Tonight I went down to the pool again. It's not a bad thing, swimming laps there in the late afternoons. I'll make a habit of it this summer. The bikini girls may never talk to me, but I do love the feel of gliding through the water.

I'm still hoping that Lissy at emigree will tell me about her Stories--- about learning deliciously wicked skills, about caressing herself on trains...

Jonathan Lethem's "You Don't Love Me Yet" is a delight. Umi at ivich gets my thanks, and a couple of free Scotches. I hope Ioana at winterbymorning and Heather at wantedwanted and Alessandra at bel_ebat will take a look at the Lethem novel. I read Lethem's "Disappointment Artist" a few days ago; I like his essays. The novel is delightful and romantic and charming. I have to like any novel where the male lead takes the heroine to a hipster-y Art Deco hotel in L.A. for their first sex because the room-service hamburgers were so good. That's an Eve Babitz kind of touch. And I really do want to recommend Babitz's books--- "Sex and Rage", "Black Swans", "L.A. Woman", "Slow Days, Fast Company"... I remember reading "Sex and Rage" and "Slow Days, Fast Company" during one long sunlit summer in Treviso, drinking Campari-and-soda and thinking that from a town in the Veneto, Los Angeles was as alien a place as anyone could ever imagine.

Make a note: I will recommend Eve Babitz to CloverSt at D-Land as well. I'd like to get her take on Babitz's early stories.

Room-service burgers... I've had a few. But room-service should be about club sandwiches, I think. The Hotel Adolphus in Dallas did great room-service burgers, and a grilled skirt-steak sandwich (no cheese, mind you), but it was their dijonaise chicken BLT that you wanted to order. Call it their own late-night club sandwich--- again, no tomato or cheese, just... dijon-marinated chicken, lettuce, bacon, avocado, and basil mayo on country ciabatta bread served with crispy french fries. Katy V. would be on the bed in just a bathrobe or one of my dress shirts, and I'd call down for two dijonaise chicken BLTs and a couple of Bass Pale Ales. I have my own ambition--- club sandwiches and cold beer at midnight in high-rise hotels in Shanghai and Tokyo. It's something I'll have to ask Emily at iminhell about. And I must ask both Jess at bella_sumision and Ioana at winterbymorning about room service in four or five star hotels with Older Lovers...

Alessandra at bel_ebat would know all about London room service, and Ms. Flox at besideserato would know about room service from Lima to Maui to the Baltic. I must ask them both about hotel sex, but also about room service menus...

Last night I tried to watch "Hitman". I lasted...just over thirty minutes. The male lead--- Agent 47 ---was too young, and had the wrong voice. And the plot just...dragged. A slick techno-noir conspiracy film with gunfire, high-tech toys, and a wickedly slutty female lead--- but it lacked any real sense of menace or darkness. Okay--- there is something there that triggers all those years of doing History: conspiracies can be labyrinthine, but they have to make some kind of sense. There has to be at least an internal logic. "Parallax View" had a good conspiracy idea--- and that may have been the last film that had anything to say about political conspiracies that was the least inventive.

I must Lissy at emigree about her own view of hotels and hotel sex and room service. Is there an airport hotel at Vantaa for her? A favourite four-star in Baltimore? And what would she order from room service there in a high-rise suite with an Older Lover? Would she answer the door in just a man's shirt? A bathrobe? Naked? Would she lie back on the bed and look sixteen and let her Older Lover sign the bill? And there is a question I should ask various lovely girls--- what exactly is the correct percentage tip to leave for the room service guy when he brings up champagne and lobster--- or club sandwiches and cold beer ---for an Older Lover and his underage paramour? That's a question I'll put out for discussion...

Eve Babitz was photographed naked playing chess with the aged Marcel Duchamp when she was a girl--- sometime in the early or mid-1960s. I've always liked a description of her writing I found somewhere: Joan Didion filling in for Cynthia Heimel.

The most-pettable little K-dot at citydress called me early this morning to go watch the Noggin channel. Noggin does cartoons especially for pre-schoolers, and it's a wonderful channel for cuteness. The Little One and I talked in the Three Year Old Voice and cheered along with "Oobi" and "Max & Ruby" and "Wonder Pets". I agree absolutely with the Noggin ads: life should be more like pre-school.

Lemon grass and chili with Thai rice noodles tonight. Vur' spicy--- something to keep my sinuses open while standing there in my galley kitchen. Noodle bowls are becoming a signature thing for me. Though I would like Korean beef bowl tonight--- lots and lots of kim chi with it. I need spices and heat.

My understanding is that Lexie at popartagenda is at the Spice Market in NYC tonight. Well-- I do hope her birthday goes well.

I must ask Serena at AtWoWayDream at D-Land what she's reading there in the Virginia night, just as I must find out more about Deuxieme-Dix at Diaryland.

I'd like to think of the K-dot re-reading "Invisible Cities" tonight. And think of her clapping her hands in delight while watching "Oobi".

I'll be looking over Eberstadt's "Low Tide" again soon. It's like Kawabata's "Beauty and Sadness"--- something you can always go back to. Just like Renault's "Last of the Wine" and "The King Must Die". And one day I will find a lovely cachexical wicked panty-free girl who's read Coe's "I Look Divine" and can quote it to me.