It's in the cards, dummy

So I have been trying to get into the habit of drawing a random card from my Tarot deck every day: a snapshot, if you will, a heads-up barometer of how things are (or how they're about to be). And the results have been truly uncanny. I mentioned one card in passing about a week ago, but didn't really say much more about it, and hadn't planned to. Until today.

One of the poetry books I'm teaching this fall was written by a friend. And I thought it would be great if he could perhaps visit my class, so I invited him. I couldn't invite him to give a proper reading--these things are scheduled at least a year in advance, we're a small campus, coordinating among several departments is mind-numbing--but a class visit, and an informal lunch talk, yeah, that I figured I could manage.

I realized that I needed to tap into some of the money that's available for this sort of thing, so I did some research, talked to colleagues, downloaded the proper forms. And it turns out that I need a sponsoring department before I can go to anyone else as a cosponsor. Okay, no problem, but time is running short, and classes are starting, and though I've talked informally with someone from my potential sponsoring department--and then followed up with an e-mail--I haven't heard back. Days pass. I send a follow-up e-mail, forwarding and amplifying my initial request. And there's still no response. I'm teaching, I'm running from meeting to meeting, there's course materials to load on Blackboard, the projection monitor doesn't work in my 8:30 class and I have to schedule a tech appointment--those of you who teach know exactly the myriad ways that one's time gets fractured and pummeled during any given day (and then the next, and so on). So I'm waiting to hear back, because I need Sponsor #1 before requesting any moolah from #2, and I'm starting to realize that I have absolutely no idea how to coordinate a simple campus visit, like do I need to keep track of five or six account numbers? assuming I get co-sponsorship from that many departments and organizations? And so I talk with another colleague, who explains that the sponsoring department pays for everything from their budget, and all the other donors just transfer their allotted funds into that budget at the appropriate time.

Okay, okay, that makes sense, but I still haven't heard back from #1. So I e-mail again, something polite but you know, kind of desperate, like "I'm still waiting, he-he, and could ya just say yes or nay b/c time's running short and all?"

And I hear back, immediately, that #1 has not only okayed this gig, but okayed it twice. It's embarrassing, yes, but I'm also scratching my head: WTF??

Turns out my Junk Mail Filter is randomly sucking in e-mails. They never make it to my In Box. I contacted someone at the Tech Desk who said oh yeah, her junk filter was acting up too.

So I unjunked my "real" e-mails, sent a thank you/apology to #1, and then I sent another e-mail: a general "hey guys, sorry if I've been slow to respond to anything, but my mail filter is junking your e-mails and I just found out." Now I'm not STUPID, I did not send this second e-mail to, like, FIFTY people or anything, only to the handful whose e-mails I un-junked an hour ago.

So I get a reply, a very helpful reply, from a colleague, with a very helpful tech-suggestion, and as I'm reading his message I realize that MY message--like a long strand of toilet paper stuck unbeknownst to my shoe--MY message has an earlier message attached to it. It's not, fortunately, the panicky desperate one from today. It's the initial message, asking #1 to help sponsor the campus visit. So now a bunch of people who have no need to know about this project (not that it hurts at all that they do) can--and probably have--read the whole length of that piece of toilet paper.

It's no big deal. It could have been worse. It could have been AWFUL.

Which brings us to today's card, the card I turned this morning, before my 8:00 class, the one I puzzled over, not seeing how it might relate to my day. Not heeding its warning.

You've probably guessed: it's The Fool.