I will practice tying a keffiyeh this weekend. Call it a slap in the face to the loathsome Michelle Malkin and her ilk. But I'll really be doing that because keffiyehs--- shemaghs in Arabia and the Gulf ---are dashing. They do have a certain martial quality--- SAS or Special Forces operators in Oman or Afghanistan. And of course they remind me of New Wave clubs in Vienna and Berlin in the days of my Lost Youth. There was a time when every leggy platinum-blonde clubgirl in Europe had a black leather jacket and a keffiyeh. I like them as accessories, and they're something I'd want a girl to wear when out with me. I feel the same way about pashminas--- an accessory that Alessandra at bel_ebat always favours.

I did order a copy of Hanrahan's "Lost Girls and Love Hotels" today. I hope it's something various of my lovely readers and correspondents will read--- and comment on.

Once upon a time I did recommend Jaan Kross' "Professor Martens' Departure" to ginny_mccoo. It's a classic Estonian novel; Kross was one of the great Baltic writers of the twentieth century. I would like to hear Ginny's thoughts on the story. She's someone I do trust about Northern literature.

I will miss soft_melodies... I'm convinced that Adelie's disappearance will far too much like the way the_sea_the_sea vanished. Once again--- someone whose entries were thoughtful and intriguing and lovely vanishes. I can only wonder at what I did to alienate or anger her.

This is one of my days for hiding. It's another day in my life when I can't open e-mail or messages. Lissy at emigree left me a comment about my last entry, and I could no more read it than I could read any messages from soft_melodies--- or that I could read anything from the_sea_the_sea once upon a time. I do panic, and I've spent my life curling up in a ball in my Small Hedgehog Burrow and hoping that Bad Things will pass over. I can be a fierce little long-eared desert hedgehog in defense of my friends, but in my own life I can't deal with Bad News. I can't open letters or e-mails or messages that might be Bad News, that might be harsh or minatory or dismissive. There are things I'd love to talk with Lissy or Adelie about, but I'm afraid of what they might have to say to me.

I have an old Cowboy Junkies CD playing right now--- Margot Timmins' voice from somewhere in the Long Ago. She's singing "Me and the Devil" right now. "Baby, Please Don't Go" will be coming up. I love the lyrics: Baby, please don't go / Down to Baltimore / Baby, please don't go...

Of course that does make me think of Lissy standing in a thin sundress and heavy sunglasses by a subway tunnel, catching the eye of a Handsome Stranger... Or Lissy caressing herself on the train north from Baltimore to NYC. I do want to know where and how she did that on the train--- and how she dressed for it.

I still can't recall how to get to Montauk. I remember a tall and sardonic slutgirl named Sara from Easthampton back in the Long Ago, back in my days at New Haven. I recall visiting her--- I just can't recall Montauk.

I do wonder what Vantaa Airport is like. I wonder how Lissy looked it over--- where her gaze lit when looking for places to have sex in the terminal. I do wonder what plans she's been toying with for Vantaa...

"Tender is the Night"... Do I need to read it again? Should I read it in the Jade Bar at the Gramercy House? Should I read it at the bar of the Zeppelin Pilots' Club tomorrow afternoon? I might order a Rob Roy with it--- would that be Jazz Age enough? Or should I order a Sazerac? I am in the Deepest South, and Fitzgerald did marry a belle...

The on line news reports that a 58-year old homeless woman was arrested yesterday in Tokyo for sneaking into a man's house and living undetected in the top compartment of his closet for...a year. The man eventually became puzzled when food kept disappearing and set up security cameras: The woman told police she had no place to live and first sneaked into the man's house about a year ago when he left it unlocked. She had moved a mattress into the small closet space and even took showers, [a police spokesman] said, calling the woman "neat and clean." This is so clearly a Haruki Murakami image--- when will Murakami turn it into a story?

Note: re-read "After Dark". Think about how it should be filmed.

