is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

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The Content of Forms.

The Content of Forms.

So I can�t find the title to my car. Which means I can�t register my car in Pennsylvania. Which means that I have to get a duplicate title for my car from California. Which means I have to fill out a form. But in order to get the title mailed to me here, I have to update my California DMV address record to show that I live in Pennsylvania. That requires that I fill out another form, and send it to a different address. Then, if all that works, I�ll be able to register my car in Pennsylvania. Because it�s the LAW. (In fact it�s the law that I do that within 60 days of arriving in PA. Oops.)

I just found out today that I�m supposed to get a Pennsylvania driver�s license within TWENTY days of moving here. That�s not what my Pennsylvania insurance agent told me, so I don�t feel so bad about that, and I doubt they�re actually going to check when I go and get my license. (Oh, and by the way, when I go to get my license, I have to go to a place in Norristown, twenty minutes away, for the license. Then, weeks later, when I get my license card in the mail, I have to go to a place in Bryn Mawr called a �photo license center� (shouldn�t it be license photo center? shouldn�t it?) to get the photo for the license taken and put into the license card.) I was going to go and get the license today, but I spent a bunch of hours figuring out the car-title thing, and finding the addresses of the various places I have to go to for registering in PA (there is a third place for registering the vehicle once I regain my title, as it were) and ran out of time.

I filled out many many forms today! One of those forms was on shiny paper. I used one of those roller-ball ink pens on it, because those are the pens I use. But then the ink would not dry. Would. Not. Dry. [pause.] At All. I waited twenty minutes and the shit was still not dry. So I tried to go over the roller-ball ink pen markings with a ball-point pen (but first it took me a while to locate such a writing implement, because I don�t use ball point pens!) but the ball-point pen wouldn�t take to the shiny paper either. Apparently I am a TOTAL LOOSER. (Heidi used to forget, constantly, the difference between loser and looser. Always funny. I tried to help her by making up a pneumatic device for her: �When you lose a game, you say [in mad tone] �oh!�, but when someone loosens your belt, you say [in happy tone] �oh, oh!�� But that didn�t work so well because she thought of all the reasons why one might say oh, oh when one loses a game and etc. And the failure of my mnemonic device is, my friends, A Very Heidi Situation. Heidi: It�s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!)

Anyway, so I was sad about the messy look of my glossy and slightly smeared and two-kinds-of-pen application. It offended my sense of order. So I found the same form on-line and started to print it out, but my printer told me I needed more printer ink. So I loaded up the printer ink, and did all the annoying test runs, and printed the form, and half way through filling it out, I noticed that it was not exactly the same form.

I have not even described for you every single annoying thing that happened today, because it would bore you to tears.

It�s just the way it has to be sometimes. Forms must be filled, technology must be appeased, and, once it is appeased, it still doesn�t get you what you want.

However, I did have a good time in my class this morning, discussing Alison Young's book with my students and our guest for the day, my friend and colleague Marianne, who is a professor of aesthetics. Alison's book is about law's relation to art and art's relation to law, and I am used to thinking about law and Marianne is used to thinking about art, so it was a good conversation, and the students had a lot to say, too.

And I also went and had dinner with a friend in Bryn Mawr today. We talked about philosophy. Tomorrow I am having dinner with KazanjianMan! On Friday I have a meeting of my faculty seminar. For that I�ve spent all week reading Marx, Trotsky and Lenin. Does the revolution require terror? Depends on who you ask.

I look forward to a weekend of getting some work done, finally.

12:09 a.m. - November 17, 2005

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