I have grown to deeply dislike the word "fondly." I realized that today when I received a letter from someone saying they "fondly remembered" an evening we'd talked at a party a long time ago. It feels like the kind of word either diplomats or cowards use to placate people or keep them at arm's length emotionally. A woman saying she is very fond of you, which of course means she doesn't feel more than that and you ain't got no chance of anything else happening with her. Or a teacher saying they are very fond of your child but there is this one problem... I worked closely with someone professionally who would sign all of their letters "Fondly." I always wanted to tell them how annoying that goodbye was to me. Neither fish nor fowl. You don't have to kiss me, but don't patronize me either with a tepid, half-hearted word-wave like that. Funny how when you work with words every day, you inevitably develop favorites and enemies among them.

I'm in a cafe in the very late afternoon having a shot of caffeine to perk me up. The place is full, only one table free. Lots of movement in there, shoppers coming and going. A very good looking woman comes in, dressed expensively. She sits at the free table and stares at the floor. Her eyes don't move until some minutes later the waitress comes and takes her order. She goes back to looking at the floor. Eventually the waitress reappears.The woman has ordered a HUGE piece of cake, mega-goo-deluxe, as big as the plate it is on. Thanking the waitress, the woman proceeds to attack the sweetie. Never in my life, and I am not exaggerating, have I seen a person eat something so incredibly fast. If it took two minutes I would be surprised. The fork and her mouth never stopped moving. At first I was sort of smitten by how good looking she was, then intrigued by her floor stare, but most of all by this speed cake orgy. When she was done she daintily wiped her pouty, perfectly lipstick'd lips, stood up and left. 

I had one of those great shivery moments today that life zaps along your spine every once in a while like an electric shock. There is an exhibition on in Vienna of the painter Tamara de Lempicka. I have always liked her work very much and was eager to see this show. One of the paintings was a portrait of the novelist Andre Gide. It is a striking picture, strong and very memorable. Part of the delight too was I had never seen the picture before. Standing in front with their backs to me was a couple looking at it too. After a while the man said something to his wife, then for some reason turned completely around and looked at me. In that first second he looked exactly, and I mean exactly, like that portrait of Gide we had been staring at. I was so shocked that I think I twitched. Even more strange, next came a moment when there he was in the flesh looking at me and a few feet behind him was this painting... of him. Of course after a few seconds had passed I saw they didn't look so much alike, but for a few moments there....

"Sometimes you dance just to keep from dying." - James Kaplan

In a bookstore yesterday I bought a postcard that fascinated me. It's a photograph of two sheperds in Balou Lekh, Nepal. Backs to us, they're standing in an open meadow watching their small flock of sheep and herd dogs. It is a brilliantly sunny day. Their bodies cast long black shadows across the ground, as if they were figures on a sundial. In front of them miles in the distance is one of those astonishing panoramic views of the blue-gray Himalayas. The photo is so rich and exotic in both subject matter and locale that you don't know where to look first. When I got home I propped the card up next to the computer screen. Since then I find myself staring at it often and dreaming. An eye doctor once told me that if you work at the computer a lot, you should frequently look away, out the window if possible and focus on the natural world a while to give your eyes a rest from the electronic jitter. I used to do that, but now with this card, with an eye flick I'm in Balou Lekh.

When I was in Italy a couple of weeks ago, a magazine interviewer asked this question which I thought was interesting: A UFO lands in your backyard and the aliens knock on the door. They ask you to suggest one book they can read that best describes Mankind and the Human Condition. Which one would you suggest that gives beings from another planet a good idea of who we really are? I mentioned the first thing that came to mind and to this day I stick with the suggestion-- the children's book Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. For those who don't know it, a little girl gets into bed at night. As she drifts off to sleep, she says goodnight to all of the things she loves and that make up her small world. It is a book about observation, love, and gratitude. When I am feeling optimistic, I think those are the qualities that make us special and will hopefully save us in the end.

If you had to choose, what would you rather drop-- something liquid, or something solid?
Explain your choice.

We can't control what life deals us, just how we respond to it." - Danny Gregory

After unending, diligent summertime observation I have come to the conclusion that there are essentially two kinds of ice cream eaters: Those who go slowly, lick every corner of the cone or spoon, rolling the sweetie around in their mouths until it's all gone... And then there are the others who, by the looks of it, eat their gelati (usually cones) as if in a huge hurry to be finished. They're licking fast fast fast while their eyes flit here and there as if they really should be somewhere else, or they're afraid of being caught in the act. Which of course begs the question why the hell did they buy the stuff in the first place if they're rushing to be done? It seems to me that one of the primary laws of eating ice cream is savor, never gulp.  

