But alas, grumpy comments about celebrity journalists aside, it is me who cannot be trusted going out to anything but a close dinner party.  I should stay home and write, is all.  And this is a fact, I think, of ancient humanity, of which Kerouac--look at him--represented.  As long as he was protected, writing at home, he was more or less okay.  But going out, it's always something.

A reason I never look forward to tending bar, the reason why it frightens me somewhat.