Well, not very clear. But extremely cool.
Slowly but surely I’m pulling things back together from my crash of two weeks ago. One note: a couple of old friends (one of my wedding party from 17+ years ago, another old associate) e-mailed me just before the crash; I didn’t have time to reply before the messages were lost. If you’re one of those people, and you mailed me about two weeks ago and haven’t received a reply, please mail me again. While there’s a chance that those mails may be recoverable from the busted drive, it’s not an absolute guarantee.
I love this.
(snort)
She�s No Longer Jenny From the Block, J. Lo Concedes: The actress and diva retracts 16 words from her hit song…
I see that since the end of June or thereabouts, when I started using the new version of Blogger Pro, the “generate RSS” toggle has been “off”. Sorry, all; that must have been the new version’s default. It’s turned on now. (Not that I’ve had a whole lot of time for blogging between July 4 and now, as will become apparent when you read some of the entries.)
This far.
(a) Hear car horn tooting outside. Think, “Oh, it’s the mailman with a package.” Get up and run out the front door to the gate. Huh? No mailman. Stand there puzzled, getting slightly rained on.
(b) Hear more tooting from behind the house. Turn around to see that it’s not the mailman at all, but just your landlord herding his sheep in his Land Rover.
(c) Go back in the house and continue answering e-mail. And reflect (in passing) that, even in these bucolic surroundings, with the swans producing cygnets and swallows nesting under the eaves, you seem to get as much dong-enlargement spam as anyone else.
“Seriously.” See: http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=yabs&article=1636. Including: Galactus tries out a chat room: Galactus eats the Moon (and afterwards he’s sorry. Well, as Anna Russell would say, “How like a Galactic eating machine possessed of the Power Supernal [or whatever it is].”). And much, much more.
…Well, what are you waiting for, puny Earthlings? Abase yourselves already. (And the blogger rolls her eyes in a good-natured way.)
“How weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world…”
Trust a master, indeed the greatest Master so far of the English language, to make the best use out of a word for urine. For once upon a time, “stale” wasn’t just something that happened to bread after a few days. A beast’s “stale” was evidence that it had been somewhere, usually in the form of its having peed there.
I’m on Central Park South tonight, and in this hot, humid weather, what you mostly smell is the stale of the horses that wait, harnessed to their carriages, to take tourists for rides in Central Park. The City has regulations that keep the horses from working in too-hot or too-cold weather. But so far it has no laws I know of that can keep horse pee from breaking down into its components, especially in this weather. C.P.S reeks a bit tonight.
More than a bit.
Not that I care. I’m on my way home now. The night before last was spent in the Regency, which I’d booked some days ago. However, business in NY meant that I had to spend another night, and the Regency had no room for me. So I moved on to the Plaza, to visit the sublime and world-famous Eloise. Some patience on my part resulted in the kindly staff there giving me room 721, in which an escapee from Versailles seems to have run amuck with gold leaf. (I say nothing of the marble fireplace.)
But the Plaza too was full again today, meaning I had to change hotels once more come the evening. The Park Lane this time, 33rd floor (“Oh, I can’t go higher than the 6th floor,” said the plump, nervous lady next to me at checkin. “Are you happy being that high? “I run fast,” I said, “and besides, I’m not fated to die in a hotel fire.” (“What makes you SAY these things to people?” says my vaguely outraged conscience. Well, the same kind of thing that makes that lady expound, to total strangers, on why she can’t bear to be housed above the 6th floor. Too Much Information…)
No matter. Today was spent doing minor business in town, seeing the noble Don The Agent, an d sliding gently toward the evening, mostly eating sushi (the best thing to eat in this hot weather).
Tomorrow night I fly home. Late tomorrow night I see dawn over Ireland.
Thank You God. The air is stale tonight…but not for long.
I got the job done. Now I can go home…and start the next job.
I can’t wait for August. How wonderful it’s going to be to have one or two days together when I can lie around the house and not do anything.
Not just yet, though. This is just one of those busy times….
And, strangely enough, that’s where I am right now, due to a series of circumstances too weird to relate (and indeed I can’t relate them now, or probably for some months to come; it wouldn’t be appropriate).
It’s something work-related…so this is not going to be a holiday in the sun. It’s urgent. And I have to finish The Empty Chair at the same time I’m handling this thing.
Whoopee.
Nonetheless, it’s going to have been a good thing to have done when I’m done with it, finally. With luck that’ll be in about a week and a half. Santa Monica is lovely this time of year…but I can’t wait to get home.
But, as they say, 
“she who peeps through the keyhole will see what will vex her.”
Well, I’m not vexed as such. But I guess there’s nothing that Some People won’t merchandise…
(Thanks to the Accordion Guy for the link.)
Did Aaron Sorkin really have the last episode of year 4 in his mind when he wrote this dialogue, all that while ago? Or did he just look at it in retrospect and think, “Yeah, that looks like a good way to play it, let’s go…”?
BARTLET
My getting killed would be bad enough,
but that is not the nightmare scenario.
The nightmare scenario, sweetheart, is
you getting kidnapped! You go out to a
bar or a party in some club and you get
up and you go to the restroom and
somebody comes from behind and puts
his hand across your mouth and drags
you out the back door. You're so
petrified you don't even notice the
bodies of a few Secret Service agents
lying on the ground with bullet holes
in their heads. Then you're driven away
in the car. It's a big party with lots of
noise and lots of people coming and
going, and it's a half hour before
someone says, "Hey, where's
Zoey?" It's another fifteen minutes
before the first phone call. It's another
hour and a half before anyone even
thinks to shut down all the airports!
Now we're off to the races! You're tied
to a chair in a cargo shack somewhere
in the middle of Uganda and I am told
that I have 72 hours to get Israel to
free 460 imprisoned terrorists. So I'm
on the phone pleading with Binyamin
and he's saying: "I'm sorry, Mr.
President, but Israel simply does not
negotiate with terrorists, period, it's
the only way we can survive." So now
we got a new problem because this
country no longer has a Commander-
in-chief, but a father going out of his
mind because his little girl is in a
shack somewhere in the middle of
Uganda with a gun to her head! Do
you get it?!
ZOEY
Yes.
(sigh) There are some images from that last episode that keep repeating
on me like a bowl of one of Peter’s more aggressive chilies. Particularly those
washed-out monochrome images of that single terrified eye…