It stopped raining in time for the play reading, and we had about two dozen people there. Average age: seventy. That was okay, though; they were passionately engaged with the issues--a little too passionate about the issues, one man really didn't get that it was the character's viewpoint, and not my own thaqt I was expressing. Q & A afterwards with me.

I had started the day with another luxurious swim--had a lane all to myself for over half a mile--and ended it stretched out on Evelyn's sofa, drinking wine and eating very good chocolate (I know, I know,) and talking about Life until the wee hours of the morning. Bottom line: Evelyn Orbach really likes the play, and God willing and the creeks don't rise, I think that means JET will do it as a production either in 2009 or 2010. (Geez, do those dates even exist? They do, and they'll be here before we know it.)

Meanwhile, JET will send my play to an Ann Arbor festival of new plays in June--again, another reading--and I'd like to edit the fat off of it before then. Flesh out the father's character a bit, and trim down some of the more didactic parts of the Passover scene and the courtship scene and maybe the taxi scene.

I flew home, quiet and relaxed in the clouds above the country. Oakland! As soon as the plane got close to home I felt my heart leap up. Detroit was much more civilized than I thought it would be--before I left C and David and I were sitting around the kitchen table drinking coffee and joking about how people wash their laundry by beating it on the rocks in Michigan and how I'd probably be swept off my feet by a knuckle-dragging snowmobiling football-watching yahoo with a deer strapped across the hood of his jeep, but I met no such animal.

Instead, the actors were professional (much better than the ones who did my show in NY last year) the people responsive, cultured and intelligent (granted, I was meeting with mostly Jews and artists. But still. My East and West Coast snobbery stands abashed.) And yet there's no place like home.

C met me at the gate and we had a romantic reunion which included a nap and dinner at the little Vietnamese place right up the street from my house. And then work today, four classes at the high school, which went well despite my jet lag. Now I've got to clean my room and the car before Emily and Dad get here tomorrow. At least make a stab at appearing organized.