Vapor Lock

Hot.  Humid.  Worse tomorrow.  Can't concentrate; tried to write; nothing but scraps.

Drove from VT to Medford last night.  Last time I packed that suitcase, we didn't own a house.  Kept thinking that I was driving home, kept catching myself and saying that I was driving to work.  Home there, work here.

Met one of my former students in front of the elevator today; a big girl, tattooed, could be a boxer.  She was limping, and had an elastic band around her right calf.  "What'd you do to your leg?" I asked, because we'd gotten to trust one another in my class a year ago.  "I got shot," she said as the elevator door opened and she hobbled into the cab.  She seemed proud; another big-city badge of honor to go with the tattoos. 

One of my colleagues is resigning after more than a decade with the school.  He really is resigning, not "resigning," though it was one of those things where I just knew when he came to see me, before he ever said a word.

Here's a common pattern.  Someone walks into my office and says "Got a minute?" while simultaneously reaching down to swing the door stop away so they can close the door.  I have a lot of those, eight or ten a week.   Two today.  Three, if you count the phone call.  I'm not officially the ombudsman, but it's one of the things I do.

Part of our building has had no air conditioning since early May.  (Not my part, fortunately.)  It shouldn't take ten weeks to replace air conditioning, but it's one of those cascade failures — the upgrade to new equipment required new connecting parts, it's larger size means that it has to be put onto a different part of the roof, that part of the roof needs new steel beams to support the AC chiller, we had to find a crane operator to lift the beams and chiller onto the roof, and the crane operator had to get permits from half a dozen city agencies to work from the sidewalk.  Might be working next week, maybe.  Hallways filled with fans.

Had the mail held for three and a half weeks.  Today was the delivery day.  No delivery.  Had to find the USPS confirmation code, call the 800 number, arrange to pick the bundle up at the Medford PO tomorrow morning at 7:30.  We'll see if it's there.

Calling Nora every two minutes to see if she can echo-locate her missing cell phone.  Hoping it's in the car, or in the apartment in NYC, and not at a New York Thruway rest stop somewhere.

I have to move offices again, the fourth office I'll have had in six years and the third in one year.  I'm moving into the part of the building where the AC is broken, but they won't make me move until it's re-installed.

I fixed up my CUR presentation and sent it to the dozen or so folks who asked for it.  Also sent it to a few colleagues within my school, but we don't really care about outside scholarly work, so it'll be mostly idle pixels.

No luck on the phone so far.  Nora's calling Verizon; if we're lucky, they might be able to electronically locate it within a few yards or so, and we can find out if it's in Paramus.  But we both have dumb phones, so it may have no GPS hidden within it.  They all did in the spy movies, though...

Need to look up resources for Nora.  Almost 10 pm, only 80 degrees, but still damp.  Tomorrow, 95, so count my blessings.