I was in fact as sick as I had ever been when I was writing "Slouching Towards Bethlehem"; the pain kept me awake at night and so for twenty and twenty-one hours a day I drank gin-and-hot-water to blunt the pain and took Dexedrine to blunt the gin and wrote the piece. (I would like you to believe that I kept working out of some real professionalism, to meet the deadline, but that would not be entirely true; I did have a deadline, but it was also a troubled time, and working did to the trouble what gin did to the pain.) -- Joan DidionWhich is a suitably melodramatic way of saying the cinetrix feels quite a slouchy rough beast today. She has a nasty cold and two deadlines tomorrow.
Never fear, though. I have a celebrity story for you kids. Nearly seven years ago now, the cinetrix was at O'Hare, waiting for her flight back to New York after a visit with the 'Fesser. An announcement was made to us nice folks that some nebulous thing was wrong with our airplane [I suspect it was no more than the cost-effectiveness of flying half full], so our flight was cancelled. However, the airline had thoughtfully booked us onto another flight leaving almost immediately on the other side of the airport. So, hop to it.
I dutifully sprinted to the new gate. A tall, statuesque older woman was there, chatting with the ground crew. She looked familiar, in a well-preserved way. I took my bulkhead seat, and craned my neck around to look at this mystery blonde in first class. Could it be? Naaahhh. But it might... and then...
For most of the flight I wondered, until finally I screwed up my courage and... used the first-class lav. From my return angle, there was no mistaking who she was. Still so beautiful. If the plane were to go down, I'd be one of the nameless schmucks on the plane with this legend. She owed me. Of course, given who she'd survived, we were probably safe as kittens.
My voice was quavery. "Excuse me. I'm sorry to bother you, Ms. Bacall, but I'm a big admirer of your work. May I have your autograph?"
And then I got the look. Blam! The Look. I'd have to, as I was standing and she was seated. She looked up at me, and she was not pleased. But she signed anyway, then turned back to her linen napkin and china coffee cup, and I melted back to steerage, heart pounding.
You know what you learn if you're a New Yorker? The world doesn't owe you a damn thing. -- Lauren Bacall
Thanks again, Ms. Bacall.
