Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

by Eve Babitz

He never understood anything I said. He always treated me with kindly animal gentleness, but when he started telling me that his friends thought that “At last he’s found a girl intelligent enough for him,” I thought, Intelligent! I was intelligent enough for him? Besides, he was too tall.

I loved it more than anything I’ve ever done before or since because deep down inside every woman is a waitress. The act of waitressing is a solace, it’s got everything you could ask for—confusion, panic, humility, and food.

One afternoon I was sitting on a veranda at a party with about six women and the information that was exchanged, commonly called gossip, was enough to run the world for months.