Snapshots

— It’s annoyingly hot. The heat makes me feel fat and grubby. The subway is particularly awful, and I have to grit my teeth to NOT say to people who brush up against me, ‘Do you mind?’ My aversion to crowds is especially interesting considering where I have chosen to live. I do not mind crowds in the winter. I find them bracing then. But in the summer, I am one step away from going postal at every moment.

— I just signed another year’s lease, which is an odd sensation because of all of my other plans I had a mere 2 months ago, which involved upheaval and change. Well, I’ve still got the upheaval and change – it’s just that it’s happening in New York now for the time being, and I have to be here. I had been living in my apartment looking around, calculating how long it would take to transfer everything into boxes – and I even got started, took down pictures, boxed up some books … and now I’m still here. I think I might leave the stuff in boxes, though. To remind myself of that other plan, which is still a good one. Can’t ever get too complacent.

— I seriously cannot imagine my life without Nag Champa incense. I get NERVOUS when I run out.

— After finishing Veronica, I decided to go with something a bit lighter – and I’m in a fiction phase – so I picked up Elinor Lipman’s The Pursuit of Alice Thrift. Elinor Lipman is a wonderful writer – one of those rare rare writers who can make me laugh out loud – and I’ll be posting more about her.

— Speaking of books, here are two funny related stories. Years ago, Allison and I were sitting in a loud music club – so loud we had to scream – and I was telling her about Philip Gourevitch’s amazing We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. I was shouting about it in her ear. She was into it, excited to read it. Later in the night, we came back to it – when she said, obviously intending to buy it, “Now – what was that book you mentioned? Please Forgive Me But I am About to be Murdered In Front of my Mother?” I still shake with laughter when I remember that. And she wasn’t being snarky – she truly did not remember the title, and that was her best shot. And then last week, after my two posts about Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro – she called me. “So tell me about this book!!” I raved about it to her. And then this past weekend, she went to the bookstore across the street from her apartment and said to the clerk, “Hi – I’m looking for a book and it’s by the guy who wrote Remains of the Day and it’s called …. Never Push Me Off the Cliff??” Again, she wasn’t snarking – she was trying to remember and that was her best shot. I am guffawing. hahahahahahaha The clerk was like, “Uhm, never heard of that … ” Too funny. But she now has it – and she’s tearing through it!

— I’ve got Rio Bravo to watch tonight. And Paris, Texas to watch tomorrow night. And a shitload of work to do between the two movies. It’s good to have bookends.