Is "naked stripper" an oxymoron or a tautology?

James Bond and Moneypenny make me think of Charlie Brown and Lucy. Moneypenny the ever-adoring maid, pining for Bond even as he jokes with her about the conquests he is making. Perhaps Lucy's the feminine revenge for Moneypenny or Bond the masculine one for Charlie Brown. Always tempted, always fooled. A woman maliciously, demonically holding something out that is desired, deeply desired; Charlie too weak to say no, too weak to obey his wiser, cooler instincts. Charlie Brown charging, ardent. Giving it his best, hardest shot, only to find the object cruelly and blithely removed. Finding only the void and thrusting into it nonetheless. The picture of antihero. But Bond – Bond whispering bitter nothings into Moneypenny's ear. Saying I have you with every gesture you make behind that Lucite desk or whatever the hell. You know I do and I do, baby. I have you because I don't want you.

And so goes our awful gender war.

Her face was sadder'n an idiot saving something worthless from the trash.


Jen resigned today and by noon her desk was transformed, hardly recognizable, barren but for the keyboard and monitor, a stray black wire hanging off the front.

Skulking around in front of the Hudson Deli with Britt, waiting for Jim, I saw a woman walk out and turn to me. She was young, attractive. Middle Eastern olive skin and dark curly hair. Beautiful open blue-green eyes and a small, round mouth opened softly to an O. I caught her eyes for a moment and loved her until the end of time; until the sun and the stars collapsed into a singularity and all matter, space and thought went vanishing always into the deep unreal. Then she brushed by me.

"I wish it finally decided to rain," said Britt.

I stare down the barrel of another working week.

Got my blood results today. My doctor so fat and good-natured, apologetic, heaving his burdensome corpus through the sterilized halls. He carried a plastic water bottle, taking several small sips. Do you drink a lot of water? Ah no, not as much as I should. Many small sips throughout the day. If anyone could be said to have blinding kindliness, it was him. He congratulated me immediately for being HIV-negative. Congratulations. Thanks! He shook my hand. A rather odd moment. Then he wheeled his chair to the examining table with a sharp creak and handed me a flowing ribbon of freshly faxed data, the medical me. Kidneys good, liver good. Cholesterol good, good. Actually quite good. When I departed I tried to fold the report into a size I could manage but it was oddly resilient; I folded it in half but it formed a springy, shiny-smooth pillow rather than the expected small blank rectangle that's doomed to be neglected. So I placed it gingerly in my front pants pocket this way, sticking out like a dandy's kerchief. And I bought a sandwich. And I got on the train. And I saw that the report was no longer there, it had risen from me like it was lighter than air. My name, address and detailed, present medical condition floating wispily across the block somewhere Midtown right about Broadway and 53rd Street.

As I read an interesting yet weighty article in the New Yorker about the new Pope, Ratzinger Benedict whatever, I found I was having a strange dual experience: I was reading the text on the page yet also slipping into a dreamscape set in the desert and involving knives. All of this, in the moment in which I experienced it, felt perfectly logical – both realities at once in fact. It was only after a few moments, when I became aware of what was happening and the very oddity of it I suppose, that I drew back in bewilderment and some wonder.

I took a movie of three black girls crossing Broadway at 14th.

Every day, every day I wear my shoes.

S. returned from work followed by a date with N., all pleated pants and splayed tie. He recounted with some disgust that in the face of her intransigence and her yawns an hour in – yawns followed by intimations of I should be going home – he decided fuck it, to throw caution to the wind. To talk about what an asshole he was to ex-girlfriends, how he would fuck a girl and come home to his girlfriend the same night, night after night; his favorite porn, the assplay porn and the girl-on-girl. And he found he was loose, relaxed. The words, once halting and defused by the examination of his inner censor, now flowed freely, unrestrained. Every new word uttered more confidently and effortlessly than the last. Booze, drugs. Cocaine, acid, heroin. Cigarettes. How he was dying for a cigarette and he didn't mind saying. And sure enough her eyes widened and she said that's crazy, tell me more. You should write a book. And as I told him, in his small, accidental experience lies a lesson for all of us men.

