a short note...

I have to remind myself that for Boston, this is warm.

It's ten PM, or thereabouts. I'm heading over to the Oak Bar at the Copley Plaza for a quiet(ish) glass of wine before bed, and as I scurry across Dartmouth street I remember the essential fact of how windy this place is, so I'm thankful for the relative warmth. I'm remembering from my days in Boston a series of post-Thanksgiving cold spells-- snow turning to ice in early December (I swear!), and days on end of bitter, bone-snapping cold. Not tonight, though, and I bless my good fortune as I slip into the bar.

Which is packed. A confession: there's a kind of sadness to coming alone to a place like this, in Boston, on a Friday night in the Holiday season -- as far as I can tell, it's not only Family Night but Date Night here at the Oak Room, and while I enjoy the dull din of conversation and the piano player's medley of Holiday Favorites (I am, after all, The Christmas Whore...), I'm also aware of my presence as the "party of one" guy who's workin' on his laptop on a Friday night (it's true - since I'm teaching a class tomorrow, this does qualify as a business trip for PK). (It also reminds me of a script idea about a man who goes through life positioning himself next to happiness, based on his hope that happiness is contagious and can, like a winter cold, be "caught" if one is around it often enough). Anyway. I'll probably overpay for the wine, but I don't care-- I've reached a point where I'll gladly pay a premium for a warm spot with comfortable seats.

So what am I doing here? Well, I made a promise to myself on the flight out (where I got the upgrade, again! I'm on a roll, baby! But no wi-fi on Boston flights...): I'm going to try to send "a musing a day" for the next few days, to get back into the swing of chronicling my increasingly scattered, hard-to-describe life. As a few of you have pointed out, it's been a long time since you've received a "PK rambling." I know. Rest assured I've got a backlog of observations about the culture of celebrity, working in network television, "life on the lot", life in Laurel Canyon, all of it. Things are slowing down, so hopefully that will allow me to catch up.

Stay tuned.

Especially since I now see that it's gonna snow tomorrow.