I like being at Twitter. I really do. I like the idea of "micro-blogging". I like leaving small notes throughout the day. I like reading what the people I follow on Twitter have to say during the course of an ordinary day. Ms. Flox at besideserato does lovely small Twitters. I really do want to talk Ginny at ginny_mccoo and Lissy at emigree into doing the Twitter thing.

But I'm just not sure I can go back there right now. There's some feature there called TweetDeck that I don't know anything about. I dislike loading applications of any kind; I remain suspicious of things like that. I asked a girl called VoyageInTheDark what TweetDeck was/did, and she wrote back with a mocking note calling me a "n00b". I couldn't go to the TweetDeck link she sent--- that's obvious ---and I couldn't respond to her and now...I'm a bit ashamed of going back to Twitter itself. It is like having Lauren at Dartmouth--- thelaurenator ---mock me for a "slight regional accent": I could never speak to her again, and I couldn't speak to anyone in anything other than clipped monosyllables for weeks. Right now I'm ashamed to go back to Twitter. I'm always ashamed of being places where I don't know the things Others know.

The other night, I told Tiffany from vanity_overkill a story from my Lost Youth. It explains a lot about me. I was once sitting in a cineplex on a random Saturday afternoon, watching some long-forgotten comedy film. In one scene, the girl who's the female lead and her bikini'd friends are all on a beach watching boys and rating their fuckability. One male comes up out of the water and the girls all sigh over him: tall, buff, handsome, poised... And then one girl goes Eeeeww! He has...back hair! At which point the guy is consigned from fuckable to creepy/loathsome. I sat up in my seat and dropped my buttered popcorn. Ummm...back hair? I didn't know males even had back hair. It wasn't something I'd ever seen, and certainly something I'd never looked for. But I just...froze. What if I had it? After all--- a covey of leggy girls in bikinis right there on screen had officially pronounced it vile, pronounced it something that could render a male un-fuckable. I didn't think I had it...I was reasonably sure I didn't have any. But...but...what if?

I stopped on the way home and bought two bottles of Nair. I stood in the shower and covered my torso--- front and back ---with Nair. Neck to knees, all under a full covering of Nair. I rubbed it into the skin-- I wasn't taking any chances of not getting any hair that might exist, or ever could exist. I remember the scent being...overpowering. I did learn something, mind you. When the bottle says "use no longer than 5 minutes", the Nair manufacturers really do mean five minutes. They don't mean five minutes plus a distracting forty minute phone call. I almost never sunburn, so I'd forgotten what a major sunburn feels like. This was worse. Much worse. And skin began to come off. Much of one nipple came off. There was blood from places I'd rather not think about. Nonetheless... After the shower, and the pain, and the blood, and the sunburn cream, and the not being able to wear a shirt the rest of the weekend, I still felt like I'd done something Necessary. I still think it's a precautionary thing to do. I don't have much body hair--- I know that rationally. But I still do my torso relentlessly with Nair and razors and wax. I can't take the risk. I can't allow the what if to ever appear. If random, nameless, attractive girls find some physical or personal or social attribute vile or appalling or open to mockery, I'll instantly do anything I can think of to change it--- or just never go where I can be seen by anyone again.

I will always believe anything bad anyone says about me. It doesn't matter if I know the person saying it, or if they have any knowledge of me or my life. If it's bad, it must be true. And the thought of being mocked in any way by beautiful girls, of being looked at with contempt and derision, of being found un-fuckable, keeps me from ever going out or going anywhere I can be seen.

There are Rules. There really are. However arbitrary they may be, there are clear social Rules. And I do live in terror of violating them and being mocked, of being sent off the realm of the un-fuckable and contemptible.

Freud said once that fame was the love of many anonymous people. I've never wanted to be famous, not for fifteen minutes, not among fifteen people. And I don't want the love of many anonymous people. I want attractive girls to find me fuckable, to do the things with me they do with Others. But the key thing I want is just to be seen in public or in any social setting as...invisible-but-acceptable. I want anonymous eyes to pass over me and just think that I fit in. They don't have to linger, or gaze with admiration. All I want is not to be seen as a Rube, or as un-fuckable, or as someone who doesn't belong there. Just...part of the background...will do. Yes--- I want girls like Kelsey at clush or Kim at cataplexis or Lissy at emigree to come over and make out with me. There's no point in being out--- party, date, club, bar, wherever ---if making out isn't involved. But the key thing is just to be found invisibly acceptable: not to be someone who could be noticed for mockery and derision. The nail that sticks up gets hammered down: the Japanese are always correct.

My back went out yesterday. Maybe from trying to sleep on the couch, maybe from the hideous little hard chair I have at my computer desk. But I can't sit or stand without sharp pains in my right hip. I can't really walk upright. I move along like some twisted piece of origami. I'm not sleeping at all, so I can't even escape it that way. I keep doing shochu or tequila or vodka-lime, but I can't even pass out. All I can do is try to be in the pool and see if swimming stretches out the muscles.

A girl in the Anaheim Hills writes that, even with a fibromyalgia attack, she was able to have sex on a first date the other night and do contortionist things in bed. One more reminder that Others are having sex, that Others are overcoming physical issues to have sex, that Others are having first date sex. I of course am not able even to kiss a girl--- let alone have first date sex or hotel sex in "nondescript brownstone hotels". The girl in the Anaheim Hills wrote of wearing her "lucky underwear" on the date (why wasn't she "lucky commando", as all beautiful girls should be?), and doubtless she had a Morning-After Kit with her. I'm bitterly, bitterly angry that no girl would ever go out on a date with me, let alone post about wearing "lucky underwