noam

I never knew If Dobel's story was true or just a piece of fiction he used to get me to go alone. I never saw or heard from him again. For all I know, he's Ice fishing somewhere In the Yukon. I thought a lot about that strange, sad, Improbable character and remembered very fondly our afternoons In Central Park. In life, they'll be no shortage of people who'll tell you how to live. They'll have all the answers... what you should do and not do. Don't argue with them. Say, 'Yes, that's a brilliant idea,' and do what you want. Whenever you write, strive for originality, but if you have to steal, steal from the best. And if you take very good care of your styptic pencil and dry it after every shave, it'll last longer than most relationships you're in. The seminal joke about Dobel Is the old one-liner. That even a clock that's broken Is right twice a day. Dobel had a real sense of Irony and would have appreciated that I got one last, to use his word, adventitious glimpse of Amanda as I was leaving for JFK. The doctor! I knew that doctor was hot for her. What'd you say? I was just saying how strange life is, how full of inexplicable mystery. Well, you know, it's like anything else.