or maybe it is the fan that whirrs noisily above my head now that I have gone to my fourposter bed at 8 with the hope of ending my upside-downness. Besides that it is paradisiacal and a privilege to be here, it is also a little daunting. Every night something dark and long skitters across the marblelized terrace that sides my part of the jungle, and I say to myself, but aloud, "I hope that was a cat."
My wonderful friend Denise who was kind enough to invite me here to recover from the death of Mimi had to go back to Seattle before I arrived as her grandmother had had a stroke, from which she eased out of life early this morning, I wish a gentle sail across that great gulf to Virginia. Imagine having a Grandma named Virginia. I think in terms of Gussies and Claras, so Denise must come from early settlers.
At any rate, I am alone in this lovely house, working on my new novel and working my way out of the bad temper that comes from jet lag and being tekkie-retarded, as I was engaged in trying to online publish the Mimi memoir/travel book--here it is if you want it-- and not being able to download or upload or sideload made me crazi(er) and kept me from being clear to write and frustrated me worse than the Republicans. So I have abandoned my attempt to join the 21st century and am just hopeful that the little book will find its own way, as I hope Mimi will, too, and Virginia.
I have missed Jack, who was here and called but we didn't connect so I must accept it was not meant to be, as much else seems to. But I was in Bali once in a car and Jack was just standing in the middle of the road when I didn't even know he was here, which my friend Taffy would categorize as 'Of course.' We must never take things for granted except when they are granted. Unexpectedly, but of course.
Saw my designer/free spirit friend Nadya who lives here all the time except when she is traveling which she does a lot and with great energy, sometimes hawking her clothes, sometimes just living. She says there is a new retirement visa which permits you to stay here for longer than the once alloted six months, so I'm not saying... I'm just considering. Once you're over the jet lag and the fact that you are never going to be at the Genius Bar of Apple, this is truly the most beautiful place in the world, except for the traffic which has now become horrendous. But it is always my way to find one place I like and hardly ever move from there, which I can do and still stay alive as long as there is a pool. In New York I eat almost always in the same restaurants, the ones that I like where they're kind to me, and it is the same wherever I go, though I am wearying of going, and think I would like to stay put. My sky in the New York apartment is fast being obscured by the monstrous 90 story condo and hotel(it will be) that they're building, and New York has not fed my soul or fulfilled my adolescent fantasies of showbiz showbiz, as very little is on the boards, as we used to say, that moves me, and I doubt my musical ever will be, though Tom Meehan had a really good idea and said I should set it in the '50s, which was my kind of time, with my kind of musicals.
But right now I am happiy(today, anyway) ensconced, and working on my bestseller. Once every 40 years or so I should have one, whether or not I want to. It is as I told my once and always editor, Bob, a 'sequin' to The Pretenders. It's time.
My love to all of you who are still in what was once the land of the free. Kisses to babies, and a sunbed to John Boehner that he gets trapped in and fried.
