Where is this wintry place, with snow on the peaks?

It's been cold in San Francisco this winter. Or am I just getting old? I mean, it seems to me that it's colder than usual for this time of year. We've had snow on the peaks around the Bay, frost on the rooftops, and mornings where you can see your own breath. It reminds me of my years in Philadelphia where winter would send me into hibernation. So, naturally, I'm thinking ahead to spring and summer with great fondness, trying to decide where to go for my big, annual trip. This year, the principal choice I'm considering is an actual roadtrip. I'm seriously thinking that I might just drive off into the Sunrise one morning and take a trip around the States. There are parts of this country I've never seen, places like Wyoming that I'm unlikely to ever see unless I do a cross- country drive.

Competing with this idea is, of course, the pull towards England. And, in combination, a couple of new places for me; Greece and Venice. I even thought, at one point, that I might venture much further afield and go to Hong Kong, Australia and Japan. But the economic reality is that, like a lot of people, I'm a little tighter this year. So, until I decide otherwise, the road trip across America, and then maybe Christmas in England with my family, will remain as my plan for this year's major trips.

One of the reasons that I'm pulling back a little on travel-spending is that I've had to spend an unexpectedly large amount of money on healthcare recently, and these expenses are continuing. I'm still seeing a chiropractor three times a week, for example. My back is slowly returning to normal, and I've started to build up a cautious head of steam again at the gym. But it's odd how many little niggling things have gone wrong recently. I can't help but think that some if not all of my complaints are related. Like my left foot, which has an insistent pain. It's probably due to a changed posture on account of my back.

But what's the explanation for the trio of little issues I took to my doctor the other day? Again, I ask myself, am I getting old? Have I reached the age where things are starting to fall apart faster than I can build them up? For months and months I've been avoiding seeing my doctor about my difficulty in urination. I was scared that there might actually be something wrong with me. I was even more scared of having my doctor put his finger up my bum! But since I also had ... well .... let's just say I had an itchy bum ... I finally decided I'd brave my doctor's probing finger and hopefully put my bottom back into order. With relief, I found out that my prostate is completely normal, and the itchy bum is just that - an itchy bum, with no particular explanation.

But the final thing I saw my doctor about was, for me, a little more scary. On a few recent occasions, I've suddenly found myself starting out of a deep sleep completely unable to breath. With a wildly beating heart I sit up and try to catch my breath. After a few seconds, I'm able to breathe normally again. When this has happened, it's always happened a few times the same night, and so, of course, it makes me scared to go back to sleep. The doctor wasn't able to state, conclusively, what causes this, apart from the obvious suggestion that it could be stress-related.

Last night was my first screenwriting class at the Film-Arts Foundation. The teacher distinguished himself by arriving half an hour late. He entered the classroom to find thirteen men and only three women sitting silently in a circle tapping their pens impatiently on the tables. But, for me at least, the wait was worth it. The guy is one of the sharpest teachers I've experienced. Funny, articulate, informed and with an amazing memory. In fact, I'd say it's quite possible that he's brilliant. In the final part of the class he began to go around the room to hear people's script ideas. In response to every idea, he immediately came up with a suggested filmography to study, potential problems with the concept, and suggestions for tidying up the plot.

Fortunately for me, there wasn't time for him to quiz me on my ideas. I say fortunately, because my ideas seemed much less formed than those of most of the others. My reason for taking the class is, perhaps, different than for most of the other people - I just want to learn how to develop some ideas for my own little movies, whereas the other people seem to have some burning story ideas that they've long contemplated turning into screenplays. But the creative atmosphere must have triggered something in me, for, on the short drive home after class, three of the little ideas I'd been tossing around suddenly coalesced magically into a complete story suitable for a feature-length script.

I'm very much looking forward to going to the symphony tonight, because they're playing a piece which most orchestras (not to mention audiences) quite fear, Ives' Fourth Symphony. Ives is one of my favorite composers, though I don't love all his works equally. There are so many difficulat, scintillating, mysterious moments in the fourth symphony, but the movement that makes the piece so (relatively) unperformable is the second, because this one movement contains probably something like eighty different tunes, and there are many moments when several of them are playing (on an enormous scale on account of the huge orchestra) at the same time! It sounds quite dischordant, at times, and I've not yet been completely able to understand it. I'm hoping that hearing it live, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas (who's one of the principal promoters of Ives' music), I'll finally be able to take it all in.