Esquire's blogger

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 3 April 2005

Spoke with Mark today by phone. He's working the rest of Chapter 4 and promises to get it to me tonight. I will do the callouts in the text for new material tomorrow and then review the Chapter as a whole over two long air flights.

Today kind of blew by after spending so many hours slaving over the first part of Chapter 4 yesterday.

Planted a bunch of Easter lillies out front to make Vonne happy regarding house showing. House lists tomorrow, so we expect visitors NLT Wednesday. We hate to gear up for shows, so we're hoping this place gets bought up fast. We ourselves made an offer on the place 5 years ago on the first day it was showing. We waited an entire 30 minutes after seeing the place--that's how much better it was then that what we were seeing on the island. And that was before the basement was done, so our hopes are high.

Afternoon lost to older son's b-day party. Just three boys, plus my two other older kids, and an afternoon at LazerGate in Fall River MA. A shoot-em-up laser gun competition that we played twice, plus a lot of other games.

Night lost to keeping house spic-and-span.

Read Thomas Friedman's piece in NYT Sunday Magazine. His "Flat Earth" book comes out this week and this was the big, NYT-engineered splash. I must say, I was unimpressed by the piece. If Friedman thinks that telling everyone about outsourcing is going to make for a great book, then I think he's run out of ideas completely. But I'm sure the book is full of Geo-Green and a host of other kewl phrases he's worked to death in his columns. But just stringing those together with all his "conversations" with famous people gets a bit tiresome. I really feel like he's in a rut and needs to change jobs or something to get back to what he once did. He's becoming a hybrid Andy Warhol/Rooney on globalization: either too poppy or too cranky. Like most reporters, he's good when he's discovering something, not beating it to death. I watch Kristof to see is he's going to succumb similarly, but he continues to treat his op-ed column more like his personal beat column than his bully pulpit, so for now he's still putting out solid stuff, where Friedman seems like he's firing blanks more and more. I am disturbed by his decline, because I fear it tells me there is only so much to be said and then you need to move on--either to new topics or new positions.

Title of post simply refers to Esquire now listing me as one of their "bloggers" on their front page, along with the previously-blogging-now-book-author Colby Buzzell, whose two pieces in the mag were pretty damn cool and whose book is likely to do well (I think it is Putnam too).

Me? Now I feel even more pressure to get past the book and get back to high-volume blogging. And yet, I want to work the book as much as is needed, plus I really love working with Mark so intensely during these periods. Once the book is done, then he'll be cracking his whip on me all the time because he's "Executive Editor" and I'm just a puny "Contributing Editor." Til the book is done, I'm the "talent" and he's just the "editor," so I better enjoy my superior position while I can.

Neil Nyren is reading the manuscript this weekend, I can feel it! Expect his call tomorrow. I'm saving a special brick to s--t right after the call. Hope he makes it to Mark like he did last time. Email is good enough for me. Too nerve-racking.

I'm going to see if there's anything in the house to drink. . .