safe and sound....sort of

So I'm now carrying around a "Researcher" card as a souvenir from the National Archives. Whoo-hoo. It has my picture on it and everything. I should probably stop carrying this thing around today but the whole trip and experience was so surreal that I guess my access card proves to me that it all really took place.

I had to go to the archives in College Park, MD for the things that I needed after confirming at the D.C. archive site that they were, indeed, in CP. A free shuttle scooted through the city to get there from downtown DC. I didn't know what to expect, so what I encountered, I'm guessing, will shape all other archival experiences, yes? Puh-retty interesting....

Lockers provided space for all of our stuff. Nothing could be brought into the research area. Paper and pencils were around, if needed, for notes. My computer could have come in, but I chose not to bring it so I could focus on scouring the archives, making photocopies of what I needed, and taking notes later. Which means the next two weeks of sorting, writing, sorting, etc.

The initial smaller "search room" had binders and binders along the walls that pinpointed what the archives actually contained. One folder had "Federal Music Project" on it. Score! So this one told me what file number I needed and gave a quick summary of its contents. Then another binder told me where these things were: Record Group number, shelf number, box number, etc. A "pull slip" served as my "order" form. I could take out enough boxes to fill one cart at a time, which turned about to be about 23 or 24 boxes per cart.

"24 boxes at a time!??!?!" you say? "How many can there be?" Yes, I hear ya. My thoughts exactly.

The order form goes in and is picked up only at specific times by the "runners." This is my term for the perky grad students, college locals, or budding researchers who work at the archives and keep that place running in accordance to all the friggin' rules.

The "pull times" are 10am, 11am, 1:30, 2:30 and 3:30. This is the tricky part of the whole sha-bang. You are guaranteed to get your materials within one hour of picking them up. But, you can only have one cart at a time signed out. The book that summarized the contents was VERY GENERAL in its summary, and I quickly learned that an entire "file" (of 24 boxes) could be useless after a quick glance in a few files. So then I had nothing to do until another pull time. And so on.

Mon dieu!!!

I quickly learned to overlap my materials. One cart would come out but another pull slip was already in. Once pulled, those carts could sit in the back for up to 3 days, so I figured I'd gather a whole "Brady" area and at least be able to pick and choose what I needed rather than wait for it.

To put it MILDLY, this was an exhausting process. Two 9 hour days in College Park and my eyes were playing tricks on me, my dehydration level was dangerously low, and my multi-tasking nature had been shut down. Focus. Find any document that even MENTIONS Buffalo. Copy it. Return it to its place in the folder. Return folder to its place in the box (marked with a special Archives place marker. For real. I got yelled at for not having my place marker in a box that moved chronologically by YEAR. Sheesh!). Return box to cart. Grab new box. Repeat the last seven sentences. Again. And Again.

We stayed with my cousin the night we arrived in Baltimore and the night before we left to come back to The Buff. While unwinding on Weds and getting ready for the next big day, he asked me (like most good family members) what the hell I was working on (in a nutshell). I told him. He asked me if I'd be disappointed if I didnt' find something in particular (since I mentioned that no less than three professional archivists made it clear that they were not sure what I'd find "in there"). I said that there were a few "golden nugget" holes in my argument that COULD be cleared up IF the evidence is in a box somewhere and IF I could find such a box. Gulp.

And nuggets I found! This was the thing. I was exhausted but completely wrapped up in piecing this chapter together. It was like a soap opera unfolding with names and places and people coming along on all of this official letterhead. What has been written in Buffalo about the story I am trying to tell seems anecdotal or filled with conjecture. Some even contradicts each other.

Well, I've got the story, baby! It sits next to me on my desk, freshly sorted into color- coordinated folders (in chronological order according to the rainbow--red, yellow, green, blue, purple). Five years of federal documents explaining the painstaking process of implementing the New Deal in Buffalo's orchestral circle. Complete with turmoil, backstabbing, scandal, hand-wringing, pleas for more jobs, and heart-felt appreciation for the FMP.!!!!!! Whoo-hoo!!!! Holy f@ckin' moly.

