I would so love to have a real bed someday. Four poster, mosquito netting (a fantasy only; mesh and cat claws do not mix), king sized, plush mattress, solid frame, heavy duty real bed. I�ve never had a luxurious bed, and my futon is practically the exact opposite of what I dream about. Still, I do dream about sharing it with a loved one as I drift off to sleep. The closest I�ve ever come is the night I had my birthday party last year and I had five overnight guests and my cousin Neil shared the futon with me (Marty and Aimee were on the living room futon; Jill and Brian shared the Aerobed on my bedroom floor; it was nothing if not cozy!) As in, not even close. (Said with a wink and a smile, lest I come across as pathetically self-pitying, although there may be some of that there too.)

I miss Jill terribly lately. She�s been working six days a week and is exhausted and needs her solitude on her one day off, and to tell the truth, I�ve been bad about calling too, but I miss our hours long heart to heart laugh-fests. As she puts it, we�re �lifers,� it�s not like I�m worried about the state of our friendship � I just miss her. The last time I saw her was months ago when I went to visit her in the New Haven apartment she shares with her roommate Meg; Jill sleeps in the kitchen (which isn�t as bleak as it sounds, really.) We (of course) watched really bad movies and got high and talked all night long in our jammies. I almost never had girlfriends growing up and hanging out with Jill is like having a sister and a best girlfriend and someone to have slumber parties with even though it�s not in the least bit proper.

(Slumber parties remind me of the nights when we were all in our early 20s when Marty and I would stay over Neil�s mom�s house in the apartment complex where we used to live � we would stay up until all hours of the night, with random friends of theirs coming in and out � and I was always the first to fall asleep, and Marty would invariably steal my bra (after a drink or two I would often take my bra off; nothing like loosened inhibitions to remind me of how uncomfortable those underwires get by evening), get it absolutely soaking wet, and then throw it in the freezer. You could hammer nails with that baby by the time I woke up in the morning.)

Andi and Doron came over for dinner tonight; I made macaroni and cheese (my parents� recipe; I would send you over to their webpage but it has our last name emblazoned all over it and I still want to maintain a shred of privacy here � if you�re interested, email me and I�ll give you the link � it�s cute, and they�ve got good recipes) in exchange for Doron�s assistance in installing the doggie gate for Keith and trying to fix my DVD player. Alas, my DVD player is kaput � it first went on the weekend I watched The Royal Tenenbaums three times in 24 hours (commentary tracks!) I�m annoyed because I just purchased a bunch of new DVDs thinking that it was working again (Doron gave it a temporary reprieve not long ago; had I known it was merely temporary I would have waited to buy new discs.) Inspired by Brian I will list off my nascent and slow-growing DVD collection:

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (unfortunately one of the Louse�s favorite movies, but I loved it first)

Memento: Limited Edition (I�m dying to watch it in chronological order!)

Run Lola Run (I had owned this, but the Louse never returned it � you�ll notice that the DVDs are a bit of a point of contention around him)

The Princess Bride: Special Edition (My regular readers may remember the connection this movie had to my how-I-lost-my-virginity-story .)

The Simpsons, Seasons One and Two (The Louse returned Season One to me, but with the second disc missing! Any idea how to get a copy of only one of the discs? I lent Season Two to Yi Shun ; we have yet to have the chance to hang out and watch them all night, which is the best way to do the Simpsons.)

Freeway (This is a disturbing black comedy, and I generally enjoy disturbing black comedies, and I still like this movie, but this is one of the rare movies that I found myself liking significantly less after listening to the commentary track. It consisted of little else than vaguely articulated hints of the director�s misogynist mindset, punctuated by regular comments about how �hot� Reese Witherspoon was on the set. It left me feeling somewhat icky.)

UHF (If you�re unfamiliar, it�s the Weird Al Yankovic movie. No Citizen Kane, but it will always hold a special place in my heart. �Something blue!�)

National Lampoon�s Animal House (I used to watch this with my mom a lot as a kid. Does anyone remember the spoof Twisted Sister did of �a pledge pin upon your uniform!� in one of their videos? That cracked her up like you wouldn�t believe.)

Clerks (Ahhh, Kevin Smith.. yum.. talented and funny and gorgeous to boot.. Jill and I were damn disappointed when we heard he got married.. ;-) At least two out of three regularly-reading Brians ought to know � isn�t there a 10th anniversary disc due out (or did it already come out and I missed it?)

To Die For (The first movie I was ever happy to see by myself. My college friend Lisa was supposed to meet me in Harvard Square to see this with me but she missed the shuttle bus from Brandeis and I had already bought my ticket so I went alone and realized how relaxing it was to enjoy a movie without anyone else�s input.)

The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (What can I say � they�re bigger than Rod!)

Serial Mom (Oh, how I love John Waters! My friend John came over one night when I lived with the Louse to watch the commentary track, and we laughed as hard as we did at the movie. I�ve met Waters� fans who disagree, but John and I both thought that John Waters� commentaries were just as entertaining as the movies themselves.)

