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As Empty of Meaning as the State of My Brain

Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - 11:00

A "completist" entry in this series, but as my summary points out, not of particular interest to the Project. Which aligns fairly well with my current mood. Let me tell you about the last 12 hours. I was supposed to fly out of SFO this morning at 08:30 (going to Chicago for Worldcon), which meant setting my alarm to get up at 05:00 to get BART to the airport. My attempt to get my full complement of sleep by going to bed early failed (general anxiety about travel schedules does that), so I'm not sure I had actually slept yet when the text arrived around midnight saying our plane was not leaving its origin, due to the crew timing out, and the flight was being rescheduled for 13:30.

In theory, this meant that I could turn off my early-morning alarms, sleep in to a reasonable hour, and then make a leisurely trip to the airport at a rational hour. In reality, I still didn't sleep well. And since I'd deliberately used the trip as an excuse to use up my perishables and I'd left the kitchen spotless for the house-sitter, I'd have to leave the house to get breakfast and coffee anyway, so I just headed for the airport as soon as I was up. Had a nice leisurely brunch (complimentary, courtesy of the Airline food vouchers). But I'm now at that state where I'm pre-exhausted and looking at not getting into Chicago until dinner time (Pacific Stomach Time) and then have to take the train into the city and find the hotel before I can have dinner.

But all in all, my strategy of allowing an extra day before the convention (I'm volunteering at Reg tomorrow, but it wouldn't be a disaster if I'd had to cancel that), and scheduling an early flight (so the back-up plan still has me flying on the same day) means this is all just par for the course for Travel These Days. I am confirmed in my rule of thumb to always leave an extra day leeway when I have to be somewhere on a specific date.

None of this has anything to do with singlehood in classical Rome, but I'm not planning on posting the links to this entry anyway so no one is likely to read this and I can just grouse and be grumpy in peace. So...grump.

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Full citation: 

Petrova, Mina. 2019. “Single as a ‘Lena’: The Depiction of Procuresses in Augustan Literature” in Sabine R. Huebner & Christian Laes (eds), The Single Life in the Roman and Later Roman World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-1-108-47017-9

Publication summary: 

A collection of papers addressing (and definine) the state of "singleness" in the Roman Empire, both in pre-Christian and early Christian times. There is a strong focus on Egypt as well as Rome proper, as well as wider Byzantine material. Comparative material is offered from Jewish sources, as well as a small selection of studies from specific cultures of more modern date.

Petrova, Mina. “Single as a ‘Lena’: The Depiction of Procuresses in Augustan Literature”

This article looks at the associations in Roman society between singleness in women and sex work, whether directly or as a procuress (lena). Although focused on women, this chapter has no particular relevance to the Project.

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