I find myself, like the rest of the Christian world, in limbo.  The dark, dark days between Christmas and New Years Eve.

Woke up at decent hour.  Fed dogs raw meat their Special Christmas Treat and apparently very good for them.  They seem to love it.    Long walk around Hollywood wearing my red shoes.   Seems to cause consternation to some passers by.  Red shoes, yellow socks.

Not wearing my waistcoat-we don’t say vest in England unless referring to an under garment.

Watched Another Country before I went to bed.  Cried buckets of tears at the end.  That movie still speaks volumes to me.  I wonder how Rupert feels if he ever sees it?   Him looking so beautiful.  What must any of those actors think?

It reminded me, of course, of being in love when I was young.  Yet most people must think of first, young love after watching that movie.

You know, I have been in love.  Real love.  The sort of yearning love that hurts so much you want to die.  I’ve felt that.  Oh bugger.  I loved you so much!  I loved you in spite of my worst fear.  I wanted you to love me back-so badly.

‘That’s a deep sigh.’  He said.  “Falling in love with a man is so exquisite.  Every time I feel this way I don’t know if I can carry on.”

Fred Hughes, I just wanted to write a moment longer about Freddy Hughes.  Remember, I met Freddy in Paris when I was still a teenager and he couldn’t have been much older than 30.   He was running the Andy Warhol empire.  Chic and funny he captivated me with his charm, not his life.  I didn’t really understand his life until I arrived in New York and lived with him in that remarkable house on Lexington.

I spotted Robert Dupont on the street as Kay, Jerome and I were drinking hot chocolate on Christmas Eve.  Either Robert or his twin Richard was Freddy’s real boyfriend-I was the secret affair.   I am always the affair, the secret obsession outside of a marriage.  Always the mistress, never the bride.  Wanted to mention Freddy because I was remembering men I had loved.

The year I met Freddy he was diagnosed with MS.  Toward the end, wheelchair bound, he was so angry with everything and everyone.  I don’t want to die like that.  I am aiming for peace of mind-to die in peace.

After my morning bath I called my friend and fellow philanderer Toby Mott to tell him that Kay Saatchi had bought one of his paintings.  He was thrilled.   We chatted about money.  He had never been paid for the painting by the gallery who sold it but was simply thrilled to have sold it to Kay and really, he said, didn’t care about the money.  Very British.  Very bourgeois.

Montesquieu summed up the French approach to money more than two centuries ago, observing that ”money is estimable when it is scorned.” The Bordeaux nobleman and philosopher was very, very rich.

Where ever there has been a ruling, aristocratic elite an artificial shame is constructed around the discussion of money.

I remember my Grandmother and Mother both chiding me for wanting to understand money.  “Discussing money is vulgar.” my grandmother would say.  As a consequence of my never being allowed to discuss money (like sex) I now find it almost impossible to define my value, to monetize my success, to have a sense of what I am worth.

I lament my Grandmother shushing me when I first showed interest in money.

Whilst my ‘class’ were blushing about money the rich weren’t having any qualms at all and talked about it all the time.

As I found, during my years as an aristocrat, if one can talk freely about money then one may understand how it works and how to acquire more of it.  If one is persuaded that conversation about money is shameful then we may never know how money works and lose it to those who do.

When the rich say, “I’m not the slightest bit interested in money. I just don’t pay any attention to money.  It’s rather vulgar.”

They lie.  They lie.  They lie.