Nora Ephron R.I.P.

I got really, really down in the summer of 1991. In some ways, I was more miserable then than I am now, though I look back on that year today with fondness.*

One afternoon, in the midst of a lot of doubt and heartache, I watched WHEN HARRY MET SALLY... and I was happy. Seriously, that movie took my unhappiness away and replaced it with delight.  I wanted to be that clever.  I wanted to talk that cool.  I wanted to have a friend that close, and fall in love, and do the New Year's Eve thing.  I wanted to get every joke there.  I wanted to grow up and live in the city and find out what there was to know, and be surprised I didn't know everything, and go out and live more.  I wanted to sing "Surry With The Fringe On Top" in front of Ira.

I'm still around, and I still wanna do those things. Thanks, Nora Ephron.

Ephron died this week, from leukemia.  She was seventy-one, which strikes me as almost as shocking as her death.  She was a strong, admirable woman in a field that has always been pretty man-centric.  She wrote films as diverse as SILKWOOD, the terrible Will Ferrell BEWITCHED, and MY BLUE HEAVEN, but most people know her from SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE or her last film, JULIE & JULIA.

But for me, it'll always be Harry and Sally.  I will never write a movie that good, but if I'm lucky, I'll see one or two before my obituary comes.

Rish "You made a woman meow?" Outfield

*I felt really sorry for myself in those days, and I think, if I could go back to that time, I wouldn't smack myself on the back of the head and tell me to get over it, but I'd put my arm around that kid and tell him that it's a hard time, but he's not alone, and there's good out there as well as bad. Just don't ask me to tell you it'll get better when you're older. It doesn't. You just get calluses.