Just back from a favourite sushi bar... I sat and drank Sapporo Dry and listened to Akino Arai on the sound system. The waitress asked if I happened to be from either California or New York. Southerners, she said, always ordered the rolls. Only people from the West Coast or NYC ordered serious sushi. I had to smile. I enjoy being taken for cosmopolitan. [Hielten sich für schlaue Leute, the old Nena line goes...] I told her that I had lived in the Northeast--- which is only true. I was a southern Connecticut boy for four years. But I can't imagine eating California rolls if you can have the real thing--- sushi requires a sense of purity. But being thought cosmopolitan is always a small good thing on a sultry August Saturday.

Various girls have been sending me their own lists of items for morning-after kits--- things they keep in purses or backpacks just in case when on a date. Toothbrushes, deodorant, gum or mints--- those things all seem key. Liz V. at nightmareteeth keeps eye cream for revitalising tired eyes--- which sounds like a vur' clever move. Lissy at emigree keeps a wrinkle-free dress and a pair of flats--- again, a good plan. Lissy works at Banana Republic--- she'd know how to fold a dress tightly enough for a shoulder bag, and how to fold in in approved BR anti-wrinkle style. (Elizabeth-Claire did the same with the Standard GAP Folding System) Kelsey at clush works as a lifeguard on an Army base--- easy enough to just take a swimsuit and flip-flops.

I was never much concerned with morning-after kits. I rather liked coming home in last night's jacket and half-done tie. I said that earlier: like coming home in battered armour with victor's laurels. Lacey was good at bringing a black mini and a t-shirt and flats in case we were going to brunch, but sometimes she just brought a pair of tiny shorts and grabbed one of my buttondowns or sweaters.

Pink Martini is playing right now--- "Hang On, Little Tomato". I'll put on their "Sympathique" next. I'm a major Pink Martini fan, though I can't recall who first recommended them. It may very well have been Liz V. at nightmareteeth. Ms. Chang would be my second guess. But if I've failed to give the correct lovely wicked clever reader and correspondent her due, please forgive me. Tell me when you told me about Pink Martini and I'll do an apology and correction.

Now--- I still need more mornings-after Lists from girls... The idea of a mornings-after kit does intrigue me... I do want to hear from Stella at stelladellasera and Caitlin at kissmecaitlin about what they'd have had in a morning-after kit when they were 16-22... And I very much want to hear what Ms. cataplexis keeps in her kit...

There is the converse of the question, too--- and that intrigues me as well. It's easy enough to list the things a girl carries in her mornings-after kit. But what would girls want their young gentleman (or Older Lover) to carry with him? That is something I'll pose as a question to lovely clever wicked girls reading this--- what things should a male partner carry in a briefcase or backpack for mornings-after?

Someone at Red Oak, Iowa has been spending serious time reading me at D-Land... I have no idea who I might know in Iowa... I have no idea why anyone would be in Iowa.

Lissy at emigree writes of hotel sex with her soldier-lover that oftentimes we end up in NYC and I will be led to a hotel room....We'll miss a train or be too tired to drive home. We usually find a nondescript brownstone hotel in the Village, near Washington Square or Chelsea Piers... I do envy her. I envy her the hotels, too. Those are sorts of hotels I always favoured when I was with girls in NYC... I miss them. I miss the pre-renovation Royalton on W. 44th, too. I miss having girls who would go to a hotel with me... I miss being valuable enough to be in a hotel bed with a girl. A year or so ago Lissy wrote a story in her "Revolver, Dauphin" 'zine about having an Older Lover and going to hotels with him over Baltimore Harbour. I was valued enough once upon a time to be a model for a fictional Older Lover. Older Lovers are there for hotel sex--- but I no longer have that value. I lack the value even to be a fictional older lover.

I'm not sure how Lissy and her soldier-lover afford rooms in brownstone hotels... I couldn't even afford a night at a Sleep Inn here.

Alessandra at bel_ebat writes that she's discovered reading the various annual volumes of the O. Henry Award stories. I should point her to the 2006 volume. There's a story there by Douglas Trevor called "Girls I Know" that's vur' good indeed... I will recommend it to Alessandra and to Lissy both, and to Southeast and Gia-Carangi at D-Land as well. Alessandra at bel_ebat is very literary--- and I have always trusted her recommendations.

Ms. Flox at besideserato agrees with me that the title story in Susan Minot's "Lust and Other Stories" is a brilliant debut piece. It's a story that I will recommend to any lovely clever literary wicked panty-free who might be reading this... Just as I'll recommend the stories in Debbie Cymbalista's lost collection "Danger"... I do want to be able to talk about books again. I want to be able to sit with lovely companions and talk about books. I miss that.

Just as I miss being able to have hotel sex. I miss ever being able to go to brownstone hotels with a lover again, too. And I am--- for some unknown and probably best-left-that-way reason ---utterly envious of girls who bring that miniature toothbrush in their mornings-after kits. I'll never need one again. And I hate knowing that I'll never be valuable enough to girls to have mornings after again.

I went swimming this afternoon--- and I may go back down to the pool tonight. I may even have the beginnings of a good tan. But there aren't voices on the aether for me tonight. I can drink iced shochu or do tequila shots or make vodka-limes. But I have no value any longer, and no girl is likely ever to call me again.