P. greeted me cheerily tonight as the man with the squeaky sneakers, Squeak squeak squeak! So I figured the Yankees musta won but actually they drowned in their own shit. It's funny sometimes.

I thought I'd vanquished the tyranny of critics by reading their reviews after I'd seen the movie, read the book, bought the CD. After I'd judged. Then I'd be the critic of the critics really. But what happens is instead of making up my mind they change my mind. As it has been written in that authoritative black and white I think, yes, I guess there were emotion and pathos and violence and despairing habits we recognize in ourselves in that character's fraught relationship with his father. Weren't there? Not just a tiresome, poorly played cliché. And then I try to come to my senses and remember, you have to be on your toes always.

A terrible waste is a thing to mind.

In the vain attempt to slow the ravages of time upon my countenance I've taken to washing with Neutrogena Deep Clean soap every night. In the little pump bottle. I love the act, the ritual, more essential even than the oils and the aloe it involves. And the terms. Neutrogena. Space-age, life-affirming. Swiss? Deep Clean. Yeah gimme the profound clean makes Lady Macbeth green with envy.

As Americans we should be grateful God does not exist. If he did, what do we imagine he'd have in store for us, we who have everything, we smug, gluttonous lords of the land of the treats and the home of the cozy? Do we not imagine He'd redress the grotesque inequities between us and the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth Worlds? Would he not spill something out of our cups and into the trembling, dark hands of beggars on the streets of Bombay? Of dirty-faced waifs in Basra? Of the countless multitudes who inhabit recesses of the world not yet penetrated by fresh water pipes, nor sewage systems, nor sitcom syndication? You better believe He'd shake it up. So what are we really doing when we gather at our altars before lunch, after fucking, before football, after breakfast? We're worshipping His absence and praying He never shows.

Had drinks with CK at Cedar's but we were soon interrupted by an insufferable young banker with manic hands. He wanted to talk about Saudis, the Middle East, Republicans, Pataki, Rumsfeld, Clinton, Iraq, pornography, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and his girlfriend. And we wanted to be left alone but somehow it didn't happen and we rued it later and I wondered what might have been done. Maybe it's good to be rude and brusque and to hurt someone sometimes.

We all went to the Café de la Musique, the restaurant with the terrace by the fountain in the Parc de la Villette, because Mom loves the place, though the food is not great. I got chocolate ice cream for dessert and though Mom does not order dessert she saw the ice cream on the table and thought it was for her and ate it with great, relish and of course I didn't stop her. She hesitated in fact, not knowing exactly if it was hers but her desire for it compelled her and she dipped the spoon in and ate some mouthfuls. I was reminded of the guy with Alzheimer's at Christy's house that one day, the sad and eerie sight of an adult lost to children's pleasures. The great silent unfortunate sight.

Sunlight spills over horizons to set the birds to song.

Felt sad and empty towards the end of dinner with Aimee and Rene, but there was no cause for it save self-preoccupation.

More money, more money, more money. Fuck.

On the platform at Canal Chinese men fanned themselves with magazines and papers as one would fan a fire while women stood still and stoic, staring straight ahead.

It's so hot that cold don't feel good.

As I dumped the dregs of the soup into my bowl I pondered the very mealness of it, the heavy word meal, the what goes in my mouth. Meal, supper, dinner & repast.

Crossing Varick Street I spied a staircase through a glass door and it occurred to me how much I liked that, the sight of stairs through doors, especially if no one's on them.

B. ends each e-mail with a delirious, extravagant series of X's, obviously meant to indicate kisses but difficult to interpret as such. They rather give the impression of a madcap, broken border to her text; X's serrating the page where an ordinary salutation belongs. In fact she does not break her line before typing them; her message dissolves into ellipses then a line of crosses, and all they represent, like this......................xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I awoke and immediately considered the accelerated time of dreams, where events that seem like they took a substantial length of time, and indeed would if they occurred in reality, took mere minutes by the measure of the bedside clock. Then thought about that article in that awful Wired magazine about the young Australian physicist who has a new concept of time as inexistent except for sequences of events. It seems true to me.

