Flies on meat

June and I lunched at the Gaucho Grill today. She showed up at my house and I'd forgotten she was coming, forgotten I had to work this morning and I was still in my pajamas (the pink, fluffy ones Mamma gave me for Christmas last year). It's been an odd day. This morning on NPR I heard about Roger Avary's arrest for manslaughter. He was drunk, he got into an accident, his passenger (a friend from Italy) died, and his wife Gretchen (who is a lovely, lovely woman) was ejected from the car and found in the middle of the road by Sheriff's deputies. He was booked and released on $50,000 bail. It makes me very sad.

J's in Atlanta, then Mexico City. I'm feeding the dog rice as a precautionary measure.

So we're at the Gaucho in uggs and sweats, feeling decidely unglam and lamenting the illusory nature of the city, the addiction to fame, the sad buggers (like us) that live here, and generally making ourselves miserable, when there was a massive commotion - shouting and screaming and flashing cameras, and sure enough, Britney Spears and her boyfriend Adnan Galid walk into the restaurant. The paparazzi are pumped up; they're bouncing like boxers from foot to foot, like dogs that have just tasted blood. They're screaming at each other, trading barbs, being generally loud and boring, like football hooligans. The lunch crowd is very low key. Everyone turns around. It's so loud that it's hard not to turn around even though you know you shouldn't. People start to say, softly at first "Leave her alone." Barbaric fuckers those paparazzi. This is a whole new breed. Not the sweet guys that line up prettily for you at a premiere or who say "hey, how are you?" These guys are out for blood and they drive Range Rovers and Escalades. They're grinning mawkishly. It's really, really fucking sad.