Florida, much maligned – especially recently – excelled on the national stage last night. First, a young man from Fort Lauderdale won on Jeopardy!, then Florida Atlantic University upset Tennessee in the NCAA basketball tournament. Academics and athletics.
Up in Winter Park, poet Billy Collins was visited recently by a New Yorker writer for Talk of the Town, who reported that Collins was happy to no longer be teaching. “Right now, people are ready to be offended,” the poet said. “But I’m always ready to be delighted.”
If only all our New York transplants could be like that.
Last week we got our balcony back – it was inaccessible for 13 months because of a building renovation project – and we immediately carried out to it the table that had been sitting in our living room for the last year and enjoyed, once again, our meals al fresco.
Today, predictably, it is too cool to eat outside.
The spring issue of The American Scholar arrived yesterday evening and it’s full of good things, including a piece by Patricia Hampl on her long, and mostly long-distance, friendship with an Englishman who told her that the only thing worse than a person who doesn’t answer a letter is someone who answers a letter immediately, depriving the correspondent of the pleasure of anticipation and saddling him or her with the fresh burden of response.
I went to see my dermatologist yesterday evening about something near my right ankle and I left his office with a band-aid on my lower leg, one by my left collarbone, one on the back of my neck, one on my forehead, and one on the top of each ear. Which, if it wasn't a personal record, was close to it.
Despite living in Florida for 33 years, I still don't feel Floridian. But when I see pictures from places I used to call home - recently a photo of row houses in Philadelphia - I feel sadness at the absence of porches.
I experienced some technical problems with my blog, then was off in Key West for a few days, but now I'm back. This is a bit of a test; I'll return to my regular blogging tomorrow. Thanks for checking in.