Zemblan Grammar

I am still alive, though only barely, after some hopped-up chowderhead hit my car on the highway the other day and then fled the scene. I am, healthwise, in the finest of fettles (or…something), though my car is pretty banged up and my bank account is steeling itself for the forthcoming death-blows. This event was, let’s say, not exactly what I had planned in the weeks before my cross-country trip.

Apparently, the “detective” “skills” I so often write about are purely fictional: I did not even get the bastard’s license number and no witnesses stopped to help. The world is all a bunch of low-down no-’counts, yadda yadda, insurance insufficient, they are all BLACKLISTED!, moving on now. Anyway, most importantly, I am fine: not hurt at all.

I have been significantly distracted over the last few days as a result, though, and have neglected a few of my current duties, including, of course, this blog. Other things I had planned to complete by tonight:

1. Current dissertation chapter

2. Purge of Unnecessary Personal Belongings (those items not worth the cost of moving them)

3. A post here explaining the dissertation & etc. for all you not already cursed with that knowledge (in response to reader John’s question)

Yeah, so, I did not complete those things, although with a few more squeezes (imagine my brain as a near-empty tube of toothpaste, brainpaste, maybe) the dissertation chapter will be over and done with, and then I can move to the last Nabokov chapter with glee and good spirits. Tomorrow night, maybe, if the book I need (which I had checked out and which was recalled from me by another student and which I decided to buy from Amazon) arrives on my doorstep.

I did manage to drop a car load of Unnecessary Personal Belongings at the local Goodwill donations center, and I have packed another load for tomorrow. (That all sounds like horrible euphemisms for biological functions, doesn’t it?) People, that’s not all: I will still likely have (at least?) one more load after that. You would not believe the amount of clothing I have managed to keep and to move with me nearly every year over the past, oh, dozen years. Seriously. One sweater I packed up for Goodwill tonight was originally purchased at the Goodwill in my hometown in 1994. Gentle people of Zembla, I bequeath it to you, rabbit-chewed holes and all.

(I swear I am not a hoarder!)

(But my parents seem to be, so who knows what could happen by the time I am fifty…)

(Oh dear dog.)

(And I seem to be saying dog in place of god now; I think it’s a solid move.)

As you can see, I am a bit scattered these days, and I likely will be until I get settled in in the new place in the new town and new school, and have a minute to gather my senses. Seeing that I’ll be finishing the Damned Dissertation as well as teaching four classes, though, I do not expect my senses to be fully gathered until approximately 2019. I assume the quality of writing here can only decline: consider this your warning.