Conversation

Screening the movie tomorrow. Glenn and Linda arrived this afternoon before closing time and we took them over to their digs, a lovely studio apartment, then met them after work at the pub, Anthony, D and myself, for a couple of beers. D headed home but the rest of us stayed for dinner and conversation. Witty intelligent conversation is one of the great joys of life. Recluse that I am, I couldn't live without it. I've always found it, or it finds me, wherever I am. Because I'm a southern boy at heart, there's usually food and drink involved. And books, always books. Tomorrow night, for instance, 3 of the 11 know Melville pretty well, 2 of us have read "Clarel", which would be odd in a group of 10,000. No one reads "Clarel", it's just not done. Linda understood my situation right away, that I would have to drink beer while cooking the ribs, and there would be wine with dinner and then drinks after, and I don't drive after drinking, and offered the sofa cushions in their studio; but I have a pad, blanket and pillow, at the museum, and prefer to sleep in a place that I'm alone. I'm pretty sure I snore and I'm really used to getting up in the night and bitching out loud about the state of the union. Makes for a lousy house-guest, even if you are amusing, at three in the morning. And there's the dog, who needs to be fed. Fucking dog, I can't believe I have a dog; she is so, what, energetic, she runs faster than anything I'm ever seen. Going downhill she trips over her own feet, only regains her footing because she can fly and regains her composure in the air. Dumber than a sack of rocks, but goddamn she is fast. Confusing day, in many ways, because G and L arrived and I love them most of all, Sara and Clay were back from their Cape Cod trip, and Jo Etta, who is in the show, came either to look or flirt, and I don't know which, because the music was so loud. In my world we cover the tables with paper, crack the crab claws with hammers, maybe dance a bit, sucking crawdad heads.