Well, I've missed the goal of one post per day, so the next target will be December. The conference was stupendously busy, and I ended up socializing far more than is normal for me.

On the flight back from LA, the guy next to me stretched and groaned and muttered to himself throughout the flight. I did not feel the need to engage in conversation with him since he seemed to be doing such a thorough job of talking to himself.

Last night we went to a surprise birthday party for my boss's wife. She appeared to be completely surprised and even managed to smile through a particularly bad poem read by one of the members of her writing group and a slide show containing some spectacularly unflattering pictures of her.

Books: Finished I Don't Know How She Does It. Rather disappointing in the end. The main character, who is supposed to be sympathetic to working women, is instead a harried, disorganized woman who cannot find any balance in her life. She either has to work 100 hours per week, or not work at all, hardly a model for anyone, male or female.

Movies: The Hours. Amazing score, although the story was bleak, dreary, and relentlessly depressing. If you had not read Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (which I have not), much of the relationship between the three stories is not readily apparent. The performances were wonderful, but the underlying theme of suicide as a noble undertaking was disturbing.