present tension

The NYRR Snowflake 4-mile run, split up into men’s and women’s races, was this morning. I treated it casually. It didn’t bother me when everybody was passing me for the last mile and a half. This included a tall girl in an ungainly straw sombrero decorated with small toothpick models of The Gates. ‘Great hat!’ I heard when she was a few paces behind, and ‘great hat!’ again when she was twenty paces ahead. This sort of attention would turn my stomach. Maybe if you ask for attention you can deal with it. All I know is it distresses me mightily when goofballs stand by the side of the road, give the thumbs-up sign, and bellow, ‘All right! Looking good!’
After …

I began this long, four-day weekend yesterday (Sat the 19th) by sending Rosie Evitt an email. Visiting from Herefordshire but we hadn’t connected since a short phone conversation a few weeks ago. Something abstracted about her…as though she’s five years away from diagnosis. I gave Rosie my mobile number but she didn’t ring back, not yesterday anyhow. Today she phoned up on the landline. It looks as though I have dodged a bullet, won’t have to do much entertaining or putting her up at Keith’s.

Just after noon, met Keith and Sylvia at the Boathouse in the Park. Chilly day, made bitter and snappy by bright sun and strong winds. They’d gone to see The Gates, and I insisted I snapping …

Three vodka gimlets last night with Woodley, Helfenstein, and Michael Mitchell at Ivy’s. I am paying for it today.

We were having a postmortem about the massive bloodletting at work yesterday. Several of my favorites got the axe, and they are better off as a result. At least they should be. Kurt and I packed up Mr. Quyyum’s belongings in four large file boxes and a couple of smaller ones.

At Ivy’s I told Michael the tale of my criminal summons and upcoming arraignment, while Helfenstein baited me with carping comments. He’s heard the story before and treats it as a load of baloney.

Why are Bobo and I at loggerheads so often? Woodley has begun to notice this. …

I reinstalled it using a prefix pt_ to the db table. It installed perfectly, but with none of my old posts (though it did have the Nixon graphic from my Kubrick tweak).

Since this destroyed my original site, I have delete the experimental one and reuploaded the original one, which does not have the pt_ prefix. I’ll just leave this in its present folder, and create a new subdirectory when I install a new wordpress blog.

Right now this one is in gallerynews/americanbystander. The next one, WordPress 1.5, may be in breederbullies/po or wherever.

Feb 15th and the famous 1.5 beta is officially released (as opposed to being available from nightlies, je suppose). I experiment, trying to create new db/site. Error message: are you sure … exists?

Several possibilities…
For multiple blogs you need to prefix the db table name. I commented in my prefix but did not actually add it. So blog one works but I can’t add others?
Or maybe that’s not the problem. Maybe it’s the db name?
Or a beta bug.
Or what I need to do is a complete upgrade of old version to new 1.5. Then just follow instructions for making multiple sites.

I’ll do it just till I need glasses.

Coming back from the wine shop and grocery store this evening, I saw a tall, stocking-capped, familiar face emerge from the elevator in my building on 57th Street. “Jay Martel!” I said. He turned around. Slightly befuddled, he recognized me after a half-second. He had his current girlfriend or wife with him. Looked the same as when I last saw him in 1990. He’s been a TV writer since that time. Nickelodeon, then God knows what. Out in LA now. I asked where. “Fairfax and Olympic.”
Oh! I said, near Tim! Tim Hill, nephew of George Roy Hill, is a musician and director (a Muppet movie, something else) who was Jay’s best friend at Stanford. For a while in the …

The previous post, about the beer and wine, was the test entry for WordPress, which I have now been playing with for an hour. It is now my favorite blogtool, by far. What was I doing with that clumsidunkins Movable Type, I ask you? My title bar is a little off…it needs to be dark over the Nixon image…I was flying blind, didn’t know what anything would look like…but overall I am immensely pleased. Michael Heilemann’s ‘Kubrick’ css layout far surpasses anything I stumbled across for MT.

Morning of February 11th, I awake listening to the BBC and NPR (simultaneously—a neat trick I learned in grad school) and a St. Pauli Girl (Dark) headache throbbing in the right temple