| Orlando: No, he didn’t find my tennis racquet at the church. This means I probably left it in the cab. That was a good tennis racquet, too.
Ben Stiller: In town for one-and-a-half days at the Regency. Call to get together.
Christine Belsen, Turner Pictures: Knows I’m writing my own, but let’s talk about some scripts.
Bill Horberg, from Sydney Pollack’s company, re: script.
Kevin, in Vermont, please call soon. (Turns out he broke up with Tricia. Extremely sad. And mad.)
Bob: No, he didn’t find my tennis racquet at the church. (I definitely left it in the cab.)
Penelope, NY Times Magazine: Apologizes for being unreachable after requesting a small submission from me. Was supposedly out of town.
Caryn Mann: Alec Baldwin’s company.
My shrink: He’s really pissed off; says he’ll tear my f***king head off. (Just kidding. He simply returned my call. What does that joke mean? Don’t forget to ask.)
Seth: Didn’t see my tennis racquet anywhere. (Obsessive? I figured three people, maybe one of them saw it. I liked that racquet. Not enough, apparently, to not leave it in a cab.)
List of appointments:Tim Tomlinson for dinner at Ozu.
No piano lesson. Diana’s on vacation for two weeks in Indiana. That must be where piano teachers go to vacate. I’m in a bind: There’s no pressure to practice, but who am I really doing this for, anyway, her or me? Me, but I use her to trick me into doing the work for me.
Shrink. Don’t forget to ask about the joke. I never want to talk about him and me, per se, which is supposed to be the whole point, after all.
Gwyneth Paltrow at Doc’s for lunch (promises she’s buying in an act of contrition. We’ll see.)
Ben Stiller at 4:30, coffee bar.
List of publications:The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection (I’m starting from scratch).
Wherever You Go There You Are (still starting from scratch).
No Place of Grace, Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920
List of sensations:Woke up really tired after a solid sleep. Lay like a sack of potatoes on sofa while M. tried to engage me with truck.
Sadness for Kevin and Tricia comes back.
Made mistake of looking at Variety, which happened to be lying on dining room table. Zen folks say the mind is freshest in the morning, most clear and open. Not after looking at Variety (“Mouse Merges Int’l TV; ‘Eraser’ Nabs $25,566,466 in First Three Days; Springer Sprung from WNBC”).
Bath with M., the frenetic ordeal of washing his hair. Preceded by the fun of playing with boats and feeling the nice warm water we sit in. He actually slept through the night without a bottle. There is a God.
Joy of watching naked M. run gleefully up and down the hall laughing hysterically in a post-bath ritual in which I pretend to be trying to catch him to put his clothes on.
Babysitter arrives. My assistant arrives. Time to file for ‘Slate.’
The feeling of having just read Variety comes back. Speedy, unsettled feeling. What am I going to say in ‘Slate’? Nothing seems fitting.
Sit and breathe quietly for 15 minutes. Sensation of coming down off speed. Calm. Anything seems fitting. |
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