Return from Self-Imposed Exile

I've been madly finishing my book manuscript, which was insanely overdue, and trying my best not to pay attention to any politics beyond our household debates over apple juice vs. orange juice and how much milk baby Eve should have in a day. (Both issues have been referred to a parliamentary commission, thank you.)

Book is done, sent to publisher for review. I am, as they say, cautiously optimistic, though there was one bad omen at the end. I emailed the book (390 pages, 106,000 words, about 1.4 million bytes), chapter by chapter, to our Department associate in St. Louis for her to print out and mail to the editors. Suddenly, she wasn't getting my emails. I sent everything a second time, waited a few hours, still nada. I called the computer technology czar at my university and left a slightly hysterical (no utterly hysterical) message on his answering machine. I called the computer help desk and....oh, never mind.

Anyway, the department associate eventually found my files -- in her "Trash" folder. It turned out that her email program had identified these emails (and these emails only) as "junk" and automatically redirected them -- without ceremony, without further ado -- into the recycle bin. So much for ten years of work.

Ok, but she found them. And I don't really believe in omens.

More soon on German politics, neo-Nazis, Jews and blues.


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