I Am Having So Much Fun Without You Read Online Free PDF Page A

me redo. I’m going to use a lot of white tile, even for the walls, like that restaurant I told you about in Stockholm. Remember?
    I think of you often and I wonder if you are okay. You were in very bad shape when I left Paris. So panicked. So urgent . I guess you’re still mad at me for leaving, but one day you’ll realize what a useless emotion anger really is. Honestly, what you were trying to hold on to with us would have perished in the holding. Don’t turn into one of those expats who thinks that artists need to suffer in order to be creative! There’s so many of them in Paris. They all have thinning hair and navy boat sweaters and, now that I think of it, a lot of them are named Greg.
    Anyway. Back in college, I had a writing teacher who told me that writing should be fun. Back then, I didn’t believe him (I was reading lots of Plath), but it’s true that once I started working, I had so little time for my own writing. When I did sit down to do it, I often thought, What a shame that this isn’t fun! Until I changed my tone a bit. Which reminds me! It looks like the Independent is going to run the design column that I pitched. Can you believe they took an American? It’s curiously well paid!
    I’ve been trying to work on my own stuff twice a week, and on weekends, I go in town and take photographs. Or I go out in the countryside and take photographs. Dave is so organized, he’s inspiring me to get organized myself. Every morning he wakes up, has a cup of black coffee, reads one or two articles, and then shuts himself in his office until five o’clock, when he comes down and has a tea. He keeps on working for an hour or two until he’s done for the day. Got goose bumps yet? I know how much you hate routine. His creative process is an organized one. But does that mean it’s boring? I don’t know, it’s up for argument; but I’ll tell you something, Richard, stability—when tossed in with the right amount of love, respect, passion (and a little bit of sex!)—is better than you think. I hope, for your sake, that you’ve learned how to live your life a little better. Maybe you should try giving up alcohol for a while. Maybe you should try being faithful !! : ) I’m happy, Richard. Are you?
    Always thinking of you,
    Lisa
    Like always with Lisa’s letters, once I finished reading them, I was left with a seasickness of conflicting emotions. Pleasure, because she’d written, and disappointment, because her letters never amounted to what I really wanted: a confession that she missed me, that she’d made a mistake in leaving, that she wanted me back.
    With thatfigurative letter in hand, I could recoup some dignity and control. I could write back “no.” But what happened with these letters, these catalogs of her coffee and tea-drinking fiancé, the white tiles of her new life, was that they left me jealous and distracted. It was calculating of her really: because the letters left me wanting more from them than I was getting, I still wanted her.
    I had to ask Lisa to stop writing me, but I lacked the courage to ask. What would a future be like without the occasional proof that she’d existed? That, for a bottled moment, she’d adored me back? I owed it to Anne-Laure to cut off communication with Lisa. I’d promised her that. But I needed it—I really needed it—this secret line to something private. One day soon, I’d get in touch with Lisa and tell her to stop writing. But in the meantime, along with other home improvements to my marriage, I had to find the decency to tell my wife that The Blue Bear had sold.

3
    I CERTAINLY can’t blame the French education system for the problems in my marriage. In fact, I’d say that the French make it almost too easy to have a life when you’re a parent. State-subsidized spaces in the neighborhood nursery are every citizen’s right, and the public