"Plastics."

"Did you type that with mittens on?" one editor just asked another. Heh. Yeah, he did.

To backtrack...

Patti Smith Made Me Cry.

Almost.

I unexpectedly saw her perform last night, and within three notes I felt a creature climbing up through my gut. (A good creature. Like a puppy, maybe. A puppy with claws.) That woman, as the world knows, can sing. I'd gone to hear some guys I know perform--big in their own right--with some talented people who usually play with even better known people (not necessarily deservedly so). Mostly the show was Xmasy-crappy. Nobody wants to hear the former lead singer for Styx sing "Holly Jolly Christmas," but he sang some such crud, I promise you.

After the concert I wound up at plastic-cupped party with kids. Not children, but young uns. Packed, college-like into a Brooklyn brownstone, most in their early to mid-20s. With beards. Literal ones. Full ones. No "5 o'clock shadow" fake-out pseudoshite. More kinda log cabin lumberboy. Why are the kids these days rocking beards? I cannot answer this.

At some point, I found out a number of people there had gone to my university (classes of 2003/4). "Hey, I'm class of '97," I enthused to some dudes on the couch. The response was, um, bizarre, if autonomic.

One guy did a little head-shakey stuttery thing. I fuck you not. Like, his body convulsed a little.

"You really should check that shit," I told him.

"Uh, well, I guess I didn't expect that," he said, as if I'd just told him I have the ability to shoot spear-tipped flames out my nostrils.

I went on to tell some other kid at the party about this happening, and he said, "Well, you look really good for your age."

Yeah. My stock response to this oft-heard piece of snarffly drivel? Actually, I hope I look my age, cause I love being in my 30s blah blah fuck you. Should I somehow look wretched at 31? Should my crow's feet be ready to take flight off my face and my breasts be making quiet love to my knees? What do you think 31 looks like, male people? I ask this sincerely.

Shouldn't we look wizened? Shouldn't we look not 22 and milk-faced, but like we've lived a little and taken possession of our bodies and minds the way a human being hopefully will at some point? You know, downed a few bourbons but still childishly giggly at things like beards on young men and boys who say, when you wish them good luck in law school as they leave a party, "I have my work ethic and my intellect. I don't need luck..."? (Fine. Not childishly giggly at that one. More like hilariously obnoxious condescendingly stunned. "Yeah, you're really going to need that luck, buddy," I said.)

Parting shot: Anne Bancroft was 36 when she played Mrs. Robinson.

(I think I just confused myself.)