Apropos of what I was writing about yesterday, here is how it ended � inasmuch as it can be said ever to have begun � with Jacques Vandelay: We were dating. Key word "casually." We got along easily, and I liked his architecture books and the way he was willing to argue with me rather than caving in, but neither of us was looking for some big romance, and we saw each other maybe twice a week. We had a brunch date one Saturday, after which I�d made plans to drop off some old clothes and belongings at Goodwill and then to run some errands for a carless friend. At the restaurant, we were talking about our respective plans for the rest of the weekend. I said I had a party to go to that night, and JV said that he had a date. There was a brief pause, during which I assessed my feelings about this bit of information and what it implied and realized that to my surprise it didn�t bother me: we had explicitly established that what was going on had no "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" in it, and he didn�t bring up his date in such as way as to be an asshole or to challenge me, he was just keeping me posted. Which, perversely, I respected, and I felt like his announcement had by association made me a little more of a badass, a little more urbane. We lingered over coffee and gossiped conspiratorially about the potential Miss Lady, where he�d met her and what he imagined her kinkiness potential to be. After brunch we were walking back to my apartment because he wanted to borrow my space heater, and he expressed an interest in, how do you kids say it, coming over for a while. I looked at my watch and said Sorry, no can do, I have three car trips to make this afternoon and I�m running late already. JV was petulant at first and then peeved. "You�re just saying that because you�re mad at me on account of my date," he carped. "You�re jealous." No I am not, that�s ridiculous, I said. What, like you�d be cheating on me? "You think I�d be cheating on you! You just admitted it!" etc. Then it was my turn to get mad, and I said something about how his not believing me and wanting to see me in the worst, most passive-aggressive light possible was the downside of having an association that was not exactly grounded in respect. He dramatically stopped in his tracks, despite the heavy rain, and said, �You think I don�t respect you? How can you say that?� I told him to get off his high horse but that, all right, respect was something earned, and that we hadn�t known each long enough to have demonstrated our respectworthiness to each other, that was not the nature of our interaction, and since the nature of our interaction was to be frank about this sort of thing I had no problem admitting it. We�d checked each other out and small-talked at one of George�s parties and we thought each other were cute and we both had the same evenings free; it was never a meeting of the minds. It wasn�t that I didn�t like him, I said, it was just that I had known him in such a limited context that I didn�t feel right using the word "respect," the same one I would use for people whom I have seen climb into crucibles and again and again prove their honor. And JV said, slowly and with elaborate dignity, "Well, I have to say I�m shocked. I can�t believe you would date someone you don�t respect. I had no idea you were that kind of girl, I thought better of you. This makes me very sad, and I honestly pity you." I almost laughed, but he was serious. I gave him the space heater and that was the last I saw of him until I ran into him at the Tractor maybe a year ago.

And, I forgot to write this after last weekend, here is something that Steve did that would have made me fall in love with him on the spot: It�s another brunch story, this one with the two of us and my great-aunt. One of the specials was a Belgian waffle with raspberry compote, and that is what Lib ordered. Oh sorry, said the waitress, we�re out of the compote, but I can bring you the plain waffle if you like. She hesitated and then said, All right, I guess that�s fine. She handed her menu back. But Steve had been watching her face and saw that she was disappointed, and he turned to the waitress and said, "How about a bowl of fruit? Can we get a bowl of fruit with the waffle? Libby, you�ll eat some fruit, right?" Jacques Vandelay, *that* is how you earn my respect. In case anyone should be wondering, though Vanessa and I did have a conversation on the way to drop her at the airport about the importance of an Escape Fund, Steve�s lousy mood yesterday appears to have been an isolated squall. He apologized last night, sorry for having been a � "Did you say �bore� or �boor�?" I asked. Boar, he said. Oh. Apology accepted.

