Anticipation

Here I am, up at 3 a.m. printing out maps of the various locations in L.A. we'll be visiting next weekend. We get a late start Saturday, arriving in the afternoon. We decided to do our own thing on Saturday and probably will catch the surrealism exhibit at the art center. Dinner, maybe a little site seeing. I always like to drop by Pasadena and reminisce about my wonderful childhood there. Sunday is busy! We'll pick up L. in the morning, have a leisurely breakfast, get to the opera house around noon so I can wander and take photos, there's a pre-show lecture at 1, the opera at 2. When we get out, the Oscar red carpet thing will be starting but I don't know if that's close to the opera house or not. I wouldn't mind being in traffic with movie stars. At any rate, it's to friends for dinner and visiting Sunday night. Monday morning breakfast with another friend. We don't fly out till late afternoon. So it's a short but busy visit. We return in June for a wedding but, alas, this is in the middle of finals for me, so I'll bring along a stack of papers to grade. Just as well, I'm not big on weddings anyway, gives me an excuse to escape the hoopla.

Return from LA the first time ready for March Madness! Return from LA the second time ready for summer! Not bad.

Maybe, this afternoon, I can finish the chapter on the novel I'm working on. I think I need then to print out the 60-odd pages I have and get a feel for where I am again. I need to crank up the middle, I know that. Need more legs in this story. I'm sure it will work out, it always seems to, but it's frustrating when you think you have something figured out and it ends up you don't. I still need to work a lot on the tone of this thing but I'm not even worrying about that till I get the story actions in place. First the blocks, then the paint job.

I'm damn close now to "recording" the piano piece I've been working on. I've yet to do it without an error but I'm sometimes down to errors I only need one hand to count. Meanwhile, I think I'll start on the next piece. I read that the difference between a piano player and a pianist is that a pianist has at least 100 pieces put to memory. I doubt if I'll ever become a pianist, probably don't have enough years left.

I'm eager to give John's music a more careful listening. He's got new energy, wrote that he's already started on the second story, "The Man Who Hatched Chickens," my first comic libretto. I'll get the last one done soon, too. I think I have its structure figured out.

Been brooding lately about how much pain and suffering there is in the world. This has always been the case but the goddamn media today doesn't let up on the bad news. And the trivial news. I can't believe how much attention is given to a woman who apparently did no more with her life than take off her cloths and marry a rich old geezer. No wonder soap operas are so popular. I remember the moment in My Dinner With Andre in which Andre cautions that we have entered a new Dark Ages and an individual's only hope is to hide out, drop out, and try in a private small way to keep civilization alive. The world sure feels like that sometimes.

We can only save ourselves individually, and this can be a full time job.