I’ve had some weird experiences lately. The day before I left for Paris, I went out to Connecticut to spend the day with my mom and at some point during an old fashioned/nostalgic pick nick, a ladybug landed on my red sweater. My mother told me it was a good omen. Now it is true that I lived most of my life with an illustration hung by my bed near my head (imagined by the illustrator Etienne Delliserte) popping out of the black on red spotted carapace of a ladybug. When I was in Paris wandering the chaos streets of Bellville I fellinto an all night alimentation oriental store and bought a pack of Marllboro (they had that and lights and it was an emergency) and then I realized I’d lost my little lighter so I bought a bic and the Chinese man handed me what: Lady bug with horse shoes. He smiled at me and I realized he was the guy I’d been buying snacks and beer and wine from the day before… I was home! Talk about luck. If not for that lighter, I never would have noticed and maybe just kept walking in the blurr of Paris streets. Then the night before I left … or in the end didn’t leave… a second ladybug landed on my red sweater. I said, “I hope this is a good omen”… and maybe missing my flight was the best thing that happened as it gave me back a day and sense of months.

Yesterday I ran into John Kole… the Grande American from Hub. I haven’t seen him in five or seven years I can’t recall. I dragged him back to Frost street and we talked about old times in Paris. Encore fois pour deux K. etc. He makes restaurants and clubs now. He’s doing well, but I miss his paintings.