Last week I was driving home one night and I passed a car that looked like the vehicle of an ex-boyfriend of mine, and I realized that it was, in fact, his. But who is that fat guy he�s let borrow it, I wondered for a moment, noting the rolled-down window and the size and the drape of the driver�s pale upper arm along the top edge of the car door. I looked closer, curious since dude was very ride proud, and then I knew: that�s no fat guy, that�s my ex! There is part of me that feels bad about this, about how the sighting made me want to giggle and call Vanessa right away. Because, yes, I do know about body types as cultural indicators, about prejudice against the non-skinny among us, about the mass media�s promulgation of an anorexic ideal, blah blah blah, and I think it all sucks. So I do not congratulate myself that it made me happy to see that this ex has gained so much weight. But I cannot tell a lie -- goddamn, it did. And do you even know how good *I�m* looking these days?

I ate a non-homemade brownie this morning. I am large, I contain multitudes. (Not that kind of large.)

OK now I want to say some things about Alice Sebold and about "The Lovely Bones." Frankly I don�t want to say anything I may also end up saying at Book Club tonight, since the book meant and means so little to me that I want to conserve my energy and refer to it in toto for the mimimum possible interval. Life�s short and I�m worth it, you know? So here is the kind of discussion that does not seem to take place in Seattle � I am not bragging, I am stating a fact based on almost nine years of empirical observation, so get off my back � and that I reserve for my mind�s Manhattan, a/k/a my online diary. Or I flatter myself. Or I am deluded. Etc.

Here is what I wrote when "The Lovely Bones" was first announced as the centerpiece of July Book Club: "Also, from the interviews I�ve read with her I have not come away with a favorable impression of Sebold herself, she doesn�t seem like someone I�d like and � I�m not sure I respect her as a writer." (Huh, we are back to respect.) From time to time since I typed those words, I�ve wondered whether I deserved to make such a harsh judgment based on such vague or at least uncited evidence, and since I try to be conscientious I�ve put myself up to coming up with something more solid. In a visceral way I do not like Alice Sebold, I do not like her a lot. But why? And I think I�ve got something. Look at the author photo on the back flap of the book jacket. Sebold is looking to the left, gazing off into middle distance, her face in two-thirds profile. Her expression is serene and knowing, beatific and impenetrable, her lips slightly pursed and resolute, and she is artfully lit with what looks like natural light so that her skin from forehead to neckline is radiant, like the surface of a far-off planet, and the rest of the photograph is black, so that you can�t make out textures in her hair or her clothes or the background. The photographer, with her complicity, has made of Sebold a numinous object, something set apart from you and me and existing in another plane; the image says I am a vessel of wisdom that you, Reader, do not have and cannot understand, which I accept as a gift and yet a responsibility. (Natalie Merchant is also from this school of portrait-posing-for.) It�s pretty damn arty and pretentious, and that is the picture Sebold chose to appear on her book jacket. That is how she wants us to know her. Now turn to the Acknowledgments section, where we learn that this icon of higher-evolvedness requires tapioca and coffee on a daily basis, and where � I still can�t believe this � she sends a shout out, Woof!, to her dog. At best, this is unseemly. At worst, to me � here�s where the disclaimers come out, Sebold fans � it betrays an incoherence with respect to self-marketing that shows Sebold wants to have it both ways. She wants to present herself, in the picture, as something as timeless and quietly glorious as a Vermeer housemaid, but in paying tribute to "those who joined the party late but brought the most awesome refreshments," she also wants us to know that she is, like, super fun and totally in touch with her inner sorority girl. To me, this decimates her credibility and whatever tonal integrity might have accrued to the book � and a book like that, what is it without that kind of tonal integrity, which issue by the way with her choice of photograph Sebold seems to have been aware of? To me, it begins to feel dishonest.

