Evening Update

Thing #1: I finished editing the crossword puzzle book! It took 72 hours and I wrote literally 53 single-spaced pages of corrections---and I was finding errors right up to the end. But it's over and now my evenings are free! (And I've got $1440 coming in two months or so.)

Thing #2: To survive until payday, some generous friends have told me they've fronted me money. So far, only one check has arrived, and I've had to spend half of it on a MetroCard to last me the next two weeks. The good news is, this is the last possible thing that can go wrong: I've got a job, I've got wonderful people lined up to support me until payday . . . and I wind up getting fucked by the postal service.

I'm mentioning this because I've been getting e-mails asking, "Did you get my letter yet?" The answer, alas, is no. (Except for you-know-who in Boston. Thanks! For the rest among you: I don't know. Maybe it's a time zone problem.) I still haven't seen the mail today (my roomates/landlords have the only key and they're not home), but it sure seems like I ought to have something tonight or tomorrow. I'm crossing my fingers.

Thing #3: On a happier note, I was reading Slate, and I really love this smart pair of sentences in Dana Stevens' review of The Da Vinci Code (a movie that sounds, by the way, like it's successfully preserved the lumbering boneheadedness of the novel):

But despite its purported iconoclasm, The Da Vinci Code is at heart deeply religious, and monotheistic at that: It wants us to believe that there is one secret truth that can change history, that that truth is knowable, and that only through Tom Hanks can we know it. Our salvation depends on Forrest Gump.