So I am back in the Apple store in Amsterdam, what has become my security locale. Am bunking in with my beloved Daniel, whose mouse has become my room-mate. We re-named him Andrew this morning, after my last almost love, the bright, sad comedy writer in New York, sharp as a tack he was, in his tired prime, and still suburban adorable, a word I have come to use too much lately, probably because there is little adorable in my life.
As I regard most things in life as a spiritual test, this one is a Biggie. It is cold, rainy and dark in Amsterdam, but I at least have shelter from a cherished friend. And that is more, I'm afraid, than I have in the United States, which I don't think we can think of it as at this point.
Meanwhile, a legal battle is borderline raging, over something I wrote in my long ago youth, a concept that became 'What a Way to Go,' a successful comedy with the young, gifted, and very horny Shirley MacLaine. She played a woman who wanted to marry for love but all her husbands died funny and soon, making her a richer and richer widow.
I think I sold that in 1962. I find it hard to believe how long ago that was. But there is a fight going on over it now, from some people who want to own it and probably make it into a musical, which it should be, as it's funny and lively, or at least it would have been if written by the right people. Meanwhile a man I thought was a friend, an apparently quite duplicitous man who has never succeeded except in fooling me, has flogged it to a team I consider less than gloriously gifted, and the nice guy who got it from me seems to be getting screwed out of it.
And it is raining in Amsterdam, where it is less than welcoming, except in a couple of people I really like, and Andrew the Mouse.
But at least I have come in from the rain, and bumped into the Apple teacher I really like, from Bosnia, yet, with whom I have a date on Friday to meet his 16 month old son who is probably more connected and organized than I am. The only thing that makes me feel a little better is I could be in Bruges. Spelled Brugge by the people who live there, who can't seem to find too much that belongs to them, including their own homes. Only the statue by Michelangelo-- you remember him-- seems to be easily spotted, and he didn't like it enough to be that happy about it, or Brugge.
