SIZE
Three weeks ago I was spilling my guts over in the hospital after an operation. The doctor asked me: “you want to do what? - go to the US so soon after? - well, if you want to be superwoman do it on your own account.” Of course I had to do it. You never ever pass the opportunity to show up for invited presentations. One in Louisville, for which I wrote a paper that my best friend said was very very beautiful, and that in spite of the loads of Hintikka and other formalisms along Lacan and Frank O'Hara. Another presentation is in Atlanta in a few days. As Barnes & Noble wants to sell my Between Gazes book, you don't say 'no' to showing up for the publicity de rigoeur. Thus, as befitting a superwoman, you say 'yes' to everything, and make sure that you look smashing. This is not a problem in the US of A, even though you're past the age of forever young and forever smart. They have professionals here that can do miracles. I go for power shopping at the Opry Mills in Nashville. After having stacked on white shirts, some 20 of them, at the various places that carry the softest Pima cottons, I enter the Max Azria store. The women there were flocking around me, ready to prepare my fitting room. I grabbed a dress, and the shop assistant almost yelled at me: “not that one! You need a size XS!” I said, “pardon me, did you just say extra small?” “yes,” she said, and then made sure that I didn't make another mistake: “and you're a size 2 in pants as well.” As she was proven right, after coming out of the fitting room I said to myself: “Halleluiah!” You are already a bit high. At the “under water dining experience” restaurant, I sit literally among real fish in the aquarium. As I was watching hypnotically the most beautiful swimmers, and between sips of vodka dry martini and pinot grigio, I caught another soft Halleluiah on my lips. Then back on the road, listening to Alison Krauss spilling her own guts over the smash song “You say it best when you say nothing at all,” all sung in full sunset glory, I felt ready for the Baptist church. “Halleluiah and Amen.” Being super is no small size.
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