I have to go up to my former suburb tomorrow. I still have a mailbox there, and I check it every few weeks. I'll drop by my old library, and just maybe look through my storage cube to see if I have any summer shirts stashed away. My plan is to leave here vur' early--- to drive up before the heat sets in. The most-pettable little K-dot at citydress tells me I should make a clean break with my past, but it's hard. I like the Small Suburban Library, and I like having a postbox somewhere far away from where I live.

Tonight Ms. Chang is...sleeping naked on a moored sailboat. Ioana at winterbymorning is standing naked at a bedroom window looking out at Montreal and lighting a vanilla cigarillo. Deserie at eyelines may be doing the same thing, somewhere in the Swedish north. I do wonder where Tiff at vanity_overkill is. Tonight I'll...drink Estonian vodka and watch the film of "The Sheltering Sky". Tomorrow night for steak and martinis, I think.

I miss being someone whose voice could call up other worlds. I miss that. I miss that more than I miss sex itself. I'll never be someone a "Sex and the City" girl would desire. But I miss knowing I had value for the things I could say to a girl, for the things I could make her realise she could do and be. I miss the days when girls like the_sea_the_sea or Christian at McEarstix found me worth seeking out.

When I read Lissy at emigree's story of caressing herself on a train out of Baltimore, I thought about a Sunday brunch on the old upper level of the pre-renovation Zeppelin Pilots' Club with Lacey. Lacey had come out with me in a long, summery skirt, all stark collarbones and dark eyes. She sat there across the booth table and drank Mimosas at sixteen and listened to me talk on about music and books and then took one hand from her lap and pressed two fingers to my lips. That stopped me. There was that rich, creamy taste that I recognised instantly. Hush, Lacey said. I want to come... Lacey could always bring me up short, even at sixteen. I can't recall her ever not being willing to try Adevntures and risky Delights. I taught her never to wear underwear, but she never had any inhibitions about her body, and she loved the idea of sex in risky places, of trying Everything, of exploring her own dreams. I do envy Lissy's soldier-lover--- envy him watching Lissy discover her own Wickedness and sexual skills. And I envy anyone whom a beautiful clever lithe panty-free girl finds worth taking risks for. In the Long Ago, there may well have been girls who fingered themselves on trains or airplanes while thinking of me--- maybe. Just maybe. But that was in the Long Ago.

I could talk to Lissy about train sex stories, about her dreams. I could talk to Emily at iminhell about sex at the Gramercy House, or to Krystina at yes_please about sex in tower hotels in Dubai and Kiev. I could--- but I'd never ask. Even if I did ask, I'd be far too afraid to open or read any answers or responses.

Tonight I'll drink Estonian vodka and dream of the high desert. There are people who could knock on a lovely girl's basement door at five in the morning and be greeted with oral delights. Me--- I'd only get shot and/or arrested. I can put on a keffiyeh and imagine myself as advisor to a Tajik warlord in the Afghan north...but no girl like Lissy or Alessandra at bel_ebat or Trish at kissingverlaine or Ms. Chang would ever stand naked in just a keffiyeh on a rooftop in the high desert for me. I'm not someone who figures in fantasies or dreams. The Long Ago is only a memory now--- the Land of Lost Content ("I see it shining plain /The happy highways where I went--/ And cannot come again").

In a better world, I could open messages from soft_melodies and read her entries. In a better world, we could trade stories of expat life and talk about books and photography and dreams. In a better world, she'd be someone whose messages didn't make me afraid. And the same is true of Lissy at emigree. I'll miss reading soft_melodies' thoughts. I'm just not someone who can risk reading Bad News. And I'm not valuable enough to be someone chosen as an audience for thoughts and Stories.

Tonight I'll go out on the balcony with a drink and a cigarillo. Too tropical, too humid, though. I need the high desert night. I need cold dry air and a sky full of stars. I need a broadcast room in the high desert where I can sit 'til dawn and just tell stories out across the aether... I was a Voice once; that was my skill. I wish I could be valued for that again.