Month: December 1999
Laura
Laura is Italian. Italian Italian, not New York Italian. She travels a lot, though she is finicky. These behaviors mesh well: she has, for example, found the perfect shampoo on her travels. Made and sold, however, only in Malaysia. She bought it last time in Macau, she says, in a black market. Three cases. She…
Mother
You cannot answer one of Mother’s type of people with, “I don’t want anything for the holidays. No gifts. I’m not being polite; I am never polite. I-really-don’t-want-anything.” This is because people like Mother buy crap for you whether you want it or not. They mull and sulk and get their hair done daily to…
Kay
We had tea at Takashimaya, expensive Japanese department store on Fifth Avenue today. Many nice things. She accepts my overtures for events fifty percent of the time. Better than usual, but I am somewhat discouraged.
Alexandra and Carol
Two days ago, we went out for a little dinner and gift exchange at M&R on Elizabeth Street. Cozy, a little pushy about turning around tables (“Are you done, because we need this table”: another non-question question), but decent food, fair-priced. Gave them books and each a copy of McSweeney’s, the journal. Very pleased to…
Elke
I first saw Elke in my kitchen making tea one morning. She stood there in doubtful black shiny nightclothes, fair-skinned. One of the roommate’s many dames. This week he tried to break it off with her. She responded by stepping out for unreality. One a.m., she’s cracking and knocking around the apartment like a three-year-old…
SDF
Waiting for the train, filthy tall drunk, black, lecturing, badgering, cursing at short dark Indian girl. He’s got a bottle of Boca Chica in his back pocket. Cheap shoes, soles gone, laces knotted. New black zippered sweatshirt. Dirty slouch hat. She and he standing in front of the newsstand. She’s staring straight ahead, not looking…
Kay
Out last night with Kay. First to Kitty’s place. Big pad, cheap, got it through a friend. Near Grand Central. Wood floors, light, big bedroom, big living room, big bathroom. Half the crowd was fat or gay. Not happy gay because they were all too concerned with whether the birthday gifts they’d bought would look…
South America
The bus ride from Mérida in the Andes mountains of Venezuela is simple. Mérida for a week. Small college town, poked on a plateau between a valley and higher mountains. Lethargy dominated, read in my room, scoped the delicious Danish girl (with boyfriend), ran around, when I ran at all, with two Brit chicks who…
Ned
Told me his dream today. “It’s all in the dream, you know? You know how in dreams you just know things? Well, I was dreaming I had super powers. Lots of them. All kinds, like flying and stuff, and then I could hear somebody in trouble on the bridge. So I flew out there to…