Have you noticed how some days fly faster than others? Oops, where did it go? Today is going to be like that. Yesterday certainly was. But I'm going to catch today on its way by. This attitude has to do with something I've mentioned before, my father's legacy: I have to justify my existence each day. That sounds grandiose but it doesn't mean I have to save the world, although that would be nice. It means I have to DO something other than just get through the hours. Note: there are long hours, though often they feel like minutes. Assignment: think of times when minutes seems like hours, or when hours drag by on leaden feet, like the 2 1/2 hours in the dentist's chair yesterday morning. Now, that seemed like forever. Yes, well, somehow a blog has come to make me feel as If I have accomplished something, not the blog but the writing of it. - lines from Caesar. No one will know what that means because no one takes Latin any more and therefore does not know that the assignment for tomorrow is to translate so many lines from Caesar. Caesar didn't write blogs. Hush. It's not that my blogs are deathless prose or anything like that. I guess a blog has become my roll call. I checked in today, therefore I am.

Do you realize that we take in more information in a day than people used to get in a year? There is a difference, of course, between "taking in" and absorbing and processing. I call it assimilating. Right now I have a lot to assimilate. I'm hoping that the capillaries of my mind will let some of the fallout seep in without too much conscious effort on my part. I have a lot to think about. I've been away, obviously. My last entry was May 29, I think, and here it is, June already, the 4th of. I went to Ottawa for the Annual General Meeting of The Writers' Union of Canada, staying only 2 days and cutting it short so I could get back to Toronto for the AGM of the Playwrights' Guild of Canada. I took in a lot, not to say learned, certainly not yet assimilated. The TWUC meeting was pretty staid, though realistic and rather philosophical about the future of books and reading and, of course, of writers. (McLuhan, thou shouldst be here at this hour!) There was a fat-cat, whitebread tone to the discussions and panels. The PGC, on the other hand, was vibrant, hands-on, younger and multi-cultural - horrible expression but accurate in recognition of the wide-ranging provenance of its members. I think this is not merely because our numbers are smaller (about 650 as compared to over 2000 in TWUC) but also because our struggles are more specific and focussed. Most of us are still/always trying to get our next plays developed, workshopped, produced and out there. The PGC still talks about exploitation and voice; TWUC talks politics. Well, I'm old but I haven't been there or done that, not everything, not yet. Stay with me. We're not through yet. Still lots to assimilate.