Greetings from Wildwood, NJ

I joined Mama Gurevich and Betty Ann for a weekend down the shore. During my years with Abel, we came here only once because he found it a distasteful reminder of everything he loathes about America. There is dense development everywhere - condos and bars and tiny houses right up to the beach. Our house was built by fishermen in the 1800s and now its right next to a Wawa. The cars and trucks pull in and out of the Wawa parking lot all through the night. When I was little I used to look out the window at the teenagers in their cars with their friends and wonder what life would be like for me. One night I heard "Sweet Child of Mine" coming out of one of their car stereos and I just stared out the window with goosebumps. I love this place. I come from here and I don't want to leave it behind. In "The Namesake" Gogol has a girlfriend who is very comfortable with his adoration of her beautiful lifestyle but never asks him about where he came from. The reader is supposed to understand this as something oppressive in their relationship. That could be why it is an insightful book - because the oppression is much easier to recognize on paper than in daily interactions.

At Friends Central I was exposed to shirts with Black Dogs on them, phrases like "Martha's Vineyard" were used. I still get a little hard on when I think about Jessica's "Wellfleet Oysters" t-shirt. When I visited her there one summer I felt so ashamed of what I had previously thought of as the beach. At Cape Cod, people read the New York Times and Terry Eagleton on the beach. There were beautiful bike paths - things seemed calmer and more natural. There is no Irish Weekend on Cape Cod.

Tonight I heard Robin Macarthur and Ty on the radio by chance. It was fun to hear friends on the radio - it made them seem famous - and I felt love for them. Garrison Keillor talked about their little cabin in the woods with no electricity or running water, their beautiful baby daughter, and I thought to myself, "Face it, Len, you either live in a cabin in the woods or you don't - and you don't."

This is important to me right now is because I've been searching for something outside of myself ever since middle school. I'm only realizing it now that my Saturn has returned. I need to go back and talk to young Lenya and find out what she found so unsatisfactory about herself. Hopefully I can help her see things from a different perspective so we can move on together.

Anyway, tonight in Wildwood we watched Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona. It had the feel of Hannah and her Sisters and I think it was all around a good movie with some outstanding elements. On my way out of another movie this past summer, I ducked my head into VCB, which was already in progress. I watched the scene where Cristina asks Maria Elena if she, too, paints, and she indignantly responds, "Do I paint? Ask him! He stole everything from me!" Later they all go on a picnic and Cristina is faced with the vivid feeling that she has nothing to offer. I was surprised to find myself drawn into their honesty and Cristina's nervous fragility. Watching the whole thing tonight, I still think that was the best segment of the film.

I still don't understand why main characters always have to be beautiful and super rich, though. If I looked like Scarlett Johannson, Woody Allen would be making a film about my life.