Entry 4:

Good afternoon, Meghan,

I missed the Grammy show, but I'm now listening to the Eminem-Elton John collaboration. I don't think the presence of Elton John adds much, but then again, how surprising is that? (I'm afraid I had to use Napster to get the song, by the way, but I did so without regrets. It's shame there isn't a service that would actually deduct money from Elton John's bank account every time you used it to listen to one of his performances.) I can't contribute much to the discussion about the social worth of The Marshal Mathers LP, most of which I haven't heard, but I do think that "Stan" is a great song. I also think that if I were a film director, I'd try to cast Eminem in a part immediately. He has tremendous presence, and his "performance" as the letter-writer in "Stan" (both in the Grammy version and on the regular single) would be enough to convince me that he's at least worth a screen test. Surely he'd be better on screen than Sting. Or Madonna. (Or, of course, Vanilla Ice, whose star turn in the film Cool as Ice remains one of the most spectacular bad movies of all time.) Perhaps he'll end up hoisting drafts at the Zoo Bar and frolicking in the very hot tub you mention.

Anyway, sorry to have indirectly bummed you out and, perhaps, to have permanently ruined life on the farm by pointing you toward a media gossip site. On the other hand, I see you're trying to ruin my day by making me look at Darva Conger's site. Unfortunately, I've already seen it, and I know how lame it is.

In a very roundabout way this brings me back to something I essentially dodged earlier, which was your line of thought about being away from a buzzy city like New York or Washington or San Francisco. The advantage of moving away and being "out of it," in theory, anyway, is that it makes it easier to concentrate on "the work," as in the case of the guy you mentioned who moved to Gainesville. And I guess being out of it does cut down on distractions. But on the other hand, I find that the Web has helped me get more and more inventive in finding new distractions. Such as downloading the latest version of "Stan." And there you are, in the middle of those seven acres, trying to keep the door from blowing off its hinges, and you are just about as out of it as you can possibly be ... so what are you doing looking at the Darva Conger site?

I realize that I'm sort of mangling your point, but I'm kind of leery of Goodbyes To All That because life is long and even Joan Didion moved back to New York. That said, I'm all for the change in perspective that goes along with a radical change of address. It's cool to know the better bars of Lincoln, Neb. From my point of view, it's somewhat less cool to deal with subfreezing temperatures and livestock (the latter were not a novelty but an annoyance where I grew up), but hey, to each her own.

Really, though, I'm curious how being in a new place has changed your information routine or whatever you want to call it. It's interesting that you only do the Times on Sundays--I visited some ex-NYC friends in Austin not long ago, and they do pretty much the opposite, ignoring the local media altogether. Do you miss anything besides the (admittedly entertaining) Times wedding announcements? Have you found any similarly satisfying things in your local paper? Funky Winkerbean, for instance? Well. There's something to ponder as we take tomorrow off. Looking forward to chatting again on Wednesday. ...

rw