so. this page may be here for the public eye and all (if anybody ever should find it which i doubt) but i don't go around talkingabout reading balzac like some vogue editors do...

so today, when my dad was harping on me not to take my old louis auchincloss books to the gym to read there (i guess all adult daughters have this talk with their fathers someday), i said "i have to take louis auchincloss, he's an easy read. i can't take balzac."

apparently, dad has some volumes of balzac up on his third floor. he doesn't know what they are, but he bought them years ago, he says, at the thrift shop that used to be run out of one of the buildings at pennsylvania hosptial. all the board members would take their dregs there; i remember my aunt getting a fur coat like that. well, i told my dad, i'll come around and see this balzac in the attic sometime. chances are i need it anyway. maybe it's something really neat.

my dad says he doesn't know much about balzac, except for some song in "the music man" where they say ballllllllll--zac ; and, that once balzac lamented that he labored so hard over every sentence and george sand could just pound them out like they were nothing. who's george sand?