You Always Want What You Can't Have

'You didn't fall out of love with somebody just because of difficulties, life was complicated under any circumstances, but maybe they were fated to love each other and live apart, there were people like that...'
A WAY OF LIFE, LIKE ANY OTHER
by Darcy O’Brien

Diary Notes/Photos June 15-20, 1988

If I hear that song by Rick Astley again I think I’ll stop listening to my station for a month.  It’s called TOGETHER FOREVER:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPYZpwSpKmA

June 15, 1988

On a brighter note I am having fun again with the welcoming receipt of my ‘letters from Paloma’.   I love when she includes French magazine clipping inserts.   In her most recent letter she included a clip of Nastassja Kinski from a 1978 film called LA FILLE (also starring Marcello Mastroianni).   In Italy the title of the film is COSI COME SEI.   The American title is STAY AS YOU ARE.   I must see it ‘at some point’.  I always enjoy her recommendations in film.  This one is about a May-December romance (a much younger woman and an older man, then he learns that she might be his daughter!).  Now that sounds intriguing.   Paloma knows how to capture my attention.  I've always been so infatuated with Nastassja Kinski.   With this film I wonder if she’s warning me that I could someday find my daughter and ‘fall in love’ years from now and run into this situation.   I suppose anything is possible—but I honestly doubt it.   Most women aren’t after much older men…or are they?

It’s ironic but now that Paloma is not around she is someone I’d rather be with right now.   It’s like that term ‘you always want what you can't have’.    There seems to be so much truth to this term.

June 18, 1988

Mom was in Castro Valley at Tony’s house doing the grandmother babysitting duties.   I decided to ride my bike from Alameda to Castro Valley for a visit there.   It was a warm day and the non-stop pedaling would do me good.   Upon my arrival I laughed aloud when I saw Leigh in her crib.   She was surrounded by an overwhelming amount of stuffed animals.   It was super cute.

I managed to get my niece, Lauren, to laugh hysterically when I posed the Pee Wee Herman doll in the group photo.   It looked rather amusing. 

Soon Helen and Tony returned and I set off for my return bike ride to Alameda.   It feels so good to do the long-excursion cycling routine.

Upon my return home I began re-reading parts of one of Paloma’s recent letters while drinking a tall glass of lemonade.   She wrote the following:

…there are two movies with CHER that come out over here about a month ago.   I remember them because I like that actress very much.   I find her really gorgeous.   Mostly, I watch TV now.   It’s kind of hard to go to a theater with a baby.   My parents are not around to babysit.   Alexandre’s parents sometimes do.   I told you they have a holiday house around here.   It is where we lived last year, so they would sometimes come for weekends and, of course, during the summertime.

This month on our local SHOWTIME they’re playing a movie with Nastassja Kinski.   It’s my favorite one.   I don’t know if you’ve seen it.   I don’t even know how it is called in the States.  It’s an Italian movie with Marcello Mastroianni called in French LA FILLE.   This might even be Nastassja’s first movie.   The story is about her falling in love with her father (she doesn’t know he is her father).   She is really sexy in this movie. 

I like Jamie Lee Curtis a lot, too.

I’ve never heard about the groups you are telling me about.   What kind of music is that?   I could pop into the Bay Area for a while like you mentioned.   In fact, I think about it very often.   I’m sure I could now go back to the States with no problem.  My problem now is the same you have…$$$$...if you know what I mean!   We are two and a half now…maybe someday though.

I’m going to have to stop writing pretty soon.   I could only write because Jonathan was talking a nap.  We live right next to a cathedral and the six o’clock mass plays all of the church bells that they’ve got which I really appreciate!   So Jonathan is now AWAKE, but still sleepy and in a very bad mood.   If you happen to hear that someone threw a bomb in the Agde Cathedral you’ll know who it was.

PHOTO:  Agde Cathedral

Anyway, my father came to visit last week and he bought me some stuff from my old apartment in Paris.   I found most of your letters and I read almost all of them.   That makes for a lot of reading!   I don’t know if you’ve kept all of my writing.   That was really interesting…funny and sad.   I really felt something special though.

Well Michael…I’ve got to stop writing now.  Hope to read you again soon. Love,  Paloma

CHER’s song, WE ALL SLEEP ALONE, is playing all over the Bay Area stations now.   When I hear it I think of Paloma.   They’re calling her the ‘Goddess of Pop’.   I don’t particularly like that song though.   It doesn’t really grab me.    I’m more into the groove of George Michael.

“Man is on earth to create more durable and efficient images of himself, and hence, to eliminate any justification at all for his own continued existence.”
PLAYER PIANO by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.