Our friend Martin L, whom I mention fairly frequently, was here in town this past week, having driven cross-country from Santa Monica CA.  Yikes!  I believe my own record solo distance is Washington DC to Athens GA, driven a handful of times in the late Sixties in my long departed abused Karmann Ghia.

Day before yesterday, Martin related a piece from David Sedaris’ new book ‘Calypso’, wherein he and his husband Hugh (or rather ‘boyfriend’, as he insists on calling him) decide they will attempt the role of a well-behaved couple out and about, but quickly fail, as one or the other barks, ‘I’ve hated you since 2002!’

I replied to this Sedaris tale (which at this point is thirdhand here, I guess) that whereas I know Stephen loves me, I don’t think he really likes me very much.  Martin responded, ‘Well, you aren’t likable’.  There was no playful retraction, not that lobbing a naughty barb requires one.  At any rate, I tend to believe he was serious.

I’ve mentioned many times that I’ve been diagnosed with ‘Belle-of-the-Ball Disorder (BBD)’, defined in the ‘DSM’* as ‘characterized by a belief that one is adorable and endlessly fascinating’.  I’m pretty certain this couldn’t have a single negative effect my likability…

[Yes, I made up this adorable/fascinating business, but you should go ahead and agree that it sounds completely and plausibly ‘shrink’y.]

*American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders