There has been another death.

Not another menber of my family or close friend, but it was someone that I felt I knew: Helene Hanff, author of 84 Charing Cross Road.

Helene Hanff is one of the writers whose style I try with all my might to emulate. My writing idols are Nora Ephron, Jean Kerr, Shirley Jackson (her autobiographies), Gerald Durrell, Spaulding Gray, William Goldman...and Helene Hanff. They all have very conversational styles, as though you can hear them talking, and Helene Hanff was one of the greatest.

And 84 Charing Cross Road isn't even her best book!

It's a wonderful book, to be certain, but her best books are Underfoot in Show Business, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street and Q's Legacy. The first is the story of how she tried to make it as a playwright in the 40's,the second is about her very first trip to London after the publication of 84, and the third is about how she eductated herself by reading the lectures of an Oxford don and is just as funny and wonderful as the other two, I'm sorry that I made it sound so dry.

I wrote her a letter about 7 years ago, and she was kind enough to write back, which thrilled me no end. I am very sorry that we never had a chance to meet, but I'll always think of her as I write.

And if you like my style, you should do yourself a favour and get Q's Legacy, Underfoot in Show Business and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street from the library--you'll love them, and you'll mourn her too.

I went to a little store that I never go to the other day, and the guy behind the counter called me mami so many times that I wanted to say:

"Did I give birth to you? If I did, I don't remember, and if I didn't,
DON'T FUCKING CALL ME MAMI!!!"

But I didn't.

What I want to know is, now that about every other person in America has a weave, why are they getting uglier and uglier? They used to look a LITTLE bit like real hair, but now they're starting to look like the person was wearing one of those braided straw hats, and it suddenly came undone and fell around their face!

Words never uttered by a daytime talk-show host:

"Ladies and gentlemen, please! A little decorum, a little dignity, a little self-control! Remember, you're on television!"

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