Compare, for example, Daniel Harris�s lithe and engaging prose style in "Cute, Quaint, Hungry, and Romantic" with that book�s sassy Acknowledgments (I wrote about this one two years ago � e-mail for login and password if, ha, you�re even paying attention at this point), or, back to fiction, the photographs of Wendy Brenner on "Large Animals in Everyday Life" and "Phone Calls From the Dead." In the first one, she�s sitting in her living room with uncomplicated curly hair in a ponytail (I think), sitting on a low chair with her knees up and sharing the frame with a German Shepherd whom I do not recall her barking at, I do not recall whether that book has an Acknowledgements section at all but the point is that the W.B. in the photograph is the W.B. you�d like to imagine as having written the stories and who because she does present herself that way adds an extra dimension to their integrity. You get the sense that Wendy Brenner � or, let�s get meta!, "Wendy Brenner" � is a straight shooter, someone authentic. It�s a different picture on the second book, her hair is shorter and straighter and she�s looking up into the camera and smiling as if someone has just said something funny and delightful and maybe lewd, and this spontaneity and the DIY quality of the composition make you think that this could be a snapshot a friend took of her at a party and then it was time to select a jacket photo and she said, Hell, I actually look pretty good in this one from the party and submitted it to the publisher. And that�s consistent too. Wendy Brenner is the kind of person you want to go out for margaritas with, you want to have been at that party with, you want to have heard that dirty joke because you know you would have liked it too. What is Alice Sebold?

And while I�m on the subject, I also cannot stand the cutesy-poo way Sebold and Glen David Gold always have to make sure that we readers are aware of their majestic and highly evolved love for each other. They will not shut up about it. The dedication page of "The Lovely Bones" reads Always, Glen, and I last night I couldn�t find my copy of "Carter Beats the Devil" in the giveaway box but I think its has something like To my assistant, the mysterious Miss Alice and then he also waxes thematically poetic in the Acknowledgments. Retch. My training in psychology is limited, so I won�t hazard a guess as to what makes them do this in the books and in the interviews I�ve read, but I think it�s gross, TMI and kind of juvenile, as though there�s a contest among everyone who is in love to discover who is the *most* in love, whose love is the loveliest, who by the nature of how it is given becomes most worthy of receiving it, whose is the most emotionally and intellectually symbiotic, and they take this competition seriously and want you to vote for them. Myself, I�d rather chug Listerine than go out for margaritas with Alice and Glen. Ye gods, can you imagine? It would be so grim. They�d run the conversation, operating as a Borg-like unit, so that you�d be outpowered and forced into inanities like "Yep, you guys sure are in love, all right. No doubt! And now that you mention it, yeah, it sure is dope how that boundless love informs your every literary endeavor, how it is both the wellspring and the expression of your desire to create art." If I write a book, here�s what you�ll see on the dedication page: For Steve � in eternal gratitude for all the hot sex. Or maybe Steve�s cock, always. Ha ha ha not really, of course, but wouldn�t that be hilarious? (Also not really because when I was maybe eight or nine, my sister made me promise that it would be her to whom I�d dedicate this hypotethical first book. DP once lost a bet with me and now he has to dedicate his first novel to me, but that was a long time ago and he has other priorities these days and I will not hold him to it.) It�s possible to dedicate one�s oeuvre, one volume at a time, to the man or woman who makes it all worthwhile without being so smug and cloying about it. The biggest man on Alice and Glen�s Irvine campus, Michael Chabon, does it with taste and grace. All the later Carver is forthrightly dedicated to Tess Gallagher but never in such a way that you cringe. And what of Robert Caro? The latest volume of his Johnson bio, dedicated as they all have been to the wife who functions as his typist and research assistant and sounding board, has a quotation from Shakespeare (? don�t remember, haven�t read the book and am operating on information in a CJR article) but one that comes off matter-of-factly, it is interested in its object and not its subject. Is that the crux of it right there, subject and object? I don�t know that either and criminy I�ve been typing too long � I do get carried away � but here�s my story and I�m sticking to it: Alice and Glen are icky, and so is "The Lovely Bones." Now leave me alone, I have to make some models of molecules for Dr. Carpool.

Please raise and lock your tray tables and return your seats to their upright position as we prepare for our descent into Seattle. Thank you for flying Dishery airlines. We hope to see you again.