Up early and ostensibly working the new screenplay. I say 'ostensibly' because I'm really not. But I will when I finish blogging.
104 yesterday in The Valley. When it gets that hot, plans have to be adjusted, to say the least, and consequently I spent the day watching old fight films I've managed to record off of Uverse...mostly old ALI films from the seventies. I'm weird that way.
I've come to the conclusion that I'm an expert on only one thing in my life...heavyweight boxing in the 1970s. An odd thing to know so well, but there you have it.
I have this reading coming up with the wonderful actor Powers Boothe next week. Powers and I did another one a few months ago and that was fun so I decided to do another for the same director when he contacted me.
The week after that another Indy film, this one down in Long Beach, I think. Small role. Haven't even read the whole script.
So hopefully the intense heat will stay away long enough to get a walk in this morning before retreating into the solitude of air conditioning. Once that's done I'll pull out the new writing and have a go at it all day. Angie's been a bit under the weather so I'll be quiet and studious for the most part. Her allergies have gone super nova, apparently.
All of the 9/11 programs are coming on these days due to the 10 year anniversary. It hardly seems 10 years since that horrible day. I was lucky. I didn't actually personally know anyone in the towers that day. Many NY friends did, however. I did know a guy I had done a few plays with and his wife died that day. But I'd never met her.
Of all the terribly images of that day, the one that haunts me the most are the 'jumpers,' the ones that couldn't stand the heat and decided to leap. I see those images from the footage today and I'm still just appalled, stricken.
Angie and I watched the new HBO documentary out about the day...the one that Martin Sheen voices. Quite good, but it kept us both up after we'd seen it.
And I don't have the same sense of outrage at GW Bush about it anymore now that I know more of his reasons for his odd reactions to the attack. Knowing how much he wanted to get back to DC after the attacks and the secret service kept him in the air, I mean.
I was a bit shocked to learn, however, that Rumsfeld wanted to immediately carpet bomb Iraq that day with no evidence whatsoever that they were involved. That's a bit scary. Even after Cheney, of all people, told him Afghanistan was the place to concentrate on. But thinking back, I, too, wanted immediate revenge. Now, of course, I realize how savage and futile that would have been.
It certainly changed everything, that dreadful day in September of 2001. For me, for everyone.
But the sun is coming up, the dogs are eyeing me with anticipation, and life is stretching out before me. Everyday is so very good.
See you tomorrow.
