Evening Love "A December to Remember" edition

"Come then and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes."

- Plato, Republic Book II

Good Evening, my lovelies,

We here at the "House of Love" are just sitting down to our supper.

We've got some Maryland crab cakes, pasta, and Chardonnay.

Won't you join us?

Without further ado, let's begin…

EVENING QUOTES:

"I wonder if Picasso knows who I am yet." - "The Factory Girl" (2006)

DAWNY'S 2-CENTS- We here at the "House of Love" are obsessed with this movie at the moment, my lovelies. Guy Pearce is simply fantastic as Andy Warhol.

A SNIPPET FOR YOUR NIGHT TIME READING:

Only much later did I find out what Judy had given me: Demerol. By the time we got to the party it had started to kick in. Angles, colors, the riot of snowflakes, the din of Sid's band —everything was soft and kind and infinitely forgiving. I noted a strange beauty in the faces of people previously repulsive to me. I smiled at everyone and everyone smiled back.

Judy (Judy! God bless her!) left me with her friend Jack Teitelbaum and a fellow named

Lars and went off to get us a drink. Everything was bathed in a celestial light. I listened to Jack and Lars talk about pinball, motorcycles, female kick-boxing, and was heartwarmed at their attempts to include me in the conversation. Lars offered me a bong hit. The gesture was, to me, tremendously touching and all of a sudden I realized I had been wrong about these people. These were good people, common people; the salt of the earth; people whom I should count myself fortunate to know.

I was trying to think of some way to vocalize this epiphany when Judy came back with the drinks. I drank mine, wandered off to another, found myself roaming in a fluid, pleasant daze. Someone gave me a cigarette. Jud and Frank were there, Jud with a cardboard crown from Burger King on his head. This crown was oddly flattering to him. Head thrown back and howling with laughter, brandishing a tremendous mug of beer, he looked like Cuchulain, Brian Boru, some mythic Irish king. Cloke Rayburn was shooting pool in the back room. Just outside his line of vision, I watched him chalk his cue, unsmiling, and bend over the table so his hair fell in his face. Click. The colored balls spun out in all directions. Flecks of light swam in my eyes. I thought of atoms, molecules, things so small you couldn't even see them.

Then I remember feeling dizzy, pushing through the crowd to try to get some air. I could see the door propped invitingly with a cinder block, could feel a cold draft on my face. Then---I don't know, I must've blacked out, because the next thing I knew my back was against a wall, in an entirely different place, and a strange girl was talking to me.

Gradually I understood that I must have been standing there for some time. I blinked, and struggled gamely to bring her into focus. Very pretty, in a snub-nosed, good-natured way; dark hair, freckles, light blue eyes. I had seen her earlier, somewhere, in line at the bar maybe, had seen her without paying much attention. And now here she was again, like an apparition, drinking read wine from a plastic cup and calling me by name.

I couldn't make out what she was saying, though the timbre of her voice was clear even over the noise; cheerful, raucous, oddly pleasant. I leaned forward—she was a small girl, barely five feet---and cupped a hand to my ear. "What?" I said.

She laughed, stretched up on tiptoe, brought her face to mine. Perfume. Hot thunder of whisper against my cheek.

I grabbed her wrist. "It's too noisy," I said in her ear; my lips brushed against her hair. "Let's go outside."

She laughed again. "But we just came in," she said. "You said you were freezing."

Hmmm, I thought. Her eyes were pale, bored, regarding me with a kind of intimate amusement in the jaded light.

"Somewhere quiet, I mean" I said.

She turned up her glass and looked at me through the bottom of it. "Your room or mine?"

"Yours," I said, without a moment's hesitation.

- An excerpt from "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt

RANDOM MUSINGS:

We're reading the above novel again, my lovelies. Just to be reminded of what interesting writing can be like.

So we leave you with a literary snippet, but I promise we'll see you soon.

UNTIL NEXT TIME…