from the diary: “Saturday 1/25/86
“Lisa Paulick’s new (used) car had konked out on Huntley across … from our house. … This is the same Lisa who has dropped by the house – once with Becky, and just after Xmas with Becky and Jim. [Lisa] called her dad from someone else’s house. He showed up and Dad and Mom and me and the man who is fixing our roof (whose name I have forgotten; don’t I feel like a bourjour (how the fuck do you spell that) creep in the midst of reading Lisa Alther’s second novel, Original Sins, that I don’t even know his name – this guy Mom thinks is great, oh boodle) all stood around trying to figure out what to do. [Lisa’s] dad got the car going while I was in the house getting a pizza bagel.”
This is such a mess of a piece of writing I find it has odd charms. Oh boodle?
I remember liking Alther’s first novel Kinflicks. She wrote sex scenes I found hilarious. Plus there was much bisexuality going on.
I’m not going to try to unknot the personal relationships in this paragraph other than to say I went to high school with Lisa, Becky, and Jim. And “bourjour”? Did I mean bourgeois? If I did, what did I think “bourgeois” meant? I guess I was exploiting the working class. In that I wasn’t working. I haven’t gotten any better at diagnosing cars.
1 comment:
Kinflicks! I read Kinflicks! Probably your copy while it was lying helplessly around the house. Don't remember the plot. I think I enjoyed it. I don't have any residual feelings of "ick" or "damn there were a lot of annoying people in that book." 'Course, if I had those feelings I'd probably remember the story a little bit.
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