Therapy, collect cheque, Jennie Ketcham for breakfast.
Jennie and I walked the length of Abbott Kinney, found a new collar for the little dog and chatted about our various relationships. She, of course, has a relationship..I do not. She is in love and making a TV series and I am off to Paris with a friend. A friend, nevertheless, who makes me smile.
Last night we saw some cool live music on the roof of the Standard down town..that would be Ryan, Justin and I..then we ate dinner at Bottega Louie. I ate pork chops. Somebody sent us a Shirley Temple with delicious cherries floating around in it.
I have to be discreet about the location but Prince and Lionel Ritchie played impromptu performance on another roof in another part of town..it seems that Prince is always up for an unexpected gig, I have seen him perform at hotels and bars and in that huge house he rented with purple carpet everywhere.
The night we saw Prince and bumping into Barbra Streisand in the Pacific Design Center are perhaps my most startling close encounters with celebrity..oh, and befriending Roseanne in Starbucks.
From out of the woodwork crawl all sorts of characters from the past and this week an old friend called after he lost his job. It was all the more interesting because we had not had a cordial end to our friendship a year and a half ago but time heals and we said our brief apologies and got on with being friends again.
There is probably more to gain from knowing me than not knowing me.
Time is the greatest distance between two people. Tennessee Williams wrote that. It is time that will end up miraculously mending all the smashed Ming vases that I am surrounded with. Remember what I said about love being like a Ming vase?
Joan brought me a rather splendid Japanese tea-pot for my birthday that arrived in a huge box from Memphis. I felt like a five-year old again. Opening my birthday presents.
This day last year the darling big dog was killed. Ripped apart in front of me under that truck..she kept on trying to live, trying to stay alive for me as we lay together in the back of my truck..in the flat-bed. Jennie drove us to the animal hospital on Ventura Blvd and the nurse put her down with a lethal injection as I sobbed my little heart out.
The next day we collected her from the freezer and I cried all the way to Malibu, apologizing to her, reminding her of all the great time we had, crying and laughing until we buried her in a coyote proof hole in the garden she loved.
Sarah sang a beautiful song. The little dog said his goodbye.
This year has been all about death. The death of friends, the death of my dog and of course the death of love. Tomorrow I want it to be different but I cannot be sure. All I know is that I am trying to be the best man I can be, let go of the past..even the recent past, and forge ahead.