This afternoon, after the power went out at school, I tinkered with the first eight measures or so of Make Way. (Laptops run on batteries when the power goes out. It’s a beautiful thing.) I think I’ve got it bearable.

My intention was to work on the next eight measures tonight, but after I got upstairs and sat down, there was an email from Mike Funt. Not only is he getting married in Las Vegas on a Monday in two weeks, preventing my attendance, he has the nerve to send me a script for House he wrote upon an agent’s request for a sample hour-long script. Well, it’s not so much the sending as the asking me to look it over that takes nerve.

First of all, of course, do I look like a script doctor to you? Am I sitting in That House in L.A., overlooking the Valley, cocktail in hand, multiple Emmys on the glass bookshelf behind me, as I look out at the lights of the city twinkle on below in the purple sunset? Is there a buxom starlet in the pool? Is she nude? Is there a pool? (No, no, and no.) Feh.

Second of all, there is no second of all. I’m still stuck on the first of all: why would Mike Funt, who is clearly talented and headed for great things, think I knew enough to do anything but correct his spelling? Which I did, needless to say.

Very flattering, to be sure, but nothing throws one into a panic as being thought of as competent in fields one knows nothing about. My tirade about the Pirate Queen does not count; any idiot could have done that, except, apparently, for Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, Richard Maltby, Frank Galati, and Graciela Daniele.

Oh well, I’ll work on the music Thursday and Friday.