Dogma: Special Edition (While I�m at it, a shout out to Kevin Smith�s commentaries as well � of course, he could read off his grocery list and I�d be transfixed)

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (I never got the George Clooney thing until this movie. I hadn�t expected to enjoy the music as much as I did, either. Love love love this movie.)

Well, gee, wasn�t that productive? Now I�m really in the mood to watch a whole lotta movies that I have no access to! There are a whole lot more movies I want to get on DVD � unfortunately Columbia House doesn�t carry Criterion Collection discs, which is a real shame, as those are some of the best I�ve seen. No surprise there, I suppose.

For some reason I was just struck by a happy childhood memory: being about nine or ten years old in the living room of the (then still new) house and giggling nonstop as my mom and dad played Cheech and Chong albums for me and Marty, laughing as much at my parents cracking up as at the comedy. Much as I love digital technology, I will always have a special place in my heart for albums. There�s nothing like that crackle and pop when the needle touches down, and the there�s something so satisfying about the size and scope and novelty of album covers. (Cheech and Chong�s Big Bambu came with a giant album cover-sized rolling paper, although I was much older when I finally realized why there was tissue paper in it!) When I was home alone as a young teenager I would pore through the Pink Floyd and Yes albums, especially the Yes albums, replete with posters and artwork (good old Roger Dean) and photos � no Tiger Beat for me; this thirteen year old girl mooned over pictures of Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman in the inserts for Fragile. (Dare I say, automatic outcast?)

My dad used to buy replacement albums when the old ones got scratched and Marty and I got the leftovers. We were about six and eight then, and we had Flash Gordon and Wonder Woman story albums mixed in with King Crimson�s (the artwork on that one gave me the shivers) and Jeff Wayne�s The War of the Worlds (in third grade I dreamed of performing my own version and I even tried to enlist some friends to help out � I was going to use the slow turn of a metal lid off a Skippy peanut butter jar (I�m not making this up, am I, that they came with metal lids decades ago?) to serve as the sound of the Martian spaceship hull opening up � but alas, I didn�t actually really have friends back then, especially not ones tolerant of my unfathomable fantasy life).

Goodness, not even 30 years old and I�m dating myself already.

So anyway � that was some tangent, but that�s pretty much how my brain works, it curves and twists like the roads to get to Muir Beach except the scenery is lacking in comparison � Andi and Doron came over tonight and I�d missed them terribly, I hadn�t seen them in about a month, not since we went shopping at Torrid at the Staten Island Mall two days before my trip to California. Doron plays the violin, and he brought me a demo CD that he and his pianist recorded, of Grieg�s Sonata in C Minor and Dvorak�s Sontina in G Major (and I write that as if I have any knowledge about classical music � I copied it from the CD cover; the previous paragraphs prove my expertise is in 1970�s prog rock), which I am listening to right now.

(And my god, talk about tangent.. they call themselves The Two, which reminds me of when Marty and Neil and I were kids (how often do I start a sentence like that?) and we were playing around with the (ooh, high tech!) tape recorder my dad gave us, and we decided to do a radio show, and we came up with Radio WORM, and wrote fake commercials (I can�t believe I�m sharing the lyrics to this jingle that I wrote � I was only ten! � and that Marty and Neil and I will probably be able to sing for anyone who wants to hear it when we�re in our 80s: Does your butt itch? Does your butt burn? Well if it does, there�s only one � Tucks Medicated Pads!), and we also performed (Marty and I) as The Gargling Two (pronounced Gar-gah-ling Too-oooh-oooh) � it pretty much consisted of us trying to sing while gargling huge mouthfuls of water in unison, except it resulted in little other than hysterical laughter and much spewing and sputtering.. and that�s what The Two makes me think of!)

So I keep trying to get to the point about how lovely it was to have Andi and Doron over; I feel such deep warmth and affection for them, and it is entirely mutual. I wish I were more comfortable expressing my affection for people � I always want to hug my friends when I see them, but I never know how people will react to that, so I almost never do hug people hello, which is a shame, because it�s such a pleasure, but hello, welcome to my life � even platonically, I never make the first move.

I remember the night that Brian and Keith (when they were BrianandKeith) hosted drunken game night (Brian served apple martinis � vodka tinted with Apple Pucker; you could practically see the fumes emanating from the surface of the liquid) � Andi and Doron invited me over to spend the night at their apartment (I�d had a maudlin and sorrowful drunk that night, sitting on the countertop and weeping over how much I still missed John, how much it still hurt, and I think they wanted me not to be lonely at the end of the night) and as we shared the cab ride from hell (the cabbie took us from Battery Park City to 215th Street to drop off Rose and then down to 151st) Andi was worried she was going to be sick again and I sat in the back seat with her and held her hand and kept up a litany of you are just fine, don�t you worry, you�re not gonna throw up, you are absolutely fine. When we got to their apartment, Doron set up the futon for me and gave me a hug goodnight; Luka, their cat, slept next to my head all night, and then when I woke up in the morning we all ate breakfast in their room and we wound up falling asleep again in their bed � I slept sideways across the bottom of the bed, and it reminded me of my senior year in college when Shalini would call me on Sunday mornings (her room was right next door to mine, mind you!) and ask me to come in and visit while she and Craig were still in bed and under the covers. I find it odd � in a strictly curious way, not at all judgmental � that there seems to be something about me, that my coupled friends will share these occasional, uncommon moments of intimacy with me.

