Random bullets of DONE

So I finally finished the essay that has eaten my life and blog of late. Here's what you missed:

• The weekend before last, I was supposed to attend a conference. I feared having my flight(s) canceled due to weather, but in fact my flight was canceled because, after a passenger had a panic attack and demanded that we return to the gate, the two flight attendants started fighting--and may or may not actually have come to blows. The pilot refused to fly with them, so we were deboarded and our entirely full flight canceled right before the region got hit with a foot of snow.
• I adore the conference in question and was sorry to miss it--but I'd been so stressed out about my essay and resenting the conference for falling when it did that it was rather nice to have an Act of God (or of petty, venal human nature) grant me an unexpected five-day weekend.
• That night saw our first serious storm of the season, and it snowed for a good 24 hours. So I sat on my sofa with cats and coffee, working and watching the snow.
• And slowly, the essay got better.
• The hardest part were the first seven or eight pages, which will form the core of the new introduction to my book. Synthesizing, theorizing, and abstracting are not chief among my intellectual talents.
• But it felt enormously productive. And now I have half an introduction written!
• An hour after I emailed my essay to the symposium organizers, my colleague Jack came over and we and Cosimo headed across the street to the museum/art house theatre that hosts an annual Oscars party.
• Because Flavia has a closet full of clothes for a life other than the one she actually leads, there were rhinestones, elbow-length gloves, vintage Ferragamo heels, and a deco Whiting & Davis purse, topped off with a big fox-fur stole. (There was a dress, too--black taffeta and vaguely Dior New Look-ish--but that was really just a backdrop for the accessories.)
• Okay: I looked a little insane.
• But the party was such fun. The museum is in a restored mansion, and the whole house was decorated for the party, complete with a dance floor and a fantastic band in the conservatory. The attached movie theatre was running a live screening of the Academy Awards, so we wandered in and out, watching for a while, then hitting the dance floor, then getting more food and drink, then wandering back in.
• Did I mention that my essay is DONE? And spring break just a week away? I couldn't have celebrated in happier fashion.