Friday

For some reason, many of my most bizarre postmodern multicultural moments have involved singing Swedes. I don't know why this should be so, or even why I'm thinking of it now, since the most recent one happened in 1991, when a Swede, two English guys and I, having consumed too much retsina, sang barbershop quartet ("Yes, sir, that's my baby") in a taverna in Athens.

Just one of those things, I guess.

Much of this weekend is about costumes. Tonight I will bear (not bare) myself as a stepchild of the night, all made up, if my makeup, some of it 7 years old, hasn't dried up irredeemably. As for tomorrow, tomorrow I will wear silver shoulder pads and a blinking helmet.

Sunday is not about costumes, but it does involve becoming (again) the sort of person who sits around a table and rolls dice and eats Doritos, quite apart from anything having to do with the actual characters.

*This* is why I have been slow to do real work today

Length of "final" version of article to be edited: 48 pages.

Total length of correspondence between my boss and the author involving changes and additions which has arrived in the roughly three and a half weeks since we received the "final" version just mentioned, much of it in the form of "on p. 3, line 4, add this word": 53 pages.

(Weekend only 75 minutes away: priceless [*].)


[*] Well, in fact, given club cover charges and drinks and several meals that must be purchased away from home, I will probably be able to put a dollar value to the weekend fairly easily, but I'm trying not to think about it.

little reward

So far in slogging through the material mentioned in my last post I have been introduced to the word Idiotensicherung.