There is a crazy mutant dog staring at me from the side of a plastic sack that Katina brought to Genoa. I think it's called a dogasaurus but what it's really called is freaking me out.

The candle is starting to burn low on my time here in Genoa, which has had a number of unpleasant side effects, most notably serious anxiety about what work I can and should be devoting my time to for the next few days. Plus packing. Plus buying thank-you gifts for the archive and my roommates. Plus mailing packages home to keep from having to lug too much gear across Europe. Plus finding the best way to ship my backup hard drive home. Plus trying to get together any grant applications I might want to do. Excuse me while I try to neutralize the acid in the pit of my stomach with booze. Just kidding. Or, am I?

On the up side, the people in the archive have been extremely helpful, courteous, and kind. Once again, I'm confronted with a situation in which I don't want to go into specifics, but let's just say 'creative accounting slash reasonable discretionary rule-spirit preserving slash rule-letter breaking'-type behavior. Ask if you're curious.

In any case, I'll be bringing home a pretty darn impressive amount of material to work with for the next months and years. I'll likely need to finish out a few things and shore up a few oversights during a future trip (very brief) in the summer or fall, but once all the hand-wringing and anxiety-stoking are over I think I will be extremely happy with what I've gotten done and (unless I should squander it) I've built up a good head of steam to move on into reading and writing.

I got to take my marital property into the archive for a bit this afternoon, and showed her part of a late medieval legal case involving property damage (in this case the burning of a large quantity of salt). She wasn't as in to it as I was and am but hey, there's no shame in that.

GAME OVER
INSERT A QUARTER TO CONTINUE