Charlie

I assume that he meant "memorable"--a "memorial moment" usually occurs during a funeral.

Last night I finished John Rechy's About My Life and the Kept Woman: A Memoir. I read his bestselling novel City of Night when it came out in 1963, and like many people I recognized that it was mostly autobiography masquerading as fiction. This memoir, written when he was in his 70s, to me reads like a novel masquerading as autobiography, i.e., the story line is too neat, and I have trouble believing some of the incidents and people are real. The memoir ends in the 1960s, and the second half is about his life as a hustler in LA, NO, and NY, and the writing of his first novels about that subject, but the first half of the book is about his childhood and youth in El Paso. He grew up in the Mexican community there, the youngest child of a Mexican mother and an Anglo father, hence his Scottish name, which often camouflaged his self-identification with his mother's family. I had a personal reason for wanting to read that half of the book. In 1968, I shared a two-person office at work for one year with a new hire. Patricia was a pretty blonde in her late 20s, an Anglo from El Paso married to a handsome young Mexican economist who was rapidly rising in academia. In a conversation in the office one day, somehow the subject of Rechy came up. To my surprise, she said that she had known Rechy well when both of them lived in El Paso. At that point I was not yet out at work, so I was cautious about pursuing the topic. We were friendly but not really close colleagues for many years after that, but I became aware as years passed that the starry-eyed romance of her early marriage had gradually changed as she had three children in five years. and she and her husband moved into middle age. One day she startled me by revealing that her husband, who made frequent business trips to Mexico, had a kept woman there. She was obviously angry about the amount of money he spent on the woman's support, but what really surprised me was that Patricia had no intention of leaving him, and that her children accepted the situation. The marriage lasted until their deaths a decade ago, only a few months apart. The title of Rechy's memoir was what caught my eye, and I read it in hopes of understanding the culture of El Paso which produced Patricia. The "kept woman" in the title turns out to be a relation of Rechy's by marriage, and a symbolic figure through the entire book. It did help me to understand Patricia's marriage, but as I read, I found myself also having flashbacks to my own "starter marriage" in my early 20s, to a partner who was himself a product of small towns in west Texas at the same time as Patricia. I have driven through El Paso a number of times over the years, but the next time I will see it with a different perspective.

Not so, William. He had made a request to Tennis Australia and the Victoria government for an exemption from vaccination in order to get the visa. It wasn't until he arrived in Australia that Immigration said they would not honor the visa because they wouldn't accept the reason for the exemption from being vaccinated.

My grandparents were married in Trinity Church in 1902.

I once lived in an apartment house in Manhattan in which the parking spaces in the basement were sold separately from the apartments. In retrospect, I realized that I had made a mistake in not buying a parking space when I bought the apartment, because the lack of a space made the apartment less attractive when it was time to sell it (though I still sold it for four times what I had paid for it--Manhattan real estate was crazy).

The two outdoor pools in our gated community have been open for residents throughout the pandemic, but the number of people allowed to use them at any one time has been limited. The HOA has been very carefully restrictive about almost all group activities in the community, but they must not fear any chance of infection that is specific to pools. i.e., to immersion in water, only to the distancing between those who are in the pool.

I suppose he can always say that he could have broken the record if he had been allowed to play (in fact, lots of people, especially in Serbia, will say it for him).

Only one review in 3.5 years on RM?

Nike ad?

Not exactly bromance: most of these guys are trying to slaughter one another.

I think you may mean The Hobbyist.

Since the escorts always claim that you are only paying for their "time," it really should be up to you how you spend that time. I think Jamie21 is correct that you should communicate ahead of the event that you like to relax a bit with him after you have "released your tension."

Pool party in Palm Springs

The likelihood that Roger will win another major are minuscule, and Rafa's chances are fading. Novak needs to win only one or two more for the record. Even if 2022 is a wash-out, if he can stay in shape for a few more years, he still has a chance to set the record, because the vaccine mandate is not likely to become permanent when the pandemic subsides.

I have never ever looked at Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. I spend enough time on this site.

That '58 Buick Super is looking kind of dusty.

What is he trying to do with the window on that '58 Oldsmobile?

I have a lifetime history of allergies to trees and grass, so I am used to sneezing, runny nose and eyes, congestion and sore throats. Just my luck that some of those things are similar to symptoms of COVID. In late 2020 they seemed so severe that I got tested for COVID, but I was negative. The symptoms continued, and since I never got the frightening problems with breathing or loss of taste and smell, I figured it was just the same old same old, and I have never been tested again. I was vaxxed back in February and March, and boosted in October. But every time I sneeze or cough, I still wonder, "Is this it?" However, I use my spouse as 'the canary in the mine:' if he doesn't develop any symptoms, then it is probably just my allergies. BTW, one of the reasons I moved to the desert was because I wanted to get away from the green allergy triggers of my lifetime in NY/NJ/PA. Who knew that I would also be allergic to mesquite and palo verde trees?

Unfortunately for tennis, Tennis Australia is probably most at fault here. If they had simply said that every participant in the tournament had to be vaccinated, period, Novak probably would have opted out of participating rather than deal with an argument over his vaccination status. By setting up a procedure for exemptions, without getting a written commitment from the government to accept the results of that procedure, they gave the government leeway to make their own decision about who would be allowed into the country to participate. Claiming that allowing Novak to play would give ammunition to Australian anti-vaxxers is obviously a political decision, made after the government realized that Novak would be one of Tennis Australia's exemptions. I expect that heads will roll at Tennis Australia in coming weeks. Novak must realize that all this is a preview of what may happen at the other major tournaments this year, in light of the fact that he is the only one of the top contenders who is not vaccinated. The longer he maintains that status, the harder it becomes for him to retain his top ranking, or to surpass Rafa and Roger as the GOAT in major titles.

Probably just showing off his newest abdominal tat.

Sadly, the Kokkinakis match wasn't even shown on US television, although all Barty's matches in Adelaide were.

I have old friends (a straight couple) who can't get enough cruising. They had several cruises already booked when the pandemic hit, and all of them were cancelled, but with future credits. As soon as the ships started sailing again, they were off, and they have already done two, in Europe and the Caribbean. They just came back from one which they said was great because the ship was much emptier than usual, since they had to jump through so many hoops just to get clearance to go, and some of the original stops had been dropped. They had to wear masks in the public areas, and there were noticeable changes in traditional things like buffets, but on the whole they found the experience satisfying. Of course, that was before the first reports of a couple of cruises returning with passengers who had contracted COVID during the cruise, even though all of them were vaxxed.

This looks like a Rubens painting.

All hat and no cattle? Nah, he's got plenty of beef.

That means that the final decision will be made only two days before play starts. What about the others, like Renata Voracova, who were told that they were exempt and then kicked out? If Novak is allowed to play, they deserve some kind of compensation (I understand that Voracova is already suing Tennis Australia). I doubt that Novak will give in and get vaxxed now; that will make him look weak back in Serbia. Roland Garros and Wimbledon are still five months away, and the COVID protocols could change before then. I wonder, however, about the big tournaments in Spain before then; I understand that the Spanish govt is already looking into his appearances there in December, when he supposedly had been tested positive but didn't reveal that.