In Old Uzbek, there are ONE HUNDRED words for crying! Here are some:
Wanting to cry and not being able to
Being caused to sob by something
Loudly crying like thunder in the clouds
In gasps
Weeping inwardly or secretly
Ceaselessly in a high voice
In hiccups
While uttering the sound “hay hay”
I’ll be gone for a bit because I’m going on my HONEYMOON. Peace out suckers!
My most favorite reviews of my writing:
“Intelligent but grim” ~ Publishers’ Weekly
“Surprisingly non-douchey” ~AL, The New Yorker
The story of a small portion of my life is included in a book that is scheduled to come out in the next year or so (I think.) When I wrote it, I used my real name, with the understanding that the editor would replace it with a pseudonym later on. So when I got the chapter back for proof, I saw that my name was… Frances. Frances! I was on the one hand a bit disturbed, because to me Frances sounds dowdy, but on the other hand enormously flattered, because I thought immediately of course of the way-ahead-of-her-time Frances Farmer, and who doesn’t want to be compared with a woman who wrote an essay at age seventeen titled “God Dies?” I mean, honestly. So maybe rather than dowdy, the editor envisioned me as a moody beauty? Below are a few other cool ladies named Frances, the first one named after the aforementioned cool lady named Frances.
Frances Bean Cobain
Frances of Rome, Italian Saint and mystic (again, just. like. me.) who wanted to be a nun at eleven but whose parents forced her to marry at twelve. She had a good marriage, founded a religious order, and turned her home into a hospital during a time of war, among other good deeds.
a whole bunch of duchesses and countesses
Frances “Scotty” Fitzgerald, only child of F. Scott and Zelda, poor thing
Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of The Secret Garden, which was porn for smart little girls like me
Frances “Franny” Glass (J. D. Salinger character)
Frances “Baby” Housman (“Nobody puts Baby in the corner!”)
There are a few more who look like they’d be worth mentioning, but I’m on a train while writing this and getting a little naush.
JE: You have the rest of your life to eat nicoise salad
This is something I’ve been meaning to ask about for a while. While in London, fiance and I went to see the Old Masters at the Courtauld Gallery, and I noticed the below portrait, which the info card said was of Anna Reitmor, a Dutch (I think) noblewoman.
Anna.
The info card also said that there was another half of this portrait, so to speak, which was of her husband, Peter. Curiously, the National Gallery entry for the work doesn’t say that it is for certain Peter (it might be another male member of the Froschl family) but I’m convinced solely based on background. And so that begs the question: Shouldn’t the Courtauld and/or the National Gallery have hired a researcher to determine whether or not these two had a happy marriage? And if they did, shouldn’t every effort have been made to keep their likenesses together?
From a menu on Delivery.com. In case you can’t see, the description is: “Too difficult to put into words but highly recommended.”
Well, if it’s HIGHLY recommended…
A young editor I once met at a party where we made gingerbread houses (Brooklyn is so weird) emailed me the following, when I reminded her of our initial introduction:
(Man, gingerbread houses: I could really go for one of those right about now.)
(Although, you know, what a tragedy they are, ultimately. Right? Like sand castles. Or sand mandalas. Anything made out of sand, basically.)
(And is all of that stuff actually edible?)
(Like, isn’t there glue and stuff, usually? I seem to remember this from childhood. You’d spend all afternoon building a g’bread house and then the teacher-type-person would be all, No, don’t eat it—it’s just for decoration. Which is like, teacher-type-person, have you ever met a child? I mean, seriously.)
(Forget it. Gingerbread houses are clearly the worst.)
Watercolor black cats by Endre Penovac. I love ’em.
Dear Andre,
May I call you Andre? Fantastic. I have zero complaints about your hotel except that I have to leave it eventually. I’m sure I will be homesick for room 24 for the rest of my life, which is a very dismal fate if you think about it. I’m sure someone has suggested this to you before, or perhaps you’ve even done it, but I do think you should consider having a writer-in-residence, which is a very trendy thing to do these days. A few examples of places where they’ve recently had writers-in-residence:
1. Heathrow Airport
2. AmTrak Trains
3. The Betsy Hotel in Miami
4. Governor’s Island, NYC
#3 I participated in last year, and I begin a residency at #4 in about a week.
Now I get that you and your venerable institution are likely above trends, but hear me out: despite being mostly poor, writers are terribly cool, and, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said (somewhat despairingly) they “can cause trouble like no one else can.” Take me, for example––I am fantastic both personally and professionally, and if you’re thinking it’s sort of gauche that I just came right out and said that, let me assure you I can back it up. I’ve been python hunting in the Everglades, serenaded by Tony Danza playing the ukulele, and written about Anne Sexton (poet, suicide)’s long lost rock band. I’ve lived in a bookstore in Paris, written for [redacted], and composed hundreds of letters like this, in which I laid bare my foolish heart, full of lust for old hotels.* I’m obsessed with religion but I write a mean snarky blog post. I have no social media. Most likely an intern will read this (I’ve been there, my unpaid friend!) and scoff at my stupidity, but this pool, with its trees full of fat lemons, has an Elysian quality to it, which means that if this residency doesn’t work out, I’ll perhaps get a chance to come back here when I die.
Love,
ID
Somewhere
*As regular readers you will notice that I have only about five good stories, which makes me uncool, but Andre doesn’t need to know the truth.
The below happened at the Hollywood Roosevelt, but I think everyone should know that I’ve officially died and gone to hotel heaven, which for me means: Chateau Marmont.
I am reading Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget, by Sarah Hepola, poolside around 4 PM. Techno is booming. A pale guy sitting on a lounge chair diagonally across the pool spots my book, and when he catches my glance, says sorry.
Pale Guy: We were just admiring your book!
Me: Oh. Yeah. It’s good!
Pale Guy: Is it a galley?
Me: Yep. Are you in publishing?
Pale Guy: Nope. But I am an alcoholic.
