Wednesday,
January 9, 2002

Yeah, yeah, I know you've all been wondering where in the wide world of sports I've been this past week. Look, I've been working on the User Guide from Hell (the tool has five different security levels, three different organizational types -- every time I finish a section, I realize I have to go back and describe it again, only with THIS security level and in THIS organization. It's like a bloody hydra -- I keep chopping heads off, and two grow back every time. . .) since January 2, and my brains have been dribbling out my ears the moment I get home, so I haven't been able to do much by the way of updating. Sorry.

If it's of any consolation, I haven't been able to do any of my own writing this week either, I missed a Futureclassics meeting because I was in no shape to critique four stories, I've gained three pounds, I haven't read any of my favorite journalers, and Lyndon has been pretty much scraping me up and pouring me into bed every night. It hasn't been fun, believe me.

Hell, I didn't even know Sir Nigel Hawthorne and Julia Phillips died (of a heart attack and cancer, respectively). Hawthorne I'll mourn because of his wonderful work in "Yes, Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister," as well as his brilliant roles in "The Madness of King George" and "The Winslow Boy." He'd had cancer, Lyndon said, and had been on the British talk show "Parkinson" in November, saying that he was pretty much on top of the disease and thought he'd beaten it. My sympathy goes out to his companion.

Phillips was not only the first woman to win a Best Picture Oscar, she was also brilliant, funny, acerbic, scathingly honest and wrote the bitchy and wonderful "You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again," a tell-all about Hollywood in the 70's. Of all the people I would have liked to meet on the Left Coast, she was at the top of the list.

This is what happens when I take my attention off the world for a week -- the place goes all to hell and starts killing off people I like. I'm just giving notice to the Powers that Be -- if anything happens to Ian Holm, I'm siccing Bun-Bun on your ethereal asses.