Here is one for the biography you are writing about me:

There is a story of Olivier after a particularly remarkable performance of Othello. Maggie Smith, his Desdemona, knocked on his dressing room door as she was on her way out of the theater and saw him staring at the wall, holding a tumbler of whiskey. She told him his work that night was magic. And he said, in, I suspect, tears and despair, "I know it was...and I don't know how I did it."

- William Goldman, Which Lie Did I Tell?

I am, once again, not working. No one returns my calls. Chinese hackers interrupt my cable feed with a looped four-hour documentary about microbes filmed inside the ass of an incontinent panda. I am not allowed to leave the apartment, because I have to be here to answer the phone, should the bastards call; and the bastards know this, taking the opportunity to throw a block party, one block down. I don't know what I ever did to those guys.

If I kept a list on this webpage of things that should not be thrown at my head, and I promised not to go overboard with it, would it have any influence over your behavior at all? The first item is bricks.

The job situation being what it is, I had all but signed the forms to hook up with the Raytheon Corporation and go to Antarctica, but then it occurred to me that it might be misconstrued as a response to the current political climate. So, instead, here is a scene from a play that I am writing about dinosaurs.

Lights up. DINOSAUR and OTHER DINOSAUR are in a lush forest, full of vegetation and small, exotic life forms. They are eating: silently, but comfortably aware of each other's presence. Finally, OTHER DINOSAUR looks up.

OTHER DINOSAUR: Well, that about does it for me. I'm full.
DINOSAUR: God, this is great. Just walk up and eat the trees.
OTHER DINOSAUR: Yep.

Suddenly, in the distance, there is a loud sound. The dinosaurs are startled.

OTHER DINOSAUR: What the fuck?
DINOSAUR: That was weird.
OTHER DINOSAUR: God damn it.
DINOSAUR: What?
OTHER DINOSAUR: It was a big fucking meteor.
DINOSAUR: You mean...
OTHER DINOSAUR: Fuck.
DINOSAUR: Cock suck piss ass.
OTHER DINOSAUR: Motherfucking anal wart shit shit shit.
DINOSAUR: God damn ass fuck cock.
OTHER DINOSAUR: Shit ass motherfucker.
DINOSAUR: Holy crap fuck.
OTHER DINOSAUR: Crap ass shit fuck.
DINOSAUR: Well, that fucking sucks.

They die. Lights down.

Do you think it would compromise the work if I had the dinosaurs deal with social issues? I might have one of them be gay, and the other could come to terms with it. I worry that it would detract from the integrity of my main themes, though.