That Brock person, a born copy editor, has been among those assailing me with succinctly titled e-mails, but neither "Therapy" nor "Merciless" proved destined for the junk file like their counterparts offering discounts on mind-bending drugs or the sleazier variations on the act of coupling.
For some unfathomable reason, Tony was "glad to read your reflections on witnessing violent death & hope it did you good to be able to set them down. I guess you left out any detail on the act itself from awareness of what a shrewd defence lawyer could make of advance evidence." He's right on the latter point and well, close enough, on the first.
Also he'd "never thought of blogging as therapy but of course it is, like all writing. Graham Greene says somewhere that he writes to escape from the blind panic of existence (I have the ref. in my shelves but unlocated...)."
I know two quotes by Greene, and that isn't one of them. My "favourite" aphorism by the man is among those listed at 'Think exist', where he observed, in 'The Ministry of Fear' that: "It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself."
It's a cliché now, perhaps, but also a trap I loathe falling into emotionally, though it's been obvious that sometimes I still do. Tony, however, spares his wrath for an even more recent error on my part:
"'......mercy on we Parisians' forsooth!
For your penance, look up the various Protestant, Catholic & Orthodox translations of Kyrie eleison & see if any of them use 'we' instead of 'us'.
 The only example I can think of is that barber-shop ditty 'Gentlemen songsters out on the spree/........../Lord have mercy on such as we/Baa, baa, baa'.
And that's American, has the excuse of a rhyme-scheme and the pronoun is not right next door to the preposition which should make use of the nominative case unthinkable.
It's cool enough to wear your hair shirt!"
Both my hair shirts and all three pairs of socks (I stole a new one today). But now I've set that grievous grammatical error to rights, do you think the sun might finally deign to come out?
Grey day or nay, today's lunch, in the aftermath of a much-needed heart to heart with the psychosomatic shrink, proved to be better "therapy" than almost anything anybody has recommended or said since the start of this month.
What it is about Sam I don't know, but he's a very special person, even when he's in a rare sour mood. I get on well enough with his brother and fellow owner of the Canteen, but almost all the most amusing, interesting and cheering things that happen in the place -- where I'm concerned anyway -- do so when it's "Sam's week".
He's not only the most adventurous in the kitchen, turning mere competence into the occasional stroke of genius, but provides an ambience that draws people out of themselves. When he's in charge, I know far more about what's really "going down" in the quartier after an hour or two in the Canteen than I would from a day's gathering the gossip elsewhere or any deep search of the various local media sites (though Montparsud (Fr) -- linking there to other "blogs de quartier" -- is a commendable joint venture crying out for more contributors).
Better still, for all that he loves to play the fool and magician, Sam's one of the most perceptive and non-judgemental judges of character I know, among the rare people who don't need to be told what kind of mood others are in and whether or not they want to talk. If he knows one of his "regulars" is taking a guest along, he'll pull out all the stops, but discreetly. And more often than not, come up with a surprise, culinary or otherwise, that really is a surprise...
By now, his ears will be bright red, but anybody who can make such a swift contribution to beginning to restore the sense of humour and perspective I mislaid on May 1 deserves the warmest write-up I can give them.
I'll always drop in on Lee, another good local source for things "intimate", now and then to see how life is in Tony's neighbour's part of the quartier, where I find she's into detox (Odessa Street) in a way which could almost put me to shame!
"When things don't go well, when I feel like I don't know what's going on, I usually don't eat very much. Most people I know eat more when they're stressed, when life is spinning out of control. They cuddle up with a bag of Dorito's or a tub of ice cream and watch 'Real World' marathons. But I do the opposite, because that's always one thing I can control. I overbook myself, work psychotically on small projects, and regulate or restrict my food intake. It's just the way I am."
While I do almost exactly the same, with almost automatic diet restrictions kicking in apart from prodigious quantities of "yoghurt with beurk! bits in" (the Kid), my nicotine and caffeine consumption shot up astronomically last week, just to stay awake through the afternoons though I know it's a "bad thing" and probably helped stopped me sleeping at night. Except that I didn't want to sleep at night because of the dreams I was having...
For all the ups and downs Lee is (usually) more discreet about than I'll ever be, she's busy pulling off a first-rate job on behalf of people -- I've known quite a few of them and still know others who aspire to the task -- who "teach English as a foreign language (TEFL)" in this country. Like her own place, currently a reconstruction site, 'Assistants in France' is a work in progress, but one to be most strongly recommended to anybody who's that way inclined.
Should you wish to work and reside in France without making a practice of shitting on the place -- sometimes with humour, sometimes with lamentably repetitive loghorrhea (today's nonsense is almost inevitable torture and W. obviously needs a holiday) -- Lee's links alone at the 'Assistants' site are worth checking out.
Tiens! She even offers a local weather forecast which is much more palatable than what Météo France has to predict about the rest of the week.
8:56:22 PM link 
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