The Way Of All Flesh

When asked how many husbands she'd had, art collector Peggy Guggenheim replied, My own or other people's? I once had a friend who juggled a husband, two kids, and an affair with a co-worker for seven years. She didn't, as they say, seem the type. Her hair was cut into an extremely practical wash and go style, and she never wore anything more revealing than a polo shirt with the top button undone. No Peggy Guggenheim, she did not revel in her infidelity, but it came to define her all the same. In time, her husband and her boyfriend went the way of all flesh. The affair, she told me, became as tiresome. If you want to lose weight, she said, the first year is great -- you feel like you're alive again and every day is a miracle. The rest after that is as tedious as a PBS pledge drive and as exhausting as working two jobs.

Questioned about his ability to keep his marriage together in Hollywood despite all the temptations, Samuel L. Jackson revealed the following -- I think about all the shit I have and divide it by half. That'll keep your ass straight. I have been a victim of infidelity a few times; it wasn't as apocalyptic as I'd imagined. I didn't start calling friends or loading guns. My guns are always loaded. But I know how these things end so I kept my cool. You don't, as they say, shoot a man who is already hanging himself.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"That's what an audience had to see to be fully engaged -- the threatened destruction of a human being and the rebirth of this person." Sidney Poitier

Cocktail Hour

Drinking novel suggestion: Painted Desert by Rick Barthelme

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy Tuesday!

12 more days until The Sopranos airs!