Hello, There!

Yes, well, nothing of any interest has happened since I last posted, unless you count that abso-fuckin'-lutely wonderful thunderstorm the other night. Wasn't that brilliant? There was one simultaneous lightning bolt (a real jagged lightning bolt!) and huge crash of thunder right over my porch that made me jump out of my chair - I thought it was coming for me.

Aside from that, I have done nothing of any use to anybody other than feeding cats and occasionally trying to put books in my bedroom bookshelf. This is a losing proposition, because it's already double-rowed. Which causes another problem - if there happens to be something in there I want to read, I can't find it without major expenditures of time in moving stuff around and aside. This is all an unholy nuisance, and naturally caused by my dear cousin's book collecting madness - I had just about enough book shelves before.

Oh, I tell you, he's amazing. Yesterday he got some sort of government approval to get permanent dental implants, and he had me read the notice because he can't read legalese (well, most people can't, but through many years of typing it, I can usually get the gist). One of the points in this determination was that his doctors had all written letters saying that because of his ADD, he was incapable of dealing with dentures (well, that's what it said in English, anyway - there were a lot of "counterindications" and "to wits" in there).

Is there anyone out there who can explain THIS piece of nonsense to me? Now, here is a man who is so incredibly vain that he uses two bathrooms to shower (yeah, that's right - one to shower and then the downstairs powder room to spend half an hour drying his hair and God knows what all) (by the by, he doesn't HAVE any hair to speak of - he's balding and wears it in a very close military cut), and comes home from a walk to tell me about all the 18 year old girls who are flirting with him on the street. Do you honestly expect me to believe that this person is incapable of remembering to put his goddamn teeth in? I mean, due to the fact that I have lovely English teeth - or I had lovely English teeth - I have worn dentures for years. (Hey, nothing like full disclosure here.) Lovely English teeth start out just fine and then they crumble. I got mightily sick of caps and crowns and pain and suffering and humongous dental bills and eventually (with the help of a lovely dentist) said the hell with it - I have been happy and pain-free for years now. I ASSURE you I can't walk out of the house without my teeth. Nobody can. It just isn't possible unless you happen to have Alzheimer's disease. Particularly if you're a person who spends a great deal of time looking in a mirror.

I have called all two and a half of my temp agencies - the half is the one where I tested so well but that hasn't sent me out on a job. I called my actual agency and my crazy lady. If I hear the word "slow" one more time I'm going to scream. Actually, I'm going to starve, is what I'm going to do. In darkness with no contact with the outside world due to no electricity, no phone and no computer.

So tomorrow I'm off for a sign-up at one of the big film background actors' agencies. I figure once they meet me in person, they'll be so blown away by my wit, style and charm that they'll promptly cast me in everything in town, right? Right. Then I'll go by the street fair that is right there where the call is, because I haven't yet consumed my summer's worth of sausage sandwiches.

I dream about sausage sandwiches all winter. I know you can get them in various pizza parlors, and obviously I could quite easily make my own, but a sausage sandwich is something that can ONLY be eaten on the street, standing up, with the whole thing dribbling down your face and clothing. This is a rule. Calvin Trillin, the author of Alice, Let's Eat, among other wonderful books, agrees with me. So I have an authority on my side. And as far as making them at home, that's ridiculous. You need the ineffable flavor of the grease that has been used for 500 street fairs, otherwise it's just not right.

There are foods like that, foods that belong only in one place and time. I love a good Ploughman's Lunch, which is an English thing that is basically bread, cheese and Branston pickle. Well, of course, I can get all the ingredients, but it just can't be eaten in a New York kitchen. It can only be eaten in a London pub, preferably on Charing Cross Road while leafing through the seven hundred or so used books you just bought. And drinking a pint, of course.

Filet de perche is a specialty of our little town in France, and can only be eaten there, Chicago deep dish pizza is eaten at the original Uno's in Chicago (not that plastic damn thing they have here).

Damn. Now I'm hungry again. Must go - need snack...

Love, Wendy