My activities have lately been like my car radio — mostly hibernating, while every now and then coming to life, intermittent as the desert rain.

Sunday meant a long road trip, 140 miles to Burbank to attend a memorial for Stan Margulies at the Warner Bros. studio lot’s Stephen J. Ross Theatre (which, by the way, was a classy affair attended by Robert Wagner and Louis Gossett Jr., among many other people; oh, and I got to see the exterior set of ER while I was there!). Did my radio accomodate with deejay smiles, news stories, and hit songs to help cover the sound of the monotone, hypnotic hum of the freeway beneath? Absolutely not. Banging the on/off button, coaxing the volume dial, cajoling and pleading and offering rewards — none of it worked. The radio was a frigid lover and stayed silent all the way there and back — an outing that lasted nearly the entire day.

Naturally, the next day — on a short errand that took no longer than 15 minutes each way, practically a jaunt around the block — the radio decided to sing to me out of the blue. “Too little, too late,” I barked at it, still thinking about Sunday’s quiet ride. I should have been nicer though; it gave me the silent treatment when I went out to dinner later that night.

So has my life been — quiet most of the time and rather eventful in small pockets. One of these days I’ll have to sort out my wires to get me going steadily again. The radio, too, come to think of it.

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