A funny crazy thing this morning:

I walk the dog very early in the park across the street. Punks have set up camp in one corner of it (right near the 'Amnesty International Torture Museum,' ironically enough, and there are always a few of them sleeping in an amorphous pile. Their staked out corner is right near a park entrance. This morning a bunch of prostitutes were standing nearby, chatting loudly. Really dressed to the nines-- waist high white boots, Dolly Parton hairdos, purple or orange micro-minskirts, the works. If they weren't prostitutes I'd like to know who their employer is. Anyway, they were loud and laughing and having a good time chatting. I was standing about thirty feet away while the dog grazed on the grass. Suddenly one of the punks poked his head up from beneath his blanket and screamed at the whores to shut up. Normally people are afraid of them because they're ferocious looking and dramatically loud about everything. Most passersby give them a wide berth. Not these women. In even louder screams, they told the punks to fuck off. That did it. Suddenly there was a furious shouting match between punks who'd had their beauty sleep interrupted and whores who were just finishing for the night. Eventually one of the punks must have said something really offensive, a big no-no, because as one, the women came charging into the park and leapt onto the pile of sleepers in full, howling banshee fury. It looked like one of those fights in a cartoon where dogs and cats are fighting so hard that they lose all shape and size and you just see one big whizzing scrum. The funniest thing of all was most of the punks tried to hide in their sleeping bags while their attackers kicked and screamed at them. Some fought back, but these usual masters of their small universe, used to scaring all park people, were suddenly confronted by real toughies who were neither impressed nor afraid of their black leather bluster.

A man I know had been having a very good and satisfying affair with a woman for some time. As a sign of appreciation, he decided to invite her over for dinner at his apartment-- something he hadn't done before. He liked her very much and decided to do the whole thing right: candlelight, linen tablecloth and napkins, nice plates and glasses, etcetera. And of course cook something great. She arrived and they chatted while he put the finishing touches on the meal.  But as they ate and time wore on, she became more and more withdrawn and cold. Finally it got so bad that he asked if anything was wrong.

She hesitated but finally pointed to one of the plates.

"Why did use plates? Why not just plastic or something?"

Taken aback, he answered "I wanted to make a nice meal for you. I thought I'd use my nice plates, a tablecloth, you know-- the good stuff."

"But that's all? That's the only reason?" She narrowed her eyes, as if not trusting what he'd said.
Thoroughly confused now, he said "Yes, that's all."

"You're not in love with me?"

He hesitated because he didn't want to hurt her feelings, but the whole evening was becoming so weird and mysterious that he thought he should just tell the truth."No, I like you very much but I'm not in love."

Her face lit up and she smiled from ear to ear. "Oh, thank God! As soon as I walked in here and saw these nice plates I thought Oh no, he's in love with me. Because you never use plates in a situation like this unless you're in love. I was so afraid I was going to have to say that I don't love you. But now everything's okay. Do you want to go to bed?"

Italian phrase of the day: "caccati in mano e prenditi a schiaffi" which roughly translates as "Take a shit in your hands and then hit yourself with it."

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened. - Montaigne

Those towns everywhere in the world, tiny places often, not even towns in some cases-- villages, dorfs which barely rate a name on a map-- suddenly become known to everyone forever for one unimaginably horrible event-- My Lai, Lockerbie, and last week Beslan.

"For a long time, she held a special place in my heart. I kept this special place just for her, like a reserved sign on a quiet corner table in a restaurant."

Haruki Murakami

Heard a great line today from a friend who used to fight forest fires in Oregon and California:
"When you're trying to escape a fire that's gotten too close, you're running so fast that you could go across a mile of whipped cream and not leave a footprint."

IA Hollywood story from years ago: I had an appointment to meet a very high-powered producer who was flavor of the month with the studios at the time. The scuttlebutt was he could get any movie made because of a recent unbroken string of hits.

His director of development called and said this man had personally asked for a meeting with me because he liked my books so much. I was thrilled and delighted.I’d heard the producer was also famous for dressing beautifully. So that day I made a point of dressing as  nicely as I could. I had a Borrelli shirt in an unusual color that I hadn’t worn yet so I decided today was the day for its maiden voyage. Borrelli shirt, best suit, polish the shoes—Off to the meeting.When I got to the company’s office it was like something out of CITIZEN KANE. On entering,  I was met by a stunning secretary who marched me through room after beautiful room, full of light and arrangements of wildly exotic flowers. Flowers like I had never seen before in my life. To another, much bigger room, more knockout secretaries, more light, more flowers….Until I reached HIS office. I was met there by the director of development, a woman dressed in a frighteningly chic black men’s suit. We shook hands and she opened the door to the inner sanctum.Inside, the office looked as big as a basketball court. I’m talking HUGE here. And way on the other side of the room was the man. He was screaming into a telephone, furious, frothing at the mouth angry at whoever was on the other end. It sounded like he was going to kill the guy. I thought oh great, he’ll be in a good mood for this meeting.But then a miracle occurred: The boss finally looked up from his desk, saw us standing there and froze.  Without another word he hung up the phone. The assistant said “Mr. X , this is Jonathan Carroll, the novelist.” Mr. X immediately got up from his chair and walked towards us with his hand stuck out, as if he wanted to shake. I started to raise my hand to shake but realized at the last moment his hand was way too high. When he reached us, he took hold of my shirt in his hand and said “That is a great shirt! Where’d you get that shirt?”I told him, he nodded, and then asked me “Who are you?”I said my name again and just to make sure, said I wrote novels.“Why are you here?”“Because we’re supposed to have a meeting.”

He looked at me like I had two heads. “I never meet with novelists. They’re all nuts. Talk to her.” He pointed to his assistant and walked away.