Sidonie Gabrielle Claudine Colette Gauthier-Villars de Jouvanel Goudeket.

I think I'd like to name my daughter Sidonie, after Colette (I can hear my husband moaning "nooooooo"...). I also want a French bulldog named Toby-Chien, such is my semi-slavish devotion to my almost-favorite author. I love Colette for her contradictions. I can never confine my admiration to printed lines- I'm a little girl, I like to think of my authors sitting down to write. Colette began her career locked in a closet, writing for the glory of her philandering husband. She managed to wrench herself free of him, only to marry again, poorly, and a third time, successfully.

Here's where Colette is a stumper. She's lauded by feminists, but repulsed their advances throughout her life; ditto the gay and lesbian community (such as it was) even though she was an avowed bisexual. Her last and only happy marriage was to a Jew; yet she was an anti-Dreyfusard and a Vichy collaborator. She used her Nazi connections to keep her husband out of the gas chamber but continued to write in pro-Nazi journals. I guess preservation of private life was the only thing that mattered to Colette- in her books and out of them.

Are you sufficiently bored? Does anyone care about Colette?

There was a forest fire two canyons over from ours last night. We heard the helicopters and saw the smoke but didn't smell it. What the hell kind of place is this to live?

PS- we have a cat named Toby. So Toby-Chat, I guess.

PPS- I like LA. I really do.