I don't mean by that that she moves like half a kilo of cocaine lifted into the rafters by sixteen rubber bands animated by the strength of ten legions & the grace of the archangels. spiritually she is that, but only spiritually. you've seen pictures. no I only mean she is perfect

you think I get weird and protective over maria callas you should see me calling down god's holy fire on anti-gelsey kirklandites
I was the maria callas of book cataloguers, I don't think there is any debating that. meanwhile my cat is the gelsey kirkland of cats

360 days out of the year it is no trouble to leave all my perfume bottles & ostrich eggs &c. piled up on the sideboard bc she has tricky hips & never makes wild leaps such as some cats do
but sometimes she remembers that she can go from chair to desk to windowsill to sideboard in modest hops & skips

a saboteur
a little Sneak

I also know how these things are done so I know not to get attached to any particular person remaining alive. except for shirley the truculent cokehead, my favorite & god's. if she dies, somebody will pay
that is a threat

nothing gives her the autumn gainsbourg sulks like being told she can't sit on a fresh apple pie
theodora there are some pleasures life denies us
I am sorry but it is simply too hot

branching out to the kingston trio & harry belafonte in her wild college years

& the first concert I ever went to was nirvana but I had a weird obsessive beatles phase before that at 11 or 12. these things happen when you have no exposure to baby boomers in your youth. no protective inoculation

strong support for my boring but completely correct theory that any real cultural differences between "generations" derive not from when their members were born but when their parents were born. bc I'm about your age & was too good for my mother's music, but her music was, like, tennessee ernie ford

it's fine, they probably don't let you take your cat.
unless they do. then I am extra angry about it

that’s what it’s like when you don’t become a wolf. if you don’t know.
suddenly the next hour is all up in the air
worse if anybody was watching

such a particular sensation
I can only compare it to the feeling you get after starting to make some kind of torte needs four beaten egg whites & not checking the refrigerator before involving the rest of the kitchen because there‘s probably an unexpired egg carton in there that probably isn’t empty

(don't get me wrong, I am old, even old old, but not OLD old old. not like decrepit loathsome waxface ryan lizza old. just regular old.
and kind, with it! but I don't need to advertise that, I'm sure it shows)

b. kills me that I know the answer to the unaskable "what is wrong with her" question (thru mean & exquisitely perceptive speculation, not personal knowledge) but can't say because I am enough older than her that being mean about her is like kicking a stupid puppy. far beneath me

time passes & the seasons turn & the leaves fall & I no longer know with any certainty who is the biggest dipshit between the two of them. but you surely do walk into all kinds of jackasses in this wonderful city

--you are thinking, What kind of tragic youth were you to recognize ryan lizza of all people, then or ever
well, you would be right, but I misrecognized him at first. as I had to clarify in a contemporary email of the time, "I was confusing him with chris cillizza who is a much bigger tool."