I miss intimacy. I am finally getting sleepy, and too tired to get into all the nuances of that word right now, but I don�t mean it as the sloppy euphemism for sex that is often implied as the only definition (although I�m not excluding sex from the definition either.) I think I particularly miss hugging someone, the type of embrace that isn�t over before it�s even begun, where you barely even touch. I miss the sensation of feeling someone�s body against mine, unhurriedly, quiet except for perhaps a few whispers and the soft hush of chest rising with breath, feeling each tiny movement.

Sometimes I wonder, is it worth it? These fleeting moments of romantic fancy � am I just setting myself for the sting of aches unfulfilled? Sometimes I want to just stuff down, numb my desires � the longing is just so pointed (so pointless?) Ah, the dangers of writing at 4:15 AM � it is hard not to feel the loneliness punctuating my solitude.

I forgot to mention, among all the tangents, that Gideon emailed me yesterday, after a month�s silence (which I logically interpreted as disinterest). It was light and short � an apology for being out of touch for so long and an invitation to go to the movies � and I was light and short in response, saying that I would like to go. Like I told Keith, what�s the harm? I already assumed that he wasn�t interested; the worst that happens is that this is a false alarm and he doesn�t get back to me and still isn�t interested and I move on. What does make me nervous is that I did feel such a connection with him, and genuinely liked him � I didn�t feel that kind of competition and unarticulated inexplicable resentment that seems to be so common on dates (oh god, have I mentioned how I hate dating? Is this some kind of trial by fire one must endure � fight through the moat of flames surrounding the castle � to have any hope for love in her life?)

And damn, that just makes me feel so vulnerable, to like someone, to feel like I could care about someone and put myself out on the line. It�s not Gideon himself, really � I never got the chance to know him, I just got a glimpse � but more the reminder of the possibilities. I feel like now, with someone new, no matter who he is, I really don�t know what to do. All I�ve ever had are old, bad patterns to fall back on � I�ve never known anything else � and I know I don�t want those, and now I have to try to create something new. Sex scares me so much because I�m finally learning to respect it (in theory, anyway) as something more than mere disconnected body parts and role playing. It saddens me to remember how much of my past sexual encounters were while drunk or stoned or both; I wouldn�t have gone through with them sober, but sober I couldn�t allow myself to even acknowledge that need for connection, for the touch of another. It scares me to think of abandoning the crutches of inebriation and porn scripts, and instead genuinely standing naked in front of someone, stripped bare. To take his hand and say I don�t know what I�m doing here, will you still love me and want me even if I am clumsy and awkward and skittish? I am afraid of the torrent of emotion such an opening up might release. The anger and rage and wrenching grief.

Someday, soon I hope, I will write about my very brief stint as a phone sex operator. I was very good at it. I was a chameleon. I never thought I had any acting talent, but in my dark cubicle on 31st Street, I was a natural. I was every man�s fantasy; I had no needs or desires of my own � I would breathily coo oh wow, that is so hot� oooh, I never knew I would like that � do it again baby, oh please oh please, yes, oh yes , no matter what it was, no matter whether I was bored or repelled or whatever. It was simple; I wasn�t doing anything I didn�t do in the flesh. In bed with a man, I would turn on the act, close down behind my eyes, perform. Brick by brick I would wall up that rage and grief and anger � and genuine love and affection and intimacy � and it was all mechanics.

I am getting very tired; I am starting to get fuzzy at the edges, and I am starting to not say so much what I mean. I am dancing around in circles to get to this, and missing the mark, and painting with too-broad brushes. The phone sex thing especially � for all the ways in which it was so difficult emotionally for me, I also saw the other side of the picture, these desperately lonely men starving for affection and affirmation, who would pay $5 a minute for the illusion of intimacy. That is important, I want to come back to it. And my in-the-flesh sex life, it wasn�t all that dead and empty � just too much of it. The melodrama seeps in sometimes.

It is 5:00 AM now. I have spent almost three hours on the page now, mostly uninterrupted. I like knowing who some of my readers are. I like to talk to you, let you in, show you something about me, and you listen. This seems like some form of intimacy, especially so late. I will convert the futon back to my bed; nestled between the down mattress cover and the down comforter I will listen to the hum of the air conditioner and the sound of Laika purring, perhaps see the beginnings of dawn peek from behind my drawn shades, and slip into sleep. Solitary, but perhaps not so alone.