...I found I had a burgeoning taste for flawlessness. ...
Last Thursday, at Union Square, B., my boss at Barnes & Noble, (in so far as I think of anyone as my boss, which really, I don't; it's a shorthand way of saying I really respect her), easily the most soigné woman I know, was raving about Amor Towles' Rules of Civility, which she had read last week on Bonaire and said I had to read. Not ten minutes later, J. Courtney Sullivan sent me a tweet saying, "Have you gotten your hands on a galley of RULES OF CIVILITY yet? I think you'll love. It reminded me of the way you write!" I resolved to track it down, and did nothing more. This morning while I was in the shower, FedEx rang with a galley and a note from the afore-mentioned, dashed on a card: "Enjoy- B.". A partial list of things I thought about doing tonight: the Met or Carnegie Hall, a downtown play, drinks at the St. Regis or Bemelman's or any one of a number of places I like–– although it's funny, although I am often out, five or six nights a week, and have an essentially social occupation, I think of myself as being alone most of the time, happily so, and it's only lately that seems boring. This also seems to coincide with the fact that I'm not dating anyone at the moment. At any rate, I elected to stay home and read Rules of Civility (reasoning that I'm obliged to sleep on the flight to London next week), and it's Lux Lotus Mad Libs. I've only taken a break for refreshment, and then I'm right back to it.
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