Not that stupid Winona and Richard Gere movie.

I was thinking about the weather and I found a request for review in my copy of Gertrude Stein's Lectures in America from 1975 and I started to think, as I often do, that I don't belong where and when I am. I suppose the grass is always greener, and I suppose you belong wherever and whenever you are if you're comfortable with who you are. Your home is under your hat. So on. So forth. But I often fantasize, however unhealthy that is, about being in a different time and/or place living a different sort of life. It is not to say that I don't like my current life; I just like to have alternative options. So I imagine myself in New York in autumn in the 70s.

I didn't really have autumns where I grew up. It was always warm/hot and moist and filled with evergreens. So I think of the chilly, crisp air, the brisk breeze, the yellow and orange and red leaves and the brown ones covering the sidewalks and the parks. I'm wearing wide-legged, woolen trousers and a matching blazer, or maybe a gray, woolen dress and a black coat with a colorful scarf. And maybe a beret. And I'm in the park, maybe Washington Square walking my dog, maybe a Golden Retriever. And I think, dog breeds haven't changed much. So much of our culture has changed since the 70s. Everything is faster, more immediate, more impatient. But the dogs are the same. There have always been poodles and chihuahuas and terriers and golden retrievers and labs and pugs. You never see brand new, out-of-the-blue dog breeds. You see different kinds of mutts, but not brand new pure breds.

Anyway, so in summer, in August in Texas, this is what I think about. I sit in my air-conditioned living room out of the steamy heat of the summer rain or the blistering, brow-beating, dead heat of the sun-struck afternoon and I fantasize about New York in autumn. And microfiche.