12.03.01 - 4:36 p.m.

I thought I'd be more upset. I think it's funny how everyone expected me to be devastated - Dan called, Kerry and Moom said they thought of me - but I didn't have enough time on Friday to sit down and think about George.

I read the news on E!Online and was shocked, of course. He'd been going through treatment for cancer and there was that stabbing incident a while back, but no one actually expected that George would ever die. The Beatles - the remaining three, anyway - were never supposed to die. What happened to John was a fluke, but the rest of them would go on forever.

And he was my favorite Beatle, because he was so underappreciated (even more so than Ringo, because while Ringo was just a lucky bastard, George had real talent). 104.3 was playing a George/Beatles block - with "Devil's Radio," no less - as I drove home from Edgwater on Saturday and the sky was so blue, and the hole in the skyline was so glaringly apparent, and I just wanted to cry. How can there be a hole in the sky? It seems impossible, but there it is, hanging over Manahattan every day.

Now apparently stage mothers and little boy actors will be showing up for casting, and I am the one who will have to deal with them. Oh, I love my job. They're casting for the part of Jim in Treasure Island, the script of which I have not yet read, which sounds exciting although it can't possibly be as good as Muppet Treasure Island. Tim Curry! He's in a new I Heart NY commercial now! But I did find the Me Talk Pretty One Day screenplay and I'm still looking for the Rent one, written by Stephen Chbosky, which I imagine is pretty damn good. How could it be bad, really? I have to find that before I leave here. Whenever that will be.

I want to call my boy. Just to call him and say hi, even though I'll be seeing him tonight.

I should never tell Moom anything I think I want or need, even in passing, because she will latch onto it and buy it for me even if it's a million bucks. I told her last night about the Audrey Hepburn poster and the speaking to the guy in French and blah blah blah, and now she wants to send me a check for it even though I don't really need this thing! Yes, it would be great to have an original Audrey poster, and yes, it's for How to Steal a Million, but I need to eat. I need money for rent, food and drink before I need another poster that still needs to be framed.

Plus, then I'd have to go down and see Patrick (Patrique!) again, and speak with him in French to get the poster. I'd have to be drunk just to make the transaction.