Chapters (21)
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Table of Contents
- Bright Young Things campus of Clarkwell College, graduation in the town of Clarksville, somewhere upstate, 1990
- Cool Days open mike night at Kafka-fe, after band "2 Much" plays, 1991
- New on the Scene utside in front of Club Hush, for a film screening party of Kill Fee, 1993 o
- Single in the City at a French bistro, 1995
- Hangover brunch, the morning after, 1995
- Natural Health a chance meeting at Jasper’s Yoga Studio, 1996
- The Fat Flush ’90s in the foyer of a friend’s renovated brownstone, 1997
- Art Stars at Bonwyck Gallery, 1998
- Inner Odyssey the Burning Man festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, 1999
- Life After Death facedown in the dirt of the desert, next morning, 1999
- Loyal Companions catching up at the dog run, 2000 catching up at the dog run, 2000
- In the Real World a run-in at the ShopShape magazine launch party sponsored by Senor Strawberry Liqueur, early 2001
- Wartime spotted at Kinko's, late 2001
- Office Job in the cafeteria of the Conde Nast building, 2003
- Settling a yard sale on an obscure block in the outer borough, 2003
- Starting Over in a remote village tavern on the farmlands of New Zealand, 2004
- Epilogue a gathering of friends
As for ME, I am soo tired . . . I just want to go sit in our surface pool of our renovated orchid farm and lie back and enjoy life. I've just been so up and down lately, up and down. I might be directing a Billy Crystal movie but my heartjustisn'tinit. It's not a passion project. It's making me re-think the offers I have been getting to produce this kind of major Paramount thrillogy that everyone and their retarded sister is throwing money at, starring Julianne and even though she is, like, the great actress of our time, and I really love her as a person (and love her husband Bart and sometimes baby-sit their kids in their gorgeous Meatpacking District home), I just want to wait a bit until I really feel inspired to work on something more meaningful, you know? Like I would love to just sit like you are and simply unpack my few belongings and try to decorate my one-room studio and just live with everything shaved down and simple again. I'm just so sick of the shiny, glossy, beauty-obsessed world of top-selling pop and the three-dollar-ninety-five-cent mochaccino froth. Sometimes I thank the Lord I have a simple garden that I can walk through and just look at life in its simple organic beauty.
Everything is so lush and green there. Ha! It's weird probably for you to hear me say that I know I mean I'm the LAST person in the world who would think I could actually tend a garden but it turns out I just have this natural green thumb!
I sort of envy you and the hard work you'll have to put in to fix all this. Here you are just starting out again, at thirty-five, buying an ol' meth lab. I wonder how many people died here. So what are you doing for work?
Oh! No! I'm not smirking! It's the bus exhaust. On the contrary, I hear they have really good benefits at Wal-Mart.
Oh you're temping. You're such a free spirit still, it's amazing.
But this would be a good opportunity to really budget your time and find some other skills and make a leap forward. Do something different than your normal "go out on the prowl for love" thing. What about learning some kind of tech or repair work? Or teaching for Stanley Kaplan? Or, I know! An adult internship at the Modern Art Museum. It's sort of for grandmoms who go back to work. You don't need anything. Not even a high school degree, so it's not stressful. I'm on the board there. It doesn't pay, in fact you have to pay for it but I think it's just important for you to keep your mind busy.