Happy Valentines day
 I just rode the elevator up in this turn of the century back bay hotel in
New Haven with "Brenda" a dewy eyed brunette with a husky voice, size 11
pumps,
and see tru black taffeta about the shoulders with plunging neck line of some
spectacular yet
dubious cleavage.
.I like this hotel it is Fellini's Roma in scale, and  every night is
halloween. If life is like a box of choclates then the hotel Duncan is the
gooey
one..... full of nuts.
No Holiday Inn crowd here;no Hersheys on the pillow or comp shampoo
heck I have to wait 10 mins for the hot water. and then there is a elevator
operator!!.... are we talking modern here or is it mo -dern... Albeit the
gentleman looks like Herman Munster with rouge;
 but here he  is playing deaf and dumb, giving ride to  Brenda and
I  as we chit chat and stare at the back of his bad toupee..
The  Hotel Duncan has  a genteel if not raffish clientel.
 It is genteel in that there are artists and down at the heel writers living
here; there is also transient construction workers and alcoholic  sales people
who double as cons,grifters in old tweeds, and the  misfit french stone
workers; I arrived with and
 finally then there is the pros who rent by
the hour. This  crossroads eros consist of   " putes ' (Fr.for "women making
a living).... and travelows"(Fr.for  men as women making a living).
Brenda and I are friends  although not intimately  She knows I do not" putt
from the rough"... but "she " and I talk story all the time .
For example  she is reading a biography on Washington...everyone  here
despite their call in life is extreamly well read....and as  it so happens
..I worked on one of the Washington burial  tombs (Ball.. related to Martha
and  James Madison))
so we banter about with history on the elevator ride up, with Brenda batting
her eys at me with moistened lips...  Now historicaly; George liked the
ladies... butI'm not sure "Brenda" would have made the picnic at Mt. Vernon.
Never the less we carry on our talk.
 Brenda  Likes to hit on my guys ; I would perfer them with college girls and
warn her of their latent violent homophobia in such matters. This advice
falls on deaf ears and she changes the subject to Valentines  and Eros and
the loves of her young life..I respond that I have a new girlfriend ..a baby
girl Mary Stewart Davidson....  she quickly  moistens her lip with some
gloss... and we go back to studying the toupee... and the ride up..
She gets off at level four and squeezes my hand in friendship  and wishes me
happy valentines by whispering in my ear  before making her way down the hall
shashaying in the size 11 pumps and bare shoulder black dress .Her tattoo of
the unicorn stallion shows tru her black stocking shear at the calf..
Mr. Munster closes the lift gate... and we climb one more floor...as we do
I think
of my wife and baby at home in the creole cottage with the horses and the
dogs and the crib by fire .....I begin to  weep as I feel blessed ...and
think of all the hard edges in this life to fall and stumble over and lay
enslaved too.
..(.I am weeping silently)....as  I do not wish my little girl  to end up
hustling at 20
yrs of age at the Hotel Duncan......I think of how I can protect her from
lifes deceptions in her formative years.. (is this the wonderbread years?)
so she has a chance.... and realize that all illusion.. is apart of life
...right
down to natures tiniest detail...
.if we can teach illusion  at an early age... then we have a chance at what
may be the souls journey of non attatchment to illusion ...and the physical .
(The tears are openly flowing freely now)..and the lift is slowing.
Munster is taciturn in his toupee. .....Just a chance I ask ...just a
chance....
so she may have a chance to mature gracefully to taste love and not be
smitten by it .......
To express her desires wholely ; pragmatic in purpose, driven by wisdom and
creativity in an age of ones own oppurtunity... and not just the day.to
day..feel and respond.
...I am weeping because its up to me.... its my  responsibility... to allow
her clarity and vision and to make mistakes ...an offer her an education of
par
excellence.... and it may be the greatest challenge I have ever had
At last  the lift has reached its goal;...my floor... I thank Herman in
passing  and I
depart down the threadbare floor clutching my mail...l..a solitary card ...
a heart
shaped  Valentine..
..To Daddy..be mine......thats all it says........best Michael