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."

(I did in fact mean it, and I did not in fact get anything done. virtue comes at a cost. but it is a cost I am happy to pay)

I say a private personal rule, I didn't grandstand about it any more than I do about everything, but I know I mentioned it out loud at least once because I remember getting some tolerant chuckles for my pains. because, see, if you held such a principle for real, you'd never get anything done

it's good I'm not a gambling woman because the odds are always better than I think. meaning worse
(we-that-was, now more properly "they," did a brisk business in burroughs, he was to be expected. mailer is not a hot commodity but one day there was a him AND a louis althusser in the same pile)

he does do a little running as I recall. but it isn't a book about marathons, per se. for that you want the loneliness of the long distance runner. which is about stealing from a bakery. or is that les miserables
"the miserables," as I call it
anyway different books are more similar than you think

(had to catalogue a copy of marathon man once. first I went straight to the dentist scene, for a pull quote & to remind myself to go to the dentist. then I said to myself, Is this just a book about dentists, doesn't he run any marathons at all? so I read forwards & backwards from there to find out)

in spite of having read at least one, maybe two, if not, indeed, all three of them
never going to remember again, either
you can keep your long runs & your walking men
those are also things!! but you'll never find out what from me

I enjoy the parts where the dull-witted future goons holler old-time celine dion songs at each other during a road trip & the slightly sharper witted goon slowly dies of old-time sonic unpleasantness in the back seat. that's realism, to me

this is the goopiest show I ever saw
I mean emotionally. there are also many literal vats of pink goop. but they do not concern me
all the goopy montage song choices are quite bad
sounds like a computer trying to replicate the sound of a bad dream about sarah maclachlan told to them by a third party