AT&*^%$#@!T

During the week here in Paris, I get up every day at 6:45 am. (Waits for assorted Genentech readers to compose themselves). Thus, it was a luxury today to sleep until noon. When I finally got up to face the day, I had two objectives - end the day with clean clothes, and restored access to my old e-mail account.

I was 50% successful. Found a laundromat nearby, managed to assemble the appropriate detergent balls and drier sheets, to fend off the homeless woman who kept lurking by the drier (maybe she had a thing for black Levi's?), so that my wardrobe for the next week is fragrant and spotless.

The less said about the second objective, the better. One has to think of one's blood pressure. Let's just say that things started to go downhill when the AT&T "help" drone in Bangalore told me that he wouldn't be able to help me, as I wasn't calling from the home phone number to which my AT&T e-mail account is linked. I confess to having been considerably less civil than in my previous interaction with the AUDRA-person. I also think that my indignation was entirely justified.

At any rate, I am still unable to access my old e-mail account. The longer I am locked out, the less I am beginning to care. I have set up a new e-mail account on Gmail. The address has the following form:

myfirstnamemymiddleinitialmylastname@gmail.com

If I remind you that my middle name is Michael, presumably you can figure it out from there, once I tell you that everything before the @-sign is a single "word", no spaces, no dashes or dots. If you can't figure it out, maybe it's for the best; one likes one's e-mail correspondents to be of a certain minimum intelligence.

Sorry if this sounds snarky - attribute it to too much time spent dealing with the vile minions of AT&*&^%$#@!**T over the past days.

In other news, it was another glorious day here in Paris. I am enjoying the remainder of last night's bottle of Sancerre, and watching NCIS reruns in French. Life is good, and je m'en fiche de AT&*^%$#@!T.