5 p.m. I stuff my lithium-bloated carcass into a tight pair of blue jeans and drape on the nice white dress-shirt I wear to shul.
I stand in line for about an hour, alternately reading The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court and checking out chicks — a darkie across from me, an older voluptuous brunette just ahead of me…
I spot Bill Boyarsky and a woman I presume is his wife.
Finally, I get inside and snag a seat in the center of the fifth row from the back.
A young woman scoots by and sits beside me to join her friends.
I never get to see her face but she has a lovely bottom.
Her scent and girlish laughter is intoxicating. She talks to her friends about her editor and the executive editors. Maybe she’s a writer?
She texts some guy on her phone.
Then she reads the novel, "The Jane Austen Book Club."
We laugh at the same places during the movie.
At the end, I can’t stand the sexual tension any longer. I turn to her in the darkness and say, "Is the book set in Sacramento also?"
"Yes," she says.
That’s the extent of our story.
A Zocalo girl announces a forthcoming event featuring Bush’s chief speech writer Michael Gerson who’ll talk about the need for heroic conservatism.
There’s loud hissing in the crowd.
Patt Morrison moderates the discussion between the writer-director Robin Swicord and actors Kathy Baker and Hugh Dancy. I find Patt alternately wise and convoluted, funny and predictable. "How did you like your character?" was one of many trite questions.
Patt: "Jane Austen is the 19th Century Oprah."
Robin: "The conceit of every book club is that the participants are talking about their own lives and just using the books as a pretext."
Hugh: "I went to Oxford for three years. It’s the world’s worst book group."
Robin: "They construct meaning by getting together."
Patt and Robin wax lyrical about our need to set aside time from technology to form community. Well, just join an organized religion, particularly Orthodox Judaism.
Only a few people left after the movie but there’s a steady trickle of people flowing out during the discussion.
Once I give up all hope with the sheila, I leave too, powering down Crescent Heights and remembering the good times of four and a half years ago when I took this same trip prior to my first time with my hot young girlfriend.
