So yesterday I dragged myself out of bed at 11a (Bram Stoker's Dracula started at like 2a, what was I supposed to do, just go to sleep?), wrote my entry, then went to rehearsal having run out of time to shower.

When I was in the car, I suddenly realized that I had not bathed since Thursday. Thursday night, I hasten to add, but still, I was faintly revolted by myself. I couldn't even begin to drag a comb through my hair, it was such a giant tangle!

Fortunately, I am not a particularly stinky person, and did not notice people's eyes crossing when they got too close, but honestly! Comes a time when one realizes that one's personal habits have become so appalling that it is time to stop living alone!

Rehearsal was fine.

We finished blocking the second act at last, and we were supposed to finish at 4p, but Sharon wanted to block in the two actors who missed the last two rehearsals, so she asked those two to stay, plus two other actors to work on individual scenes, along with a general request for everyone who could to stick around.

I needed to eat, so I popped out to get some food, walking with Al, who plays the Preacher and the Judge, and it looked like he was leaving, so I said "Aren't you staying?" and he allowed that not only wasn't he staying, but he thought that everyone else left as well.

"O no!" I said, "I'm certain that they are coming back! I mean, Danny has to get to work and Cynthia has to pick up Fran and the kids from the dojo, but I'm sure that most people will be back!"

So I got my lunch (and picked up my first pair of new gloves for the season, burgundy chenille with leopard cuffs, five bucks off the street) and went back to the rehearsal room, and Al had come back (I was very convincing!), but nobody else did, so Sharon just told us to leave, though I decided to sit there and eat first.

I told Al that he was right, but that I was right, too!

So I decided to go to a movie, and thought I'd see Pleasantville, the movie that Nik refuses, for some unknown reason, to see. I had awhile before the film started, so I thought I'd wander around a bit.

A fatal decision.

First I went to Old Navy, and was lulled into complacency by the fact that I didn't find anything that I particularly wanted and walked out without making a purchase.

Then I accidentally walked down the street of Books of Wonder.

You see, beyond soap, beyond facial stuff, beyond stationery products, beyond cds, beyond everything, my great and secret passion is children's books.

I thought I was just browsing, but then, in the ridiculously overpriced second-hand section, I found the two books by Diana Wynne Jones that I have been most strenuously searching for, Fire and Hemlock and The Homeward Bounders, which are bizarrely out of print and a bitch to find.

And they were impossibly priced. Of course, they were signed first editions in gorgeous condition, but that wasn't the point, I just wanted the books to read, but I broke down and bought them because I really have been looking for simply ages.

Then, the floodgates were open.

I went to the evil and dreadful Portico, a very expensive bath shop, and bought a pile of stuff from some Spa line that I allowed the salesclerk to gift wrap (well, it is a gift for me, after all!), and then to Fish's Eddy, a dish store that sells discontinued lines and restaurant dishes and everything is so wonderful that I usually can never choose, but I did badly need salt and pepper shakers, then I was on a roll, so I carried on by buying four yellow-orange bowls and a coffee mug.

Have I demonstrated fully yet that I have no will-power whatsoever? I hope so, or else I'll have to go on another spree!

Then was Pleasantville, which is excellent. Nik is loony for not wanting to see it.

The performances were uniformly excellent, especially the kid, Tobey Maguire, who played the lead, but Joan Allen and Bill Macy and dear J.T. Walsh and Jeff Daniels and Reese Witherspoon and, my God, Don Knotts were wonderful as well.

This is one of the few effects heavy pictures I have seen in a while where the story is as important as the effects--each is as important as the other. The effects support the story, they don't overshadow the story, that's what I meant to say.

The basic theme of the picture is that without change, you cannot grow up, even if you are an adult. Great stuff.

When I got home, I had a call from Kevin, alerting me that Randy Newman was on 102.7 FM that night, and unfortunately I had missed him, but I discovered the most marvelous show!

You see, I listen to CBS-FM and never change the channel ever ever ever, so I had never listened to WNEW, but I fell madly in love with the show, Idiot's Delight, in about four seconds.

I don't know how many of you are old enough to remember a time when DJs programmed their own shows and would play all kinds of stuff, whatever caught their fancy, but I haven't heard a show like that since Doctor Demento, so as I listened to Randy Newman and a Sondheim-like musical that I used for today's javascript title and Tom Waits and Philip Glass and Burt Bacarach and Perry Como and Jimi Hendrix and Lyle Lovett and B.B. King, I decided that I will listen to Idiot's Delight every Sunday from now on.

So, New Yorkers and Jersey-ites, that's WNEW 102.7 on your FM dial from 8p to 2a Sunday nights!

Today's horoscope:
The gossip mill is doing damage to a reputation. You can short-circuit this process!

One year ago today:
When I put it on and turned sideways I looked like the letter "S".

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Last Updated Mon 9 November 09:20:09 1998