Archives for March 2005

I’m up for OGIC’s challenge (see above), so here goes nothing. I should add that I drew up my list before I saw hers:

1. “I was misinformed.” (Casablanca)

2. “Build my gallows high, baby.” (Out of the Past)

3. “You were a very apt pupil!” (Vertigo)

4. “Closer than that, Walter.” (Double Indemnity)

5. “Men are all either dates, potential dates, or date substitutes.” (Metropolitan)

As I headed down to Broadway earlier this evening to see a press preview of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, I passed another cab with a sign on the roof that said TILT. Omigod, can everybody tell? I thought.

What’s with me, you may ask? Well, as Dr. Johnson might have replied, you may ask. On top of showing my dear departed houseguest the town, I wrote and filed five pieces in the past six days, which is way the hell over my quota. Nor am I quite done: I still have to write Friday’s Wall Street Journal drama column, finish the lectures
I’ll be giving in Washington next Monday and Wednesday, then go to Washington and give them, briefly returning to New York to attend the Tuesday-night press opening of New York City Opera’s revival of Candide and file a review the following morning. Then I’m done, meaning that I can resume work on Hotter Than That: A Life of Louis Armstrong.

Yikes. Arrgh. Sheesh.

What happened? Perhaps the fact that I’ve been so outrageously happy of late caused me to let my guard down and forget that I don’t really control the weather. Whenever that happens, I have a nasty but predictable tendency to say yes to people–friends, editors, publicists, strangers on the phone–with no less predictably exhausting results not long after the fact. Which is where I am tonight, which is why I’m feeling slightly bent out of shape, as in not unlike a drunken gymnast.

Alas, there’s not a whole lot I can do for the next couple of weeks but keep on keeping on. Then I’ll have six days’ worth of breathing room before I return to Washington on March 22 to attend my first National Council on the Arts meeting. My plan is to spend a couple of those days holed up in my favorite undisclosed location. I know, I know, if you want to hear God laugh, make a plan…but this time I’m soooo not kidding.

And will I do it all over again? Probably. But the intervals between my spasms of pathological overwork are slowly but surely lengthening. That’s progress, right? (Right.) What’s more, you’ve doubtless noticed that I’ve eased off the blogging pedal in recent days, which is another kind of progress. In addition, I’m getting a reasonable if not excessive amount of sleep–and I haven’t forgotten to laugh at myself, either.

Don’t worry about me. I’ll get through this in one piece, and I’ll even learn a little something about myself in the process. Meanwhile, I promise to blog along the way. When I have time. And only if I feel like it.

Later.

“Chris was not so innocent as to believe that perfectly requited love was the only kind that lasted. As counselor he had listened to a hundred tales of one-way love, unilateral love, hopeless love. Of course there were love stories with happy endings and there were love stories that never seemed to end at all (for years after Chris’s mother died, his father went on loving her memory), but Chris knew that love for some was a continual giving without getting, love spilling from the heart like water from a hillside spring, love bubbling up from a vast reservoir and coursing off as unrestrained as a river to the sea.”

Jon Hassler, The Love Hunter

Alas, I’ll have to extend my absence from this space for one day more. I don’t have a hundred deadlines, and the dog didn’t eat my homework. Story is, I’m entertaining tonight–something I haven’t done in an embarrassingly long time. So there’s cleaning to do, recycling to schlep, groceries to buy, pasta e fagioli to make. What’s the occasion? You might well ask. If you’re the least bit television-aware, you will probably be able to guess when I tell you that:

a) all of my guests are of the female persuasion, and

b) meow.

On the other side, I’ll have laugh-out-loud Henry James (really!), a new blog meme (if it doesn’t exhaust itself by then), and a very enthusiastic new book recommendation. Tomorrow, my lovelies.

“In our street we have friends with lots in common. We discuss new books, films, popular culture, politics–everything except serious music. That shuts everyone up. I don’t think they even know what I do.”

John Adams (courtesy of oboeinsight)