I was reading back over entries from the first few months of the Year Three this morning. It was an odd time. I was reading the foreign news every morning, waiting expectantly for the war in Iraq to begin. I was teaching but not yet working at the firm. I shuttled back and forth between two campuses every day, and I made time to use the computer terminals at each. On Saturdays I'd go down to the main university and spend the day on line, and then go over to the Zeppelin Pilots' Club for drinks. There was no one in my life, and no particular future in sight. Still, I remember those months as being oddly happy. The student loan vultures hadn't come after me yet, and I had books and a place to sleep with central air conditioning and extended cable. I wrote about plans to escape to the hills of Nuristan, but I spent my days lecturing to classes and flirting with leggy co-eds.

Thai curry noodles tonight. Something quick before watching an odd little film called "Cashback". Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" should arrive tomorrow. I'll spend time watching it Friday night.

I left a message at Alessandra's Facebook about Eve Babitz's "Sex and Rage" and "Slow Days, Fast Company". I do want Alessandra at bel_ebat to tell me what she thinks of them. And I want Alessandra and Ms. Chang both to tell me what they think of Joan Didion's novels and essays. It's hard enough these days to generate even ordinary notes and comments, but I want to be able to talk with lovely readers and correspondents about books.

Looking at Fitzgerald's "This Side of Paradise", I do wonder how Alessandra regards Rosalind Connage. Is the name a pseudonym Alessandra would use when checking into the Hotel Adolphus or the Gramercy Park?

There is something painful in reading "This Side of Paradise", mind you. There's a hint of that in "Brideshead", too. I can remember being an undergraduate--- being seventeen and going off to university. But there's a whole abyss of time and attitude between, say, Amory Blaine's Princeton and the faux-Bennington of "Rules of Attraction". Can any freshman in the Year Eight be as callow as the portrayals of Amory Blaine and his classmates? Striking a knowing and world-weary pose is a universal undergraduate thing, but I suspect that the difference between 1908 and the Year Eight is that undergraduates in the Year Eight really are as cynical and jaded as they seem. Amory Blaine believed that he would have a life and a place in the world after Princeton. That may be harder to do today. And I still wonder if it's possible to be an undergrad in the Year Eight and feel any overarching enthusiasms. Are there ideas and books and dreams that really catch the imagination these days? Even in Euro universities, what is there that catches the imagination?

The good folk at Jezebel.com went off recently into a wild rant about how evil a perv Roman Polanski is. They gibbered on and on about a new documentary on Polanski by calling him a rapist and a paedophile. The usual run of commenters asserted that anyone who would ever be involved in an "age-inappropriate" relationship was obviously a rapist. I know vur' little indeed about the charges that led to Polanski fleeing the States for French sanctuary-- girl of maybe thirteen, was it? Wasn't there the hint that the girl's ambitious stage mother had essentially offered her up to Polanski? I do remember reading a bit about the case when I was vur' young and even then cheering Roman on--- just because I disliked moralistas. I suppose I wanted him to be in Tahiti surrounded by sexually available 13 and 14 year old bikini girls just as a way to annoy moralistas and feministas and all the people who were angry that Polanski was Getting Away With Something just because he was a Famous Director. I suppose I still want that. Of course--- that's the way I see the world. I'm far less concerned with whatever it is that Polanski actually did than with mocking and upsetting moralistas and Grown-Ups. Even now--- I really do hope the girl was offering up oral favours to Roman. And I hope that her mother was watching--- and masturbating ("lime with that Corona?") while she watched. And, yes--- I hope Roman had the stage mom lick his fingers clean after he'd had them in her daughter. If you think I'm imagining Dina and Ali Lohan--- well, yes: you'd be right. The image is hot--- no doubt about that. But the true value of the image is that it reduces moralistas and Grown-Ups to gibbering rage. Let's remember: I still do tell Dead Baby jokes.

Now--- I'm actually not really interested in mocking either Lohan sister. I have nothing whatsoever against them. I assume their mother is a vile creature just on principle--- I treat the mothers of any sexually-desirable girls as vile and hostile. There's never been a mother yet who wanted me anywhere near her daughter, even if said daughter is somewhere near thirty. But the Lohan sisters--- well, they're attractive enough, and (like Alessandra) I was rather pleased with Lindsay's last song/video. And Lindsay is panty-free and has a vur' hot girlfriend. Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson make a lovely couple, and I hope they're in love and I do offer them my best wishes. If they get married in California this summer--- good for them.

And what is your favourite Dead Baby Joke?

Yes, I know. I'm going to Hell. Back when she was my Official Teen Victim, Lacey pointed out that I wasn't the Antichrist--- I'd never, ever wear a turban, and especially not a blue one. But she was sure that I was a staff-grade officer in the armies of Hell.

Someone on line assured me that I was going to hell because I actually like Julia Allison. Well, I do. I enjoy her blog and her Twitter posts. I'm more of a fan of Debauchette, of course, but I like Ms. Allison. I like Emily Gould and Lena Chen, too. I'm a voyeur, true. But I also find Julia Allison and Lena Chen interesting. They have good stories, and they're not snarky or vicious. Nor is Debauchette. I'd rather read Julia Allison's thoughts than the columns at Jezebel.com or Gawker. I'm not sure exactly what "famewhore" means, but I do encourage Lena Chen and Ms. Allison and Ms. Gould to keep writing.

In the meantime, I'm going to make myself a drink and watch "Cashback" and wait for "Aqua Teen Hunger Force". Unlike Roman Polanski, I don't have a lithe and wicked teenslut to violate, but one can always hope. After all--- zeppelins arrive from Estonia every Friday.