Correspondence / 11

Thanks for the good word, mon vieux. Speaking of Capote, The Grass Harp has been in my Netflix 
queue ("very long wait") since forever. It can't be that much in demand. WTF? I first heard "come a 
cropper" (suffer a misfortune) from Walter. The phrase had something to do, at one time, with falling 
headlong off a horse. Speaking of Walter his mother was a dedicated amateur astrologer who created 
my complete chart back in the 70s when I was barely out of my teens, and immersed in art and 
photography. She predicted I would write - but late in life. I tend to think of astrology as bunk, but I 
have always filed what she foresaw under "things that make you go hmmm..."

I think you've been there in the weeds with me more than once. Our backgrounds, the early years and 
all, are so similar, but our temperaments and therefore our responses just different enough to be tasty.

One of the most poignant aspects of the Tom story, that I didn't feel it necessary to get into, was that he 
was straight. We played around once in a while, it was part of his mutiny against the world of propriety 
and expectations. But he was actually pretty girl-crazy. That he loved me, but understood that we 
would never connect completely in that one way (which he minded more than I did), confused and 
troubled his heart. Which breaks mine.

There's a cooling trend here, which I greet with exhilaration, but some wariness. I'm one of those souls 
subject to what they used to call "ague," the feeling of being on the brink of a cold that never quite 
breaks. Terrible. If I get a chill it can last for days. And to think I grew up in Michigan. Still, it's jackets 
and jeans time here and I always enjoy that.