I hope someone will care about this someday besides me (smile).

On the other side of things, we returned to home Monday to find one of our Beta fish doing weird things (he is Rojo, a feisty deep red one. Usually a tough little sucker) and floating around strangely in his little bowl. He didn't even respond when we held Psycho (short for psychedelic, a beautifully tie-dyed sort of Beta) up close. Hmmmmm....

One of our TVs shut itself off after 5 minutes. Won't turn back on.

My wireless router is "connected" but my computer isn't gettin' it. I've tried everything except a phone call to Verizon. I don't have that kind of time. Out came the DSL cord.

My microwave clock was set at "0:00." No other clocks were blinking or wrong.

My washing machine refuses to spin on its own. It simply stops at "spin." We have to go down in the basement and manually push the dial a bit more into the "spin" cycle for it to work.

But, I found the Nano.

I can only guess that my little house missed us and is pitching a fit. Now that we're back home and I have two weeks off from the greenhouse to write all this stuff into a chapter, maybe my home will become familiar, once again, with the sounds coming from my office......quick clicks from my computer keypad, the pouring of coffee, Groove Salad internet radio, me talking to myself, my slippers shuffling around the hardwood, etc. I cannot stop what I'm doing to call maintenance people and I have faith (oh, yes.....) that the kinks associated with Extreme Research (a new cable show, perhaps?!?!?! Hours and hours of bleary-eyed, frantic members of the Nerd Kingdom searching for that golden nugget!?!?!) will work themselves out as my chapter comes together.

Come on, lil' house. Let's get ourselves back in order. Deep breath.......exhale. Let's go.

Faith and Clocks restored, me thinks....

Regarding yesterday's post, I fell asleep easily after watching Obama's speech from Chicago. I slept like a log. I woke up feeling fresh and clear. Perhaps my internal clock is adjusting. Finally.

I'm packing for D.C. right now and much less nervous about the trip and the research. Friends and family have wished me luck and have reassured my nervousness with lots of, "You'll be fine!"s and "What a cool thing to do!"s (meaning going into the National Archives. And yes, it is cool. For real). So, I'm returning to my usual energized self.

I got all of my midterms graded, classes taught, and clothing washed. Everything in order.

Now, I am a disorderly organized person. I used to be a huge slob (former roommates can surely attest). As I have learned to keep things in certain places and whatnot, I have also noticed that I tend to "lose" things as I multi-task. I put things in their place and forget where that place is. *Sigh.* Back on 7/23, I bemoaned my missing Nano, only to slowly remember where I placed it. I also described what I felt was my shaky faith that someone had lifted my iPod and iShuffle from my house during some remodeling. That notion had always made me uncomfortable.

Well......

I am riddled with faults, and I should have kept that faith in the world all this time (I really did give up hope on the iPod and iShuffle....) and the past few days have confirmed my notion that the world is, indeed, filled with more good than bad.

Yesterday while DESPERATELY searching through Diss notes, crouched on the floor of my office opening folders and skimming my own terrible handwriting, my pen rolled under my office desk. I reached under there only to grab MY IPOD AND ISHUFFLE!!!!! How the hell they were there? I simply do not know. NOTHING in my memory tracks my movements in any way toward putting them there. I can only assume that they had been lying on the floor and simply pushed out of the way and under my desk by other "organized" crap needing the room.

So, I never found the reference I need for my D.C. trip, but I have faith that either I'll remember it on my own as I wind my way through lovely southern NY and PA into D.C. 0r, I'll be able to obtain the book itself (where the info is) at the ol' Library of Congress itself. And, although my iPod and iShuffle were hidden from view, I should have known that they were still around.

I'm wondering about the climate in D.C. over the next few days due to the election. I expect tourism to be down (yes!) because most had to be home to vote yesterday. I also expect a certain faction of political people in D.C. to be hittin' the sauce pretty heavily at happy hour (ha ha). I expect I'll be able to judge from the looks on their faces who voted for whom.

