I can’t mince words, dear friends. Tonight is a wash. Except for one very bright, very shiny spot, today was just a useless farrago of a day, a day which I spent discovering anew, hour by hour, just how useless my work is, and just how useless I feel while I do it. It was a day for hearing Condoleeza Rice say, “well, there was really nothing we could have done to stop it” (it being the 9/11/01 attacks), and for hearing Bill Clinton say “well, we should have done something to stop it, but didn’t” (it being the literally unspeakable Tutsi massacre in Rwanda, which began on this week 10 years ago). When I thought I had heard all I could take from national and international news, I put on the local news instead, only to discover just how mean life can be, particularly if you live in a housing project. (I will spare you my tirade on these two events, mainly because they involve a lot of tears and spluttering, but the short version is that I am aching to find who was responsible for both events, the death of Constance Lloyd and the release of the surveillance video that captured Paris Lane’s suicide. If a responsible party ever comes to light, the first thing I will do is hire a good lawyer. The second thing I will do is find those guilty parties and dislocate their thumbs.)
Even on the mindless entertainment front, the glass-teat opiate that is supposed to dull my synapses enough to take the painful edge off the above, today was a bad day. Even though I knew, just knew, from the beginning, that this would happen, it still cheeses me that Fox has decided to replace this with this.
So what kept today from being a dead loss? It was that one very bright, very shiny spot, otherwise known as Lunch with the Famous and Not-At-All-Evil http://www.bakerina.com/prepare_to_meet_your_bake/2003/12/faulkners_folly.html>Walt. In a just universe, Walt and I would be having lunch together at least twice a week, but considering that I live in Noo Yawk City and Walt lives in Phoenix, we must resign ourselves to our unjust circumstances, save lunch for when Walt makes the Big Trek East, and spend the rest of our free time goofing off and riffing off each other on snarky websites. (For those of you who have not visited this particular snarky website, I encourage you heartily to do so, as Walt and I keep company with some truly brilliant writers there.)
Not only was I lucky enough to have lunch with Walt, I was also lucky enough to receive the news that he has collected close to ten years’ worth of his writings on one handy website. Run, do not walk, to Walt’s site. He is a transcendent writer, and that is a word I don’t bandy about lightly. His observations on the Pennsylvania Turnpike are spot-on. His descriptions of the Los Angeles Public Library and the Cholla Branch of the Phoenix Public Library make me want to move into both buildings. And I was utterly unable to resist a travel essay called “Bentonsport and the Sexy Part of Southeastern Iowa”. He’s right. Southeastern Iowa is sexy.
Seriously. You should not be here anymore. You should be there. Go there now.