BACK IN L.A.

Thanks to everyone who came to my talks in Philadelphia and NJ. Thanks especially to Juli et al for forgiving me for not loving LOTR and bringing two pews worth of family members to Philly. Altogether, they tell me about 200 people were at the speech. I finally left the reception somewhere around midnight. There were still people milling in impassioned discourse. My feet were killing me because I was wearing my cool light tan boots which I'm very vain about but which are still really painful to stand in after about thirty minutes. Well, I was standing for about three hours last night between the talk and the reception and started balancing backward on the heels in between greeting people until in the middle of a profound response to somebody's question, I felt the heel snap and I went plummeting profoundly into a pirouette. My guardian angel is always looking out for my ego in charming ways like that. I know his touch.

Anyway, thanks to Mike Wallacavage and the amazing Haas clan of the International Institute for Culture for organizing such a great event.

I came home to find that Tibby the cat had pretty much thrown up in artistic patterns all over my room and even on my bedspread. She tends to have abandonment issues, and generally doesn't favor sleeping on an empty bed, but this was truly an exceptional display of feline discontent. Again, nothing like scrubbing up five piles of cat barf to really balance out a successful tour of speaking engagements. [Tibby responds: "Feed me."]

Anyway, I am so far behind in my writing, teaching, reading and job commitments that the only way I can see my way out of it is an untimely death. You know it's getting bad when it seems to you that it would be an extravagant waste of time to have a panic attack. So, blogging will probably stay light for the next few weeks....Which is too bad because I have some really cool ideas you are all going to miss out on. [Tibby responds visually by lifting her leg and cleaning herself.]