The hurrier I go...

It is funny how the morning slides.

I get up early. 6 a.m., sometimes. And I have grandiose plans for the next two hours. There is editing to do on chapters I have finished. I am going to take care of correspondence regarding Leonard Pennario, write notes and letters. And emails! There are emails too about Pennario to be taken care of.

Here is one email that landed the other day in the Leonard Pennario Question Box. It is typical!

Hi: I see via google you are writing a biography of Leonard Pennario. I have just discovered him through a collection of LPs given to me recently. One has a great oil portrait of him at the keyboard but I cannot google any information about the painting or the artist who seems to be "Boyle." No credit is given in the liner notes. If you would care to see a scan image of this album sleeve let me know and I will send it to you. Or if you already know of what I speak and can shed some light on its origins, thank you in advance. --Tom Higgins

It is great to know that Pennario is so relevant to the general public! You see, if I were writing about Sviatoslav Richter...


... no one would care about an oil portrait of him.

Speaking of which, my morning. You see, this is how it goes. This morning I feel great, slept great as usual, looking forward to my day, I run downstairs in my bright blue Goodwill pajamas. I wear used pajamas. That is a confession I do not know if I have made yet.

That is a picture up above of me getting up!

For five or ten minutes I am going full speed ahead. I had begun making white bean soup in the crockpot lastnight. So now I gave it a stir, added caramelized onions left over from something else I had made, added escarole that I had also cooked up lastnight. Can you believe I did all that? I pushed the button on the coffee maker because I had set that up also the night before.

I ran out in my used pajamas and picked the paper up off the driveway. I wrote onto my mental to-do list to pay my Buffalo News bill which is probably overdue. That was another thing I could do this morning.

Impressive, right? You go, girl!

But wait.

Now it is 8:20 a.m. How much do you think I have accomplished? Editing? No. Email? No. Well, I got an email from my new friend Tom Higgins saying he is out of town. We are corresponding now!

Paid News bill? No. Packed lunches? No. Read the paper? No. They did not even bring us our Wall Street Journal either. So, again, behind the eight ball.

What have I accomplished? Uh...

Had fun with the Web logs. Searched down a picture of Sviatoslav Richter so I could make him the butt of a joke. That is a phrase I love, the butt of a joke. Oh, and on my other Web log I linked to that song by Johannes Brahms that I cannot put down these days. I listened to that song twice.

Other than that, drank coffee. Took a long shower during which I did not think about work, just daydreamed and sang the Gloria from Mass to myself which, ta da, now I know by heart.

Laudamus te
Benedicimus te
Adoramus te
Glorificamus te
Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam.

That means: "We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you. We give you thanks for your great glory." In the shower I wool-gathered about how much I love that last line. I love the concept of thanking God for His great glory. In the English language Mass that has been lost in translation.

La la la la la la.

When I got out of the shower of course it was time to eat. And drink more coffee.

And now ... nothing is done!!

Am I the only person in the world with mornings like this??

Help!!!