Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 17 January 2005
Up twice last night with puppy Bailey at 2:30 and 4:30 in the snowstorm. Gotta admire the dog for his discipline in the kennel and he's good about signalling when he's got to go. Still, I can't wait for him to get a couple months older and hold it all night long. That's the rule: 4 months old to stay in the kennel 8 hours without taking a leak. I count the nights.
Up before 8am and writing by 8:30. Stop at 3pm to run Bailey to vet for check-up and then 30 minutes more before basketball practice with Kevin. Then solid from 6:30 to 8:30 for a total of just over 7k words, giving 35k for the book so far. This one was the deconstruction of Iraq using the Leviathan-SysAdmin lense. Fairly easy to write really. The voice seems to have been found in the last section, so I just tapped in again for this one.
Matthews, that pig, blew me off again in order to show a Saturday Night Live parody of his show. That's what he ended with tonight, instead of my interview. Well, I guess that's what you get for trying to get on a "hard" news show. Too busy showing comedy skits from the parent company to bother. Sigh!
Work on a TIE fighter model with Kevin for a while, then read a bunch of books to Jerry and Vonne Mei, who mostly wrestle their way through the fourth one, but I like it so much I read it aloud to myself.
Gotta iron a shirt and pack a suit. Up before six to catch a SWA flight to BWI. CNN sends a car to drive me to the studio. I'll read today's NYT and tomorrow's to boot to get ready, but most of the morning I'll be reviewing for Wednesday's writing. Still, I'll have to snap to for the interview, which I'm warned will be long. Still still, a lot of effort and 8 hours of vacation $ lost off final paycheck to push the Esquire piece. Still still still, Esquire names me Contributing Editor, so I guess I have to start giving back to the company. Hmmm. I will nab them for mileage and parking though. . . .
Got a Fedex in the mail today. Tomorrow PNM will be nominated for a pretty cool award. Don't think I can make the awards ceremony on the West Coast, unless I can move a long-set series of lectures in Norway (yes, Oslo, in FEBRUARY!). The sponsor makes me promise not to say what it is, as they announce the nominees tomorrow. I will say this though, David Byrne won one last year, and it's pretty cool for this aging Talking Heads fan to think we go to the same awards shows!
