I don’t mind being relatively poor these days as it means fewer distractions and more of a focus on writing. But I do miss the travel.

I’ve secured HE’s beautiful old 19th Century apartment in Cannes for next May (7 rue Jean Mero, third-floor walkup…the place Ann Hornaday and I shared for a few years) but I’m not entirely sure I even want to do Cannes this year. It doesn’t seem like much of a lineup, but then I haven’t really studied the situation. Telluride is the only keeper, the only essential.

Between the early ’90s and late 20-teens and especially from the early aughts onward I was always going somewhere. Starting in ’00 I flew each May to Europe (Paris, Cannes, Prague, London, Berlin, Munich, Tuscany, Rome), and over the last 13 or 14 years (starting in 2010) to Telluride each and every year.

Along with occasional journeys to NYC, Key West, Virginia and Washington, D.C., Vietnam (2012, 2013 and 2016), Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Morocco, San Francisco, Seattle, Hawaii, Mexico, Monument Valley, Park City, etc. Plus a terrific one-off to Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata in Argentina.

Not to mention random long-hauls and hiking trips in California (Palm Srings, Sierras, Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Death Valley, Santa Barbara, Los Olivos, Big Sur, Mill Valley, Guerneville, Mendocino) when the mood struck.

Living with a constant sense of expectation and adventure does wonders for the soul. Keeps you going, keeps you alive. I realize that I sound entitled and spoiled to a certain extent. How many people have travelled this much over two or three decades and experienced this much intrigue and arousal? I only know that I’ve adored this feast of living, this seemingly endless banquet…course after course and episode after episode for such a long and wondrous time…and that I’m very sorry that I can no longer afford to live this way any longer. But at least the memories are many.

The bottom line is that I’m deeply grateful that I had what I had when I had it.

Friendo: “Honest question about this Shampoo one-sheet, which presumably appeared on billboards and at bus stops, not to mention in newspapers and magazines:

“Is it in fact depicting what I think it’s depicting or at the very least suggesting, judging by the towel-draped woman in a kneeling, bent-over position?”

HE reply #1: If I answer your question I’ll be slagged by the HE scolding brigade so maybe I should sidestep this.

HE reply #2: The frankest and fullest answer I can think of is that the ‘70s were the greatest era for hetero nookie in U.S. history and were arguably the most breathtaking era in this regard since the heyday of ancient Rome, but you can’t even talk about it today without sounding like a pig dinosaur.

HE reply #3: There are two suggestive moments in Shampoo in which Warren Beatty’s George Roundy is blow-drying an attractive woman’s freshly-cut hair (at first a foxy 20something client in the Beverly Hills hair salon and later Julie Christie’s Jackie in her bathroom). Both times the women’s heads are not only facing but mere inches away from Beatty’s Sticky Fingers album cover.

Friendo reply: “Yeah, I know, but get a load of that one-sheet. Aren’t you surprised an ad like that would be appearing in newspapers — FAMILY newspapers — in 1975?”

HE response: Those were the’70s, dude! You had to be there. There’s certainly no explaining the social atmosphere of those days to effing Millennials and Zoomers.

Sunday, 2.18, 3:10 pm BAFTA update: Emma Stone has won Best Actress, of course, but Oppenheimer‘s Cillian Murphy, a hometown favorite, has beaten The Holdovers‘ Paul Giamatti for Best Actor. Oppie‘s Robert Downey, Jr. and The Holdovers‘ Da’Vine Joy Randolph have won in the supporting categories; Chris Nolan has taken the Best Director prize, and Oppenheimer will almost surely prevail in the Best Picture category.

Earlier: With KOTFM’s Lily Gladstone blanked and absent, Poor Things star Emma Stone will take the BAFTA award for Best Actress today, and will once again enjoy an Oscar bounce.

London’s 77th British Academy film awards are happening (or about to happen) as we speak.

The SAG-AFTRA lowlifes may give their Best Actress trophy to Gladstone regardless (they’re the most identity-conscious guild of all) but if they do this they’ll have to live with the backwash for the rest of their lives, not to mention the eternal disdain of the Movie Godz.

The SAG awards are next Saturday evening (2.24).

Okay, there may be one possible surprise in BAFTA’s Best Supporting Actress competish. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw is predicting that Saltburn’s Rosemund Pike will outpoint The Holdovers Da’Vine Joy Randolph…go figure.

1:30 pm update: Bradshaw was wrong — Da’Vine wins again!

At the start of an SNL hosting gig seven years ago (2.4.17), Kristen Stewart announced “I’m so gay, dude.” (Today’s preferred nomenclature of “queer” hadn’t yet taken command.) She didn’t say “I lean gay” or “I prefer gay” — she said “this is my effing home team, bruh.”

And yet THR’s Etan Vlessing, in a 2.18.24 report about Stewart’s remarks at a Love Lies Bleeding press conference at the Berlin Film Festival, has timidly described her as “bisexual” — an apparent allusion to Stewart having had boyfriends during the Obama years as well as a vague inference that Stewart might one day re-open the hetero pleasure chest.

I’m basically asking myself how effing chickenshit can a trade publication be about this stuff? Name one celebrity who’s come out and then did a 180 or even dabbled with straight behaviors. Okay, Cary Grant but he was never “out,” of course.