GUEST E-MAIL

Date: Mon, April 6, 1998 2:11 pm PST
From: Leah
Subject: I'm back, and I'm in the chute

Hi folks, I'm finishing off my last black cherry seltzer as I type this. Why is there such an impoverished assortment of seltzer flavors anywhere outside of the borough of manhattan? Note to friends in NYC who are getting this letter: Bring Leah Seltzer in Your Luggage Upon Next Visit.

So the trip was wonderful: just too short enough to make it flawless. Landed in Newark, which is just the best and most convenient airport in the world, and rode on their cute new monorail to the rental car place. Guess what? Suddenly, I'm a good driver (Jill and Heidi snort, Laura nods supportively while Evany looks for the keys), at least by tri-state area terms. Sophie's graduation was in the most incredible new england armpit of a town, and I stayed in a motel that cost twice what one might expect and had those particularly murderous sheets that pin you down and threaten death by smothering all night, BUT Sophie was so pretty and tall and slim and intellectual, passing me her 30 page senior essay on Raymond Aron, Existentialism and Critical Independence, written in flawless French. She looked great in the gold earrings Norio and I bought her after a whole day of shopping (ahem: training) before I grabbed the red eye the night before, and her friends were extremely flattering about the reputation that preceded me. We (present family and I --including Sophie's completely wacky, boozy aunts and Dad and Christina) did not pass out in the 3 hours/85 degree-direct-sun because we moved up a hill and under a tree with all the townies who had come to hear Oprah give the address (seek the light inside yourself), and got the thing done pretty well.

Drove down to Rachel's place on 181st St., which is starting to look like the only tolerable neighborhood in manhattan these days. This is the second visit after which I've felt physically ill after giving soho a try. It looks like Pier 39! Ack! My beautiful loft of years past is surrounded by the Gap, Banana Republic, and obscene chain restaurants. Way uptown is a hassle, but Rachel lives right by the A train and has a great apartment. Bought a fabulous pair of shoes one day (irridescent green), and an equally fabulous one the next (practical and clunky black), saw Siobhan, and also JD, who seems to have won every award possible, thus shooting his agency (BBDO) up to Agency of the Year, at Cannes, Clio and some other thing in London but is still totally calm and mellow and himself. S. is throaty and gorgeous. Did not see Keith's guitar pick, which is enshrined in their living room. Did try to convince him to set a Snicker's commercial in the bridal registry section of Tiffany's, in a scene involving engraved asparagus tongs. Especially good for the girl-market of Snicker's Lite, I think. He didn't seem to be biting, though.

Caught plane yesterday afternoon after a long, noisy and all together fine morning buried in Wylie the Wonderdog, a toddler (I have a idea! Let's play fireman and set fire to my brother!) and a new baby (6 weeks) who did me the tremendous honor of vomiting for the first time, and on me. Everywhere, and lumpy, grainy extremely stinky barf, too, which was great because clearly that means I'm godmother, but also, when I emerged from Ophira's house (location of babies and dogs) to find that my car had been towed, and had to shlep in search of it with 1 1/2 hours to go before scheduled departure of my plane, hot sun coming down, I smelled WONDERFUL!! Wonderful in the cab to 38th street, wonderful when I learned they don't take credit cards at the Towing Pier, wonderful hiking to the cash machine 10 blocks away, wonderful withdrawing 200.00, wonderful as we went over whether the car could be released to me or had to be collected by the rental car company, wonderful peeling out of the pier at 50 mph and hitting a traffic jam in the Lincoln tunnel, wonderful calling the rental car company from a pay phone at the gate of the airport, saying, I'm boarding, I ran into some problems, please come and get the car, wonderful when I finally made it to the bathroom on the airplane and peeled off my dress to scrub it out in the sink. Ah.

Brief romantic interlude upon pickup and dining with N., with plans to return home for more of same (once I'd showered), and then of course Eli has pooped on the floor two times while I've been away, and of course he killed his second bird this month as a kind of, 'hey! Mom's back,' gesture, brought it indoors to show off, but then either ate it or hid it for later, because all we found was an ominous scattering of feathers all over the place and the delightful scent of cat shit to welcome me home. Romance on hold as Norio watches Leah experience one odor too many in a brief 12 hours and tear around house half naked armed with with dustbuster and Nature's Miracle, scruffed cat dangling a la fetus from two fingers. Hmmm. Not quite the negligee and pearlsscene.

In summary, I ate: 2 pancake breakfasts, 1 cheeseburger, 1 order of fries, 1 beef sandwich, 3/4 tuna sandwich dosed over two days and separated by one (some things must remain mysterious), 3 slices cake, 1 large chinese meal, 1 slice pizza, 1 pasta dinner, 1 okay japanese meal, 1 Good Humor strawberry shortcake ice cream bar, 1 persian omelet, 1/2 watermelon, 2 English muffins, 1 weird airplane lunch, some Swiss gingerbread. Washed down with absolutely zero good coffee, 14 cans of diet coke, 3 glasses diet Pepsi, 8 litres seltzer, 5 plastic glasses white plonk, 1/2 + 2 (1 divided by 4) bottles of Ribera Del Duero, 1/2 glass cold sake, 1 beer. I spent: roughly 40% more than anticipated (it is damned expensive to get towed in New York, friends. As a connoiseur of the experience on each coast, SF is 75 bucks cheaper, and taxis are not nescessarily involved. There is no way in hell to get to 12th avenue and 38th street without sharing a portion of the proceeds with Yellow Cab, especially when you can practically hear them starting your plane while you watch charming Michelle Johnson talking to every single solitary person who is on coffee break or is planning to be at a later point in the day, like in an hour or, maybe at two o'clock, as she wends her way from the

photocopier to godknowswherebutitsnotnearmesmilelooknonchalantdon'tmakeher
angryorlethersmellyourfear

Anyway, I'm now back to working like a dog. I've expanded my usual send list to gather as much cheery input as possible for the next week or so. Send jokes, anecdotes and gossip because I will be chained to my computer through monday working on the final stages of something or other and watching Eli's tail with an eagle eye.

xxleah