Writing here about articles on girls traveling with vibrators, it did strike me that there were parts of such articles that would be easy to write. The parts about batteries and voltage converters could be done as cut 'n' paste from an article about digital cameras. I suppose that means nothing. But I do like the idea. I like the idea of a tech girl at one of the hipper sex blogs being able to use advice about digital cameras for advice about the Solitary Vice while traveling.

Last night I went outside and watched the moon low in the east. Caitlin at kissmecaitlin wrote this morning to say that from her own patio outside Denver, it had been a grapefruit moon. Grapefruit moon comes from a Tom Waits song, Caitlin says. I like that.

The moon here was a blood orange moon, deep and rich. I remembered blood oranges squeezed into a glass of Wild Turkey once--- something Rachel at henceforth had recommended. A blood-orange moon... I wanted to hear David Sylvian sing "Taking the Veil", or maybe Dead Can Dance do "Cantara". I do wonder what Caitlin was listening to--- though I can hope it was Eric Andersen doing "Ghosts Upon The Road" or "Belgian Bar".

Fennesz and Sakamoto's "Cendre" is playing now. Lovely dark ambient music, the sort of thing Lissy at emigree tells me about. Outside the sky is still sun-bright and cloudless. I keep it curtained and chill inside. This flat is where I go to read and sleep and escape. I'm happiest at night; that's always been true. At most--- late afternoon late-summer sunlight, gold and rich and deepening. I only wish I could see sunlight like that on a beach, from a beach house, looking out to open water.

The vur' intriguing Scarletta at wineandscarlet writes: I dream of flames rising out of night, all those sunrises that like to unfold themselves across my skin. I dream of morning, I dream of how my eyes will flutter open and I will see all that I want to see... There's loveliness there, and melancholy dreams, and hopes for the autumn. She's someone I found at random--- someone who posts lovely writing and paintings by Magritte. I am looking forward to reading her...

Ms. Chang told me last night of her own encounters traveling with vibrators in a carry-on bag--- "Ma'am, we'll have to check this bag..." Still--- she was flying out of Miami. Homeland Security at Miami is probably specially briefed on lovely South Beach girls and vibrators in luggage. Call it a certain cosmopolitanism. One of Libet's vibrators, though, was shaped like...a duck. Like a pink rubber duckie. I have no idea at all what to make of that.

I should make martinis tonight. I have a film to watch--- a small and vur' obscure early-'90s vampire film called "The Girl With The Hungry Eyes". I haven't seen it in years and years. But it's set in South Beach, or at least South Beach before full renovation. So I will watch it again and see if Ms. Chang could derive any fantasies from it.

I will reiterate something I wrote about last time: I'm collecting Stories about lovely girls traveling with vibrators. Any stories about encounters with customs or Homeland Security, any stories about finding batteries or replacement vibrators in distant lands, any shopping stories. Whatever the Stories, I'd love to hear them from lovely readers and correspondents...

And I'm collecting Stories in a completely different vein, too. I'm collecting stories about sunlight and seasons, about balconies and beaches and rooftops... I hope that voices on the aether out there will write or call and tell me about places and moments that have meant the most to them, about what they've seen--- stars, the moon, city lights, open water, the high desert night ---at crystalline moments.

wineandscarlet writes: I scurry home barefoot with blisters on my feet, high heeled shoes in my hands. The road is silent and I'm alone; the streetlights, cars, & the stars are my only sources of light while the rest of the world remains dark. This is the time i savor, because there's nobody else, nobody else to get in my way... That's an image that will haunt me. I'll have to think of what the road she's on is like: a road with salt grass along it, a beachfront road on the Massachusetts coast, or a sidewalk through a tree-shaded street in a small college town.

Stella at stelladellasera usually strikes a playful and wicked tone these days when she writes. But I do remember her in the autumn of the Year Six, when she was in despair about her life. There is a vur' serious side to Ms. Stella, and I'd love to read what she has to say about landscapes and images and dreams. I'd like vur' much to hear from Stella about what she felt and thought her first time in Lisbon, looking at the city and the harbour. I'd like to know what she felt walking along a beach or looking out across the Rockies when she was sixteen or seventeen. I always ask Stella about wicked slutgirl things she's done, but I want to know other parts of her as well. After all--- what made me respond to her entries back in the Year Six wasn't just the s/m stories. It was vur' much the depth and intelligence of the girl writing through her own despair.

