Recently, a friend of mine conducted a brief flirtation with a twentytwoyearold. This was good for her for all of the obvious reasons, and good for me, as an opportunity to learn, secondhand, a phrase or two that has entered the lexicon while I've been at home, on the yogamat, otherwise focused ( Read more... )

About a century ago, Marcel Proust wrote ( Read more... )

One and only one adult in my early life, paid me an unflinchingly high level of attention. This gave me the notion that I was worthy of such attention, and made me incredibly angry at those who lacked the inclination, skill, and serenity to look upon me with a curiosity so vast as to appear limitless. That would be everyone else, at least for a ( Read more... )

Here is a way of seeing the world ( Read more... )

Been having a delightfully stimulating little existential crisis in recent weeks, brought on at least in part by working through a friend's book of literary criticism in re: Robert Musil's Der Mann ohne Eigentschaften ( Read more... )

The anguish of the Artist, and her joy
Is the repeated stripping away of veils
And being surprised, each time, to find
What (s)he's always known to be hidden behind them.

Some poet or playwrigt or somesuch once wrote that we should all be profoundly grateful to our second Love, for showing us that the light of love shone not from anOther's heart, but from our own ( Read more... )

Of late I've had the privilege of reading the works of authors with whom I have friendships. Much as the need to connect more deeply to the family that had housed me on my first trip to France, motivated me to attain greater fluency in my mother's father's mother-tongue, the opportunity to chat up the author after having read her/his work, makes ( Read more... )

The other morning as I rode the 'bus home from work, two young, well-dressed black women sat down about three seats in front of me. One of them kept looking back at me, an odd smile on her lips. I wondered if it hadn't some, "what are you looking at?" sass to it; I had, in fact, taken some pleasure in the shape of her legs, as she'd sat down, and I ( Read more... )

Had a magical, edifying, sexy weekend with an old friend of mine, and a new friend of hers. Among the delights was the linguistic alignment. He and I spoke mostly french, she and I, mostly english, and they, mostly german, and each of us occasionally took the risk of speaking his third language, for the common benefit ( Read more... )