Flight Risk

Ladies and gentlemen.

On behalf of the flight crew and the security personnel and the terminal ticketing and check-in personnel and our extended family of codesharing partners and the many ancillary service providers and individuals who made today’s flight possible, for example the fuel refillers and cabin vacuumers and wing deicers and Big Mike and his terrific team from meal services and the guy who kicks the tires and the guy who waves the day-glo sticks, wonderful, all of you, great, great, just great, welcome on board.

Please find your complimentary copy of our in-flight magazine, A Wing and a Prayer, in the seat pocket in front of you.

Our video presentation today features a romantic comedy starring Ashley Judd, Ethan Hawke, Keanu Reeves, Alicia Silverstone and Robert De Niro. You may use your own headset or purchase one for the price of $2 which you may use on future flights should you ever have the opportunity to fly again and should you decide to avail yourself of such an opportunity or opportunities.

Exercise caution while opening overhead bins as their contents may have shifted or be packed with Semtex or some other type of plastique explosive which, while likely to have been wired to detonate by remote control or according to a crude timing mechanism, may be highly unstable due to the haste and inattention with which the sweating and eager miscreant prepared it. Enjoy your flight with us today.

We apologize if your preferred beverage selection is not available.

Our estimated flight time, barring such unforeseen circumstances as the gradual appearance of a headwind due to the effect on the jet stream of subtle shifts in the earth's climatic condition which may or may not bear a relation to the ill-controlled emission of so-called greenhouse gases by the industries of rapidly developing economies such as China, Russia, Venezuela, Uganda and Vietnam; planewide hysterical nausea precipitated perhaps by one passenger’s lost struggle with airsickness and his inability to limit the visibility, sound and/or splattering of his vomit to a tolerably discreet degree; a cockpit breach involving one or more assailants armed with steak knives, box cutters, prison-type shivs or some other easily concealable and difficult-to-detect weapon or weapons resulting in the diversion of the flight or the crashing of the plane into a landmark fraught with symbolic meaning; catastrophic pilot error due to aneurysm, cardiac arrest, sudden dementia, the fatiguing effects of a night spent at the hotel bar flirting with the cabin crew and drinking Grey Goose, Johnny Walker Black, Maker’s Mark or some other premium-brand liquor or combination of such liquors far into the FAA-mandated twelve-hour sobriety buffer period for flight deck personnel or the ill-advised yet charmingly playful temporary passing of the commands to his son or some other adorable, towheaded young boy who promptly pitches the plane into an irretrievable, spiraling descent; interference of traffic through no fault of the pilots; accidental shooting by Navy jet pilots in training; congestion at destination requiring the adoption of a holding pattern; running out of gas though that never happens; is seven hours and 43 minutes.

All travelers must complete customs declaration cards and travelers from EEC countries must complete visa and immigration cards. If you are a citizen of a country with a visa dispensation agreement with the United States you must complete and sign a visa dispensation agreement card.

You are free to move about the cabin.

Seat cushions may be used as flotation devices. The white lights lead to red lights and the ramps turn into rafts. In case of sudden cabin depressurization oxygen masks will rain down like a plague of yellow jellyfish. Muzzle your child tightly in one. If you are sitting in an emergency row, remove your window with a glass cutter and suction cups and walk out upon the wing, inviting others in your cabin class to join you. Dance a fucking jig like in those old newsreels. Feel the wind rushing against your face, against your body. Spread your arms like a great big bird. Wheeee!! Did you know that the air at 30,000 feet contains considerably less oxygen than at sea level? We thank you for your cooperation.

Please fly with us again.

When the structural integrity of the cabin became irrevocably compromised and it depressurized in a shock and we all, limbs, blankets, cups & shoes, eyeglasses & magazines, exploded into the void and then commenced our minuteslong drift to the whitecapped waves below, I experienced what might be termed an orgasm of love; love for the tumbling souls beside me, love for my ex-girlfriend, love for my friends and love for every single one of my tormentors.

