God have mercy on me. This is the diary of a lost soul
(I am also the author of No Bed of Roses). Apparently
I cannot live without parentheses. To live without
parentheses would be as scary as living without
parents. I mean, to have been born out of nothing.
When someone stands before you and puts their hands
on your hips they are acting like parentheses.
which is why a great many thinkers come from Paris,
where lovers embrace on the quays and intellectuals
watch them from windows, taking notes. I will buy anything
that comes from Paris, which is another reason God
should have mercy on me. I believe Paris is a place where
everyone is marvelously alive, each in their own way,
and the moon is different, too—it never disappears or goes
away, it never looks like a parenthesis, but grows continually
round till it breaks of its own weight and pieces of it fall 
like fireworks (!) and the lovers watch and the intellectuals
take notes and everything is endlessly fascinating
in a spectacular way. I should be more Parisian. That is
my thesis. But I know from the movies Paris is nothing
like that, it is full of motorcycles and crooks and the clothing
is all too small because no one cares enough to replace it
and people continually grow out of it without even bothering 
to notice. But I notice. From my little apartment in Massachusetts
I notice and I care. God have mercy on me!
I would lie down and put a dagger in my heart
if I only knew how and where and why.