But as Obama said last night, we all need to keep hope and faith part of our everyday outlook, and that the outlook must also extend to the future. I hope the McCain supporters can stop for a moment and become supporters of all of us. I have faith that they will.

I also have faith that when I get back from D.C., I'll be able to find the Nano......cuz it's hiding now, too. (Sheesh!!) Maybe it figures it's time for a change as well.......

daylight "wasting time"

I took a nap on Saturday!!!!! For real! In the afternoon. For two hours. This is a beloved behavior off mine that I have missed dearly. I felt so refreshed and calm and mellow after that 40-winks. Ahhhhhh.

Then the clocks changed.

I have never really been a procrastinator. What needs to get done becomes part of a prioritized list in my lil' noggin (or in my Steno pad) that my days respond to and accomplish. I'd rather just do it and get it over with than let it hang and become a problem (i.e. stress).

I have noticed, however, that as I've gotten older and am working from home and have all of these jobs, that my Task Master sometimes goes on strike, if you will. Instead of getting things done, my TM will find deliciously nonsensical things to do instead. It's making me crazy. I'm making me crazy. I leave for D.C. to do archive research TOMORROW, today is the election, my son is home from school, I have nineteen different appointments and I have mid-terms to grade (that have been staring at me in my office for two weeks now. TWO WEEKS!?!?! Holy hell!).

And, I am exhausted. To the core. I start fading at like, 8:30pm (which until just a few days ago, was 9:30pm) because it's dark at friggin' 5:30. My evenings seem to crawl by, and as I try to go to bed early because I'm tired, I get a second wind. So I'm up til midnight watching my free HBO and Cinemax (part of a new cable package---only free for a few more bittersweet weeks) and accomplishing nothing except becoming addicted to strange vampire shows ("True Blood" on HBO) and watching "The Shawshank Redemption" for the 1287th time (without commercials, though!). And, I'm waking up at 6:15am as the sun comes up, even though my room is as dark as a cave and could get 90 more minutes of sleep.....Grrrrrrrr.......

Mon dieu!

There is absolutely no way that I will get my list done today. To prove that point, I have an hour before I have to leave the house, and instead of knocking off a few mid-terms, I AM BLOGGING.

I will need the Nano in the car today for sure. I'm anxious and jittery. Here are the top five reasons why (in my own rationalizing state of sleep deprivation/appreciation):

1. Today is the election. I live in Buffalo. If I hear one more fucking racist remark that only proves how ignorant the speaker is I'm going to fucking scream. For real. That shit bothers me. For real. It doesn't roll off. I can't shake feeling anxious for the future--not because of the President but because of the intolerance I often see around me (remove the "P" from President and I think I've located the REAL problem in America.....). It stops me in my tracks, and clogs up the gears on this spinning wheel. I can't even explain it I'm so bungled up (maybe a post for another day). Go Obama.

2. I have never researched in an archive before, and certainly not one out of town, paid for by a grant, in the nation's capital THE DAY AFTER THE ELECTION. Jesus. How am I going to sleep tonight?

3. My students---I have been frazzled and distracted lately and they can see it. I know I'm only part-time, but I like that job and want to do it well. And I don't think I've been up to par lately.

4. My family and friends. I haven't been keeping up with them either. When I have time to call or chat, I don't (some form of procrastinating, I think?!?!). Sorry guys. This, too, shall pass?

5. Oh, I don't know.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring some clarity as I will run myself ragged today, have absolutely no down time and drop like a sack of potatoes into my bed later (and sleep well).

In the past when I get overwhelmed, I turn to music to even myself out. I will do so today, but I can't even predict what how my fingers will guide my little Nano's song wheel today. It could be "Sundown" by Gordon Lightfoot or "Break Stuff" by Limp Bizkit. No way to tell.

I am not naive enough to think that when I wake up tomorrow I will feel differently. This shit going on in mi vida loca takes time to work itself out. But, maybe I can feel just a LITTLE differently somehow. Just a teeny tiny bit. For real.

Ok. I think I'll start with Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" and go from there........