After meticulous planning and making firm appointments in three cities I went to bed early last night planning to drive out of town at 6:30am this morning, heading for southeast Romania. Seeing how hard I had worked and prepared, God decided to screw me and dropped four inches of snow on northeastern Romania last night. Since snow plows are expensive, when it snows like this in Romania they simply close the roads, so I am trapped in Iasi for another day.

This is just the latest in an unholy series of events perpetrated by the Almighty, the elements and Romanian bureaucracy to thwart any chance of me hitting my deadlines in June. I’ve sent a letter to my editor for comment on my deteriorating productivity and to inquire about any payment penalties that Lonely Planet invokes if an author drives his car into a gorge out of frustration.

As the temperatures will be above freezing all day, the snow should melt significantly and I should be able to leave tomorrow, pushing everything back a day and forcing me to do the bulk of my research in the large and busy city of Constanta on Sunday, when none of the travel resources that I will be needing will be open for business. I may actually have to delay the trip until Monday, putting me a whopping 2 weeks behind my original schedule.

So this is what utter doom feels like. A scintillating mix of anxiety, panic, hopelessness, mental fatigue and indigestion. Fascinating.