Fan!

East of Eden.

STEINBECK: A book is like a man - clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.

SRONCE: Funny. So true. Thanks for letting me come over.

STEINBECK: I have owed you this letter for a very long time - but my fingers have avoided the pencil as though it were an old and poisoned tool.


SRONCE: Thank you. Awww. From way back then! God. You are so much more... relaxed now.

STEINBECK: You should passionately believe in the perfectibility of man.

SRONCE: I believe.

STEINBECK: Hmmm.

SRONCE: I think I have to move.


STEINBECK: I've lived in a good climate, and it bores the hell out of me. I like weather rather than climate.

SRONCE: I'm just so...it's just so...

STEINBECK: If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.

SRONCE: Thanks.

STEINBECK: It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.


SRONCE: That's simply never worked for me.

STEINBECK: It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

SRONCE: Oh God.

STEINBECK: YAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNN. Lord, how the day passes! It is like a life, so quickly when we don't watch it, and so slowly if we do.

SRONCE: Yucatan Peninsula...

STEINBECK: Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.

SRONCE: We men never change.

STEINBECK: Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.

SRONCE: I just want to go swimming for a really long time...swim...swim some more. And then ---> just keep on swimming. Or. I want to go HERE.
Forever.

STEINBECK: No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

SRONCE: What do you suppose then? That I want a tuna melt!

STEINBECK: No one wants advice - only corroboration.

SRONCE: Sorry. God. What the hell is my problem.

STEINBECK: One can find so many pains when the rain is falling.

SRONCE: I can't wait to read what you wrote.


SRONCE: Wait? Secretariat's nail! Is it in there?

STEINBECK: No.

SRONCE: Ha ha!

STEINBECK: One man was so mad at me (for that) that he ended a letter: "Beware. You will never get out of this world alive."

SRONCE: Ahhaa! Haahaha!! Hhehhhhhahhha!!!

Anyway. I laughed and laughed. We stayed up all night - watched Sleepy Hollow, took turns telling fantastically indulgent versions of our favorite scary story, and then decided on early morning delivery.

STEINBECK: So - in our pride we ordered for breakfast an omelet, toast and coffee...


STEINBECK: ... and what has just arrived is a tomato salad with onions, a dish of pickles, a big slice of watermelon and two bottles of cream soda.

Daisy

Well, this week's been really hard on me. I'm still thinking about Donald, like - all the time. And, I got to thinking about what you and I were talking about last time...about how I've spent half my life just hanging around. I just can't reconcile my position in life. My role. And - you know, my fear of being ...disgarded.

I realize by keeping a low profile, I keep him in my life. I've lasted longer than the others! I guess that's just a rationalization. He only uses me when she's not around. Secretly.



Who does that Reach think she is anyway? She told me it was just a matter of time. I'm usually pretty sharp. Who asked her? She's been in his mouth, sure! Why does she have to lord it over me? It's not like I'm obligated to... whatever. Sorry. Don't get me started on my repressed rage towards his towels.

I know I need to love myself. But. Sometimes I think it would be great if I did just get tossed. I've seen it happen over and over again, to each one of my sisters, my mother. The same inevitable cycle. Just to get tossed in a matter of weeks. Worse, days. I just don't want that to happen to me. I don't want to be disposable. Did I just contradict myself?



Sorry. Stay with this? OK. How am I feeling? Well. Rage. Quiet rage. Why should I accept that it's a Mach 3 world! But then see! My feelings will never count. I'm not cutting edge, too dull. He thinks I'm just a dime a dozen.

I was tender and smooth with him, in ways I've never been. And everytime I think of the way he holds me. So tentative. So gentle. I'm so close to his lips. The way I stroke his face.

But GOD! The way he treats me. I never told you this before Dr. Kenstel...he...Ohhh...he beat my head against the sink once, when he was done with me. Maybe it IS just a matter of time before it happens again. He's just got this GRIP on me. This hold. I mean his hair. His voice. Just one "Your Fired", sends me over the edge. Ohhh. There's so much! He's just so much! It's almost too much to take on. He leaves a little piece of him with me each time. That's all I have. Proper*.



I don't really know what I would say to him. If he were right here in front of me. I am terrified of when he's going to let me go... I TRIED TO WRITE HIM THAT LETTER YOU SUGGESTED, BUT I ... I COULDN'T!

*See: proper

For God So Loved Jody...

07/23/42 - 10/03/06

I was working on the above collage about my mom and her proclamations of a brief affair with Warren Beatty. She died the next morning.

There was also the tale of an old, crinkled photo of my mom sitting on Joe Namath's lap. This photo, and the folklore backing it, had apparently sent my father into a doused frenzy - the course of which compelled him to take said photo out into a snow drift one winter's night, and piss on it.

I have always enjoyed my mom's NYC yarns..."Richard Pryor was never funny.... Well, Fire Island was just something else...I was NEVER a hippie...Woody Allen got in bed with my friend Lynn, JUST after she had given birth...I mean, really, he was ALWAYS disgusting....I just thought it was cute to wear the bunny suit... I mean, I was a beatnik! I never realized, until one night..."

She lived much more of her life outside of this city. I really thought she would live much more of her life, for much longer.

There are no words to summarize such a force.

Or loss.

There was never a more emotionally courageous soul. She was, and I think - always will be - much, much larger than life.

Just sit back.

Now, for a few more tests...