There are hours for rest, and hours for wakefulness; nights for sobriety and nights for drunkenness_(if only so that possession of the former allows us to discern the latter when we have it; for sad as it is, no human body can be happily drunk all the time).

He finished his drink. 'I don__ like mornings either,' he said. __hat__ why I__ a writer.

I don__ know any writers who don__ drink.

Jim was the one who told me that my emotional life made him dangle his stethoscope like a snake charmer: my moods weren__ hard to see but they were hard to read, and even harder to diagnose. It was ostensibly a complaint, but I think he liked his metaphor, and liked that our moments of distance were subtle enough to require this kind of formulation. Meaning that I was a complex creature and so was he; that he became even more complex in his attempt to bridge the gap between our complexities; that he could create a complicated image to house this complex of complications. This is how writers fall in love: they feel complicated together and then they talk about it.

Love me like Saturday night, like three glasses of champagne, like the room is spinning, like you're drunk on my love.

The food we were given was no more than eatable, but the patron was not mean about drink; he allowed us two litres of wine a day each, knowing that if a plongeur is not given two litres he will steal three.