The Tampa airport keeps paging "Linda Blair, please go to the nearest beige phone. Linda Blair to the beige phone."
I am in Tampa because I gave my talk in Gulf Shores, Alabama this morning and am on my way home.
I am now much calmer, much nicer to be around.
Last weekend was pretty much lost to working on the presentation. Not fun, especially when I'm not nearly as confident about the material. My topic was supposed to the the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, which was due on Oct. 1 - awkwardly, it didn't happen and it looks quite unlikely to happen until 2009 at the earliest. I had to scrape pretty hard to find enough to fill two hours. When you're getting paid for what's billed as a "keynote speech," it's distressing to stare at a timeslot and think, "What the hell am I going to do with it?" That made me insecure and cranky. Poor Chad, he deserves better than me in that sort of state.
In the end, my current employer saved me: we just issued a fascinating (and, better for my purposes, public) paper called
"How the World's Best Performing School Systems Come Out on Top", which I suspect will help frame the debate on No Child. That gave me something interesting and hopeful to talk about. The alternative to twiddle my thumbs and complain about the legislative process, which at one time used to be distinct from the presidential election cycle but, like the Holiday shopping season, has become permanent.
Now I'm just tired and babbly. The airport just paged Linda Blair again; I think she may have other commitments just now.
Back home to NY.