My hairdresser, as writ in a prior e-mail, having been betrayed by a colleague, so he lost his salon and, having married well, fled to Italy, left me no choice but to curl up and continue with my uncut hair. Curiously, the same has happened to Mimi: her groomer broke his hand, so he can't cut her. So we are both the same, facing our own untended to future. In Mimi's case it is exacerbated by her having tangled with the gummy nettles in Venice, so her underbelly was shorn, as were the tops of her legs. Her hair grows fluffy and white(the groomer was able to wash her,) giving her a face sided by mutton chops as they were called on the face of one of our least successful presidents, I can't remember his name, there's a prize if you know, her body hair flaps out in kind of a square above her chest, so she looks like she is wearing the mantel of a Pilgrim, which will be fine for Thanksgiving should the groomer's injury last that long.
Lovely as she is, even overgrown, she has still been frequently snapped at, barked to and strained at the end of a leash by a little black terrier down the street, whose infirm and aging owner can't hold him, so it's been a little tense. But yesterday that woman collapsed on the street, and as a kindly neighbor walked her dog, Kerby I found out his name is, I gave her my shawl to put around her shoulders while we debated whether or not to call 911. In the end, she seemed well enough to return to her apartment, and when Kerby returned, he apparently understood I had helped his mistress, so he was civil to Mimi. How strange, that dogs understand that much, and retreat from their anger when sympathy is called for. What a shame that people don't do the same.
I have started wearing my safety belt again when I drive, a sign that I want to live, which I do on account of I've started a new novel so you may not be getting too many of these from me; that will be an indication that it is going well. I have named my leading character Emily, after my new best friend who has also become the newest best friend to fall off the planet, as once I become close to people they seem to disappear. Her failure to communicate has not made me strike off her name as it is a good one, as I think the book will be, though you may not know it was me what writ it, as I am going underground as a novelist, adapting a nom de computer so I can begin a new life as another person, perhaps with better sales. If you were on tenterhooks as to the thrilling outcome of my library lecture, don't be. I got a moving violation on my way to the library as it came up quicker than I expected on my left, and made a turn from what officer Rosenberg his name was said was the wrong lane. I begged him for mercy but he had none, nor compassion neither but wanted to know what I was going to speak on at the library, as I pleaded with him to let me off with a warning, and I said 'My books' at which point he wanted to know where he could get them and I said "The library." "Not Borders?" he said contemptuously. "No," I said, "it's been a while since you could buy a book of mine, but I have this story I just finished," I said, fishing out the tale I had written for Silas, that was right behind my proof of insurance. "You haven't finished it," he said, "it's not very long." "It's a short story," I said. "A children's story." "I am not a child," he huffed, and continued writing. "Please let me off," I said. "I'm sorry. I panicked" "I,I,I," he said. "It's all about you." "You sound like my son," said I, which he did, and at that moment I saw with dazzling clarity, his name being Rosenberg, that he had issues with his mother and I reminded him of her. Oh, God. A Jewish mother. WHo would have thought it, those days I imagined I would be in the Rainbow Room.
Needless to say the library talk did not go well, as I was greatly deflated, as was my audience, consisting of a few close friends I had invited, a pushy would-be screenwriter, and a homeless man. At one point I spoke of Happy, my Yorkie who(not that, Happy was a person) died in Paris, and how I had sprinkled his ashes on all the great artists at Pere LaChaise, and put the collar he had worn on Oprah on Jim Morrison's headstone. "Is it true that drugs were involved in his heart attack?" the homeless man asked. "My dog's?" I queried, giving us the best and probably only laugh of the evening.
A little later he began to sing-- the homeless man, not my dog. It was some Doors song, not one I could make out. But the librarian told me afterwards there was something in what he sang about Asylum, and coming home. There was a very tuned-in guy Blackberrying at the sushi place I go to a few days afterwards, and I asked him if he knew what song it was, and he Googled a few key words, right there at the sushi bar, and came up with 'The Soft Parade."
This impressed me and made me hate more than ever the broker I had when Google first was coming on the market who refused to invest $100,000 for me. I would be worth six million today. I don't know who I am madder at, him or the cop. Oh, yes I do..
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