Real real gone...

to Boston for the day. Already running late. Will post late tonight, if at all. Sorry.

Update 8:50 p.m. ...

Boston was good. The seminar was good. The Amtrak Downeaster is the height of luxury, and "Be Cool" (the movie on the bus back to Portland) is the worst movie I have seen in a long, long time.

Laura Lippman, on her Memory Project blog, asked people to name their personal theme songs. I said mine was Bob Dylan's "Up to Me," but the song running through my head all day today was Lou Reed's "What's Good":

What good's a war without killing
what good is rain that falls up
What good's a disease that won't hurt you
why no good, I guess, no good at all

What good are these thoughts that I'm thinking
It must be better not to be thinking at all
A styrofoam lover with emotions of concrete
no not much, not much at all

What's good is life without living
what good's this lion that barks
You loved a life others throw away nightly
it's not fair, not fair at all

What's good?
oh, baby, what's good?
What's good?
what's good? not much at all ...

What's good?
Life's good
But not fair at all.