sometimes waking up to the internet can be oddly discouraging. it’s a representative chunk of the huger, general abyss, and staring into your computer screen makes you realize what a molecule-like part you play.
enough about abysses! it’s a beautiful spring morning. at least i think it is. roomie brigid has cracked the window to let the soft blue air float in. i’m back at swarthmore, got back at noon yesterday having being deposited by a loving father on his way to new jersey. we talked iraq nearly the whole time, as we did the night before at the dinner table when we weren’t talking about whether or not polanski should be able to return to the u.s. without [fear of] punishment.
his argument: it’s been 20 years; he probably was on drugs back then; he’s harmless now; what good will it do, either him or society, to lock him up?
mine: [expletive deleted]
no, really, i was much more eloquent. as always i could see where my father was coming from; but come on. our justice system isn’t based on principles of “what good will it do?” roman polanski, in case you’re too lazy to read gailey’s account above, stands accused of posing as a photographer to get access to a 13 year old girl, taking pictures of her with her shirt off, driving her to jack nicholson’s house on mulholland drive, giving her drugs and alcohol and then raping her. instead of facing any of these charges, polanski fled to france. that country of truth and virtue refused to extradite him. now he’s made a marvelous movie that’s up for an academy award. in the plainest of plain cliched english, that doesn’t put him above the law. we shouldn’t pardon him b/c, unlike millions of other arrested americans, he had the means to flee this country and live happily in the hypocricy of another.
back on campus, i talked less and did more. my stage manager and costume designer have been working since tuesday and they greeted my late entry into the windowless basement room of Getting The Play Ready rather coolly. we open on the 27th: come! i can say that safely since i haven’t had to think [panic] about AIH since before break, and i had break to relax and buy soothing things. despite workworkwork yesterday i’m still in soothed mode. it’ll be fine! come see the show: it’s free!
brigid walks in from taking a shower and says, “my auntie em was married to this guy rick and then they got divorced. she said, ‘you know, i thought he was into jazz. but no, he was into cocaine.'” o, the tribulationish future we women face.