--- St. Now, this causes problems in general, especially as it seems our house number on B--- St. is not officially in the city records. But they've generally delivered to us, with some problems: There are a few different streets in town with names similar to B--- St., and so sometimes mail gets misdelivered. But not having delivery at all is an unusual situation, and reminiscent of when we lived in a marginal neighborhood in Providence with two buildings (total of 6 apartments) on the same lot; sometimes apparently the carrier just didn't feel like walking all the way to the back of the lot, and if, when he did, we hadn't picked up the previous day's mail (if, for instance, we were away overnight), he would assume we'd moved and would stop delivery until we called the post office to complain.

So by comparison mail service here had been much better. Until this month.

Anyway. I went to the cafe and read about how Tacitus characterizes Roman armies as barbarian during the civil wars of the year 69 in the book by that nice lady who said nice things to me about my paper at the Philadelphia conference. And then I went to the comic book store.

When I came home, the mail carrier was next door. I accosted him, inquiring politely what the dude's damage might be. After a clearly nonsensical claim that our mailbox wasn't labeled, he said he'd start delivery again, but warned us that our irregular address caused problems for machine-sorting the mail, and we'd have to Take Steps to fix that, after finding out on our own what those steps might be. He walked to the next house, and I walked to mine, and he called after me, having found mail for me that was sorted into a pile for a different address (B--- Crescent, which intersects B--- St. a block from here).

Anyway. I hope it is somewhat cleared up for now.

Oh, and I learned that the front unit on A--- Street is on a different carrier's route. So our attempts lately, inspired by success with the UPS people, to have things sent to us at a double address, like this:

Quislibet and J.
## B--- St.
(= ## A--- St., Rear Apt.)
Witch City, MA etc.

... is only going to cause some more headaches.

Alas.

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The piece of mail he handed me was an invitation to me as an alumnus (I have a master's degree but am still working on the PhD, so they're a little confused at the alumni office and address me -- mockingly, if they only knew -- as Dr.) to enroll in the university's "Mini-Med School," a 10-part course on health and anatomy for a mere $125, complete with its own Mini-Med School Diploma. Just imagine the things I could do once *that* door were opened. But how does one list a Mini-Med School Diploma on one's CV?

And why didn't I get a diploma for the Swing Dance class J. and I took last winter?

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If you've read this far, let me ask your help on another matter: I'm thinking that I should have said "aetatis" rather than "aetate," or perhaps "in aetate," towards the end of the bio in my user info. What do you think?