Monday, April 07, 2003


Monday morning, coming down--I'm waiting patiently at my phone for Austrian Public radio to call me from Vienna so that I can do an interview. No idea on the angle of the interview, and so far as I know I'm not a hot property in Eastern Europe (that would be my wife) but I'm doing an interview all the same.

Outisde my window it is snowing. Yes, it is April, mid-April, and it is snowing. Yesterday on the street everyone was talking about the impending storm, muttering, cursing God--we're New Yorkers, we take civic pride in our ability to curse God--but there was a strangely muted property to the proceedings, as though the snow had already fallen and hushed our normally strident tongues. I'm afraid that winter really has gotten the best of us this time. They are saying that there could be up to a foot of accumulation in snow and sleet, but that sounds absolutely crazy.

Sunday was torpedoed by the time shift--it snuck up on me again like it always does, and as always I suspect that my computer has an error on it, since it updates automagically. Why on earth would my laptop suddenly think it was an hour later? Search me...but every time I spend about a minute puzzling over it until it dawns on me that we've crossed the terminator and lost or gained an hour.

So it screwed up a conference call I was going to do, and our misjudging of the sunlight made us arrive at the grocery store just after it had closed.

***

I'm back--the Austrian interview went well. It was a British interviewer who had really enjoyed the book, which was easier than doing an interview over a crackly line with a thick Austrian accent, but after watching COLLATERAL DAMAGE over the weekend I was kind of hoping for a deep Schwarzeneggerian voice asking me about my halcyon dot-com days.

I need to dive into the Monday work pile, now that the interview is over and really make a dent. The HBO project is off my plate for a little breather, which gives me a chance to catch up on the book and the show. First some coffee, the Post and a muffin. Glorious muffin.

It really is snowing to beat the band.

10:50 AM