I realize that this here blog is fast becoming a graveyard of obscure and depressing remarks. Bear with me. This station will resume its normal programming post-haste. In the meantime, I would like to remind everyone that for some people Halloween only comes once a year. Some people. The rest of you monsters like to wear your costumes all year round, and frankly, that’s why I love you! Mwah!

And it’s supposed to get better. I know. Everybody says so, so it must be true. Except that I don’t know how anyone else lives. We don’t live anyone else’s lives, no matter how many stories we hear, read, and are told. In this present moment, everyone’s else’s reality is opaque as reason cannot sway a believer.

In the Assassination of Jesse James, James knows that Robert Ford intends to kill him. One of them will surely kill the other, but in a moment of rare grace, James turns his back to his assassin, allowing him the liberty to shoot quickly, without danger. Grace and mercy. Grace and mercy, for all but the killer. And what of Ford? Forced through circumstance and blind desire to kill the object of his affection, the rest of his life is a quiet repetition of this moment. If Robert Ford goes to hell, he would have done double time. Better to be killed.

What is liberty and love in these moments? People are like islands, drifting, barges, clouds, things that drift and can rot. That bump accidentally together and are doomed to separate, whether by death or distance. One boy said "it is the impossibility of being together that we are reminded of each day people are together." Somehow, all of it contradicts, makes no sense. Such extravagance, like an ornate gun with no future written on the handle.

I have forgotten how to love. I have not forgotten how to suffer. If my head could keep any lower, if my heart could find peace, somehow the sun warmth would be more than just what creeps in through the window, lighting up the dust lifted as a person passes through. 

Well, before Rhino or Ryndex can get to it, let me just inform you that Mia Farrow ate with us last night at Pramil. It would of course had been more fabulous if I had actually recognized her. Hmmm, another reason to wear glasses. But, it takes a lot to distract me from the food there. Foie gras with delicately acidic pig’s ears, ficoides glaciales with shrimp, a stunning cauliflower cake with peppery jam, pumpkin and chestnut soup, rabbit with violet artichokes and figues, pigeon and chard, the menu is simply a merveille and everything is handled with such a deft touch. The menu can accommodate not only vegetarians but gluten-intolerants. The chef is all sweetness and good. Go now before reservations become impossible.

When I was younger, I used to think that monsters were under beds, in closets, stomping up the stairs or just outside the shower curtains. As I got older, I stopped thinking that monsters existed and just believed they were part of  childhood. For most of my twenties, I stopped thinking about monsters altogether. But, in my later twenties, I started to wonder if I was turning into a monster, and if monsters were what happened to those who weren’t careful enough. Now I know differently.

There are monsters everywhere. Some of them are even my friends, beautiful and mad. But the monster I detest the most is the monster that hides under a facade of gentleness, only seeking pleasure out of its own sense of right, and heartless. Behind the salt tears is a pure hunger that changes course as it is sated. Always hunting. It is a kind of animal desire embodied, with little brain nor heart to support. But perhaps the beast is to be pitied. Who knows if, looking in the mirror, it can see itself for the monster it truly is. And how tiring it must be to always hunt. Or even worse, the fault would lie with me, blind to see under its soft pelt out of weakness. Or perhaps that even I, hiding under my smooth skin, am wolfishly fanged and has made a beast in my own image. Oh foolish child. Beware the beast. Do not fear it, but know that the wolf unveiled can be fled swiftly.

Such is all I can understand of the wolf and this be my last word on the subject. "Whereof one cannot speak one must remain silent."

People have been asking me recently how I get into all these parties. The truth is, I don’t really know. Sometimes you luck out and you’re on the list, most of the time you make up something dumb to say. I think all writers should practice their craft by making up a story to tell to a recalcitrant morlock doorman. Things I have said that have gotten me into parties this week.

"I’m not on the guest list."

"I’m on the list plus seven." 

"The other party sucked."

"My name is *semi-famous actor who actually told me to use his name to get in.*"

"My name is Sam."

Not even saying a word. 

All these have worked, and they didn’t require loads of imagination. Which only proves that I’m not any clearer than you as to how this whole thing works. It just does. And that’s what you get trawling the Internet for education. Rien.

Sport is waking up at 7 in the morning to play tennis.

… going back to bed at around 12 from sheer exhaustion.

… waking up later and feeling blue enough not to change out of jammies.

… running out the house late because sartorial choices were overwhelming.

… repeated right arm lifting a champagne glass to the lips.

… finger fatigue from rapid SMSing. 

… cheek and mouth pain from multiple kissings.