Ginny at ginny_mccoo tells me that she writes every night on a Smith-Corona portable on an antique desk. It's so easy to fall into a major infatuation with any lovely grad student girl who has a portable typewriter. All over-educated ne'er-do-well aging bachelor quondam academics are prone to that.

I used to smile when the Small Pika and I would look at Stray Sheep stories together. Little Ellen would be Stray Sheep Merry and say, "Tell me a story, Poe." I'd be Stray Sheep Poe and tell her stories from the Stray Sheep world. The Small Pika was with me all through the worst days of my law school career. I wanted so vur' much to offer her solace and kindness in return when she needed to be Quiet and Still.

Murakami's "After Dark" is there on my nightstand to be re-read. When I read it last summer, I thought how easily it would become a screenplay. I'll have to see if I still feel that way. I've only seen one film--- "Tony Takitani" ---based on a Murakami story. I've always wondered why no one has ever filmed at least "A Wild Sheep Chase" or "Norwegian Wood".

Lissy at emigree is off somewhere up I-95 North on her first official Romantic Week Away With A Lover. I do envy her. I really do. I told Ms. Chang this last night: there's a point where a fallow season becomes desperation, and a point where desperation becomes emptiness. I haven't been on a Romantic Trip since...well...since I took my doctorate. I haven't been on a vacation of any kind since...the year Ninety-Seven. I never took spring breaks or summer trips during law school, unlike my classmates. I never took long weekends. And these days, I can't imagine asking for any time off work. I'd be far too afraid to even ask. So I do envy Lissy--- I envy her having a lover, I envy her the rush of a First, I envy her walking along open water, and I envy her the courage to simply tell her family that she's going off at twenty for a week with her soldier-lover. I envy Lissy being able to have that thrill of being in love and being with a lover to see the world.

I had to tell Emily at iminhell that I have no idea how one goes about asking a girl out in the Year Eight. I no longer remember how it all worked. And after reading the various sex blogs and things like Jezebel.com, there are just risks I can't take. In a world where one is judged and mocked by SATC girls for not being Chris Noth's SATC character--- and where male sexuality as such is regarded with loathing and contempt by Jezebel.com and its lynch mob of commenters, the risks are just too great.

Ms. Flox at besideserato told me once that I should rely on my intelligence to seduce lovely clever girls, that I should feel confident that intelligence was the way to a lovely clever girl's heart and bed. Well, intelligence I have. Social graces, money, social standing, and chiseled abs--- no. I'll note that Ms. Flox herself is literary, clever, and vur', vur' bright. And that she was born into a moneyed family in a country where old money and old blood count. Ms. Flox can join intelligence and breeding to elegant legs and exotic beauty. Intelligence I have. But I have no skills or attributes in the flesh. I'm never any good in the flesh, never any good around people. The bare, ruin'd choirs part we won't even go into. It's enough to note that I won't be going on Romantic Weeks Away, or on dates to sushi bars or wine bars.

No martinis tonight. I'm not in a gin mood. Port, maybe--- port later tonight. Not a summer drink, I know. But I like the flavour, and I've begun to suspect that Scotch or vodka in summer weather may not be good for my sinuses.

No martinis--- no dinner, either. It just seems like too much trouble to make dinner. It gets easier never to eat at night. I can eat lunch at the office. I think I do shape my day around lunch. But here at home, cooking or going out or even ordering in--- it all just seems less and less meaningful. It's easier not to eat.

Roger Eno's "Flatlands" is playing. Lovely instrumental music, slightly more complex than the usual ambient work his brother does. Soundtrack music for imaginary films. I've always liked that idea.

I think I want to see "Lust, Caution" again--- and see "Journey to Kafiristan" again.

And I do want to watch the sun set outside past the tree line and the lakes. I want to watch the moon there in the east, to see whether tonight it'll be a grapefruit moon or a blood orange again...