You Don't Love Me Yet

::phone rings::
Me: "mrrllo?"
Blocked number: "Hello? Sarah?"
Me: "What?"
Blocked number: "This is Chris. Your name is in my book but I don't remember where I met you."
Me: "What?"
Chris: "Are you from Los Angeles?"
Me: "Yes? No. I don't...who?"
Chris (sadly): "Oh well. Take care then."
(hangs up)

This happened to me at 7:45 this morning. Chris, whoever you are, if I was rude to you I'm sorry but you woke me up in the middle of a very strange and wonderful dream. At first I thought maybe you were part of it, and it was disappointing to find out that you weren't. Also, I mean, what? Who does that? Still, if you were going to give me money or something maybe you should call back at a more reasonable hour. I promise I will be nicer.

The thing about Jonathan Lethem books is that, invariably, while I am in the middle of one of them, things like this happen to me. Halfway through Chronic City, my dog got the hiccups. She had them until I finished the book. She had never had them before and she has not had them since. Right you guys? I know.

The exchange above is something that might as well have taken place in You Don't Love Me Yet, a Pynchonesque novel about a bunch of late 20-somethings in Silverlake whose motto is "You can't be deep without a surface." Rather than the post-culture-apocalypse-malaise that say, Bret Easton Ellis' characters wander about in, these characters fully embrace their shallow existences, according extraordinary weight to the most ephemeral of things: hook-ups, jobs in experimental art galleries, shows at warehouse parties, etc. etc. It's not a perfect book- I don't think it's possible to write a great novel about music (talking:music::dancing:architecture...you know) but I seem to have a penchant for stories about skinny, arty, directionless girls melting into their late twenties on L.A.'s east side. Complete coincidence, I am sure. Besides, because it is Lethem there are plenty of lovely images to steal: "the bleachy morning" that is the "exact temperature of a sleeping body," for one. A perfect little novel from one of those Saturday afternoons when the rain offers up an excuse for not doing anything at all.