When that Concorde slammed into the airport hotel after a minute of wobbly flight, its left engine afire with strangely gentle flames, its doomed course momentarily documented by that trucker with a video camera. And then that terminal walkway collapsed. Was it the end of the dream of a modern, ultra-civilized and ultra-humanist France, whose very infrastructure mirrored the highest aspirations of the masses?

4:55 and I'm advancing toward my goal. The train to the plane.

I've gone micro, taking close-up pictures of words out of context.

In the news today: Shark bit boy – shark killed girl.


My mother said, "I think it's about time I left this family." I followed her around pleadingly, waiting for her to change her mind. We were in the high-rise flat in the tiny French town where my dad took students on their junior years abroad. She seemed good and fed up. Naturally being the child I felt I was to blame. She went into the kitchen and took a pan down off the shelf, her gestures brusque and scary. She jerked the refrigerator open and got two eggs. Lit the stove and buttered the pan. Cracked the eggs in sunny side up – hsssshhh! hssssssshh! – and then she did something I'll not forget as long as I live. She took a little fistful of raw rice and sprinkled it upon the yolks. I'd never seen her cook anything that wasn't for us, so I wondered, Is this what she eats? Very soon she slid it all on a plate, a hot and runny mess. It seemed delicious somehow, crunchy grains drowning in flows of egg and butter. She ate it ferociously, oblivious to everything but her plate. I wanted some but knew better than to ask. This was her food.


Tonight was a hot and rainy night.

The waitress seemed reluctant to step forth. I spied her at the end of the sushi bar, practicing pliès. She yawned. We took a good, long time Liz and me, talking about failed relationships past, present and future. Finally we got her attention for the check.

I'm listening to jazz that just don't make no sense.

I remember those dewy spring days when I was a temp secretary in the UConn psychology building. I don't remember a lick of work I did there though I think it once involved the mimeograph machine, a car-sized gray steel beast that occupied most of an office down the hall.

I occupied myself perusing a book of quotations on the computer of whoever I was replacing, some homely lady on maternity leave I think. There was a quote on it I'll never forget, though I can't quite remember it either. It was something like this: Give a man a drink or two of wine with supper and he's done for the night. Good for nothing. Done. Going gently into that good, good night. And it's so true. I've tried to fight it and I'm fighting it now, but it's true, you get home from work and you eat and drink and you watch TV and you're done. Done! No damn good to yourself or nobody. May as well stick a shotgun in your mouth.

The jazz makes more sense now, defined by the thump-thump-thump of the bass.

I remember one time we took ecstasy and went to the gay club the Riot. Christene Cooper was going out with Jake at the time and they were sort of at the end of it all, he restless, wandering and distracted and she wondering what's wrong. Same old story. But we took ecstasy and she took off like a fucking jet plane. High, high, high. Thump, thump, thump, thump the house music went and loud, Whoa Black Betty! Whoa Black Betty! Christene was drinking water with an abnormal thirst and staring straight ahead with those curious dark eyes. American soldier dad and Vietnamese ma. Her brow was sweating rather profusely. She wore an expression like she'd just learned something she never knew anyone could know.

"I just realized... what music is..." She was having a hell of a time expressing herself. "It's... it's... it's like the first caveman who ever came out of his cave going ommm, ommm, ommm, ommm!" She was making bass notes, a jaunty walking line.

I nodded vigorously, eager to endorse and possibly deepen this rare revelation.

"It's like he's talking!"

I found Jake and he was high as hell too, we all were. I told him his girlfriend was having some kind of experience and he should go be with her and he nodded emphatically and solemnly in that way that you do when you're ripped on ecstasy, totally open to anything that comes, particularly keen for instances of personal connection. For a funny kind of ceremonial emotionalism.

The petrified pink gum, strawberry flavored, to take away the taste of envelope. It's Hollywood gum from France. I smell it and taste it and I'm back at the corner bakery on rue des Ecoles, surveying piles of chocolate bars in their baby blue wrappers, lollipops in pretty checkered plastic wrap, yellow-wrapped caramels called Malabar and Fresh 'n' Up, le chewing gum qui gicle.