“I should have know better than to go to a party. I hated parties. Frank had loved them. I never knew what to say. Parties gave me a headache. While I painted on my mascara, I gulped down some codeine.”
(Today, I met an artist named Barbara Stauffacher Solomon in Pioneer Park. We got to talking, and she took me back to her incredible apartment in North Beach, which she bought for $43,000, or thereabouts, in the 1970s. Gloria Steinem used to come to her openings; she’s written books and had shows in many museums. It was one of those magical encounters that make life worth living; now, I’m reading her autobiography.)
