This is why it's good to have rich colleagues

Because while they may ask you to copy-edit their work and occasionally cover their classes when they go hobnob with Ian McKellen and Queen Elizabeth, they also sometimes invite you for a weekend to places like this:

SAA

This year's Shakespeare Association conference was pretty fantastic. I don't think I made an ass of myself, on the dance floor, in the seminar room, or elsewhere; I was inculcated into a Shakespearean editorial board (with free breakfast); I got one or two new ideas for articles; and I saw baby gorillas at the San Diego Zoo.














This was also the first year I brought a date to the conference, and that went pretty smashingly, too. I think M managed to convince one or two people (accidentally, of course) that she was working on a book on Shakespeare and the law.

The preview of the new Kenneth "Zenneth" Branagh As You Like It was not a highlight. I was pretty delighted with the beginning, which involved ninjas and sumo, but the middle and end involved self-indulgent, blurry steadycamming, a performance by Bryce Howard that suggested that everyone on the set was too distracted by her impossible gorgeosity to suggest what her scenes were really about, and a lot of Brian Blessed. By the end, the score, the terrible directorial decisions, and the twee Orientalist flower close-ups made me want to hit Ken in the mouth. With a hatchet. Y'all can see it yourselves in August.

Anxiolysis

I have recently been given my final, non-extendable deadline for the book, the first week of July. Because I was dealing with this information during a routine trip to the doctor and evidently seemed unable to cope, I was also recently given, without asking, a prescription for Xanax.

Does anyone out there know what this stuff is supposed to do? Do I really want to be manipulating my emotions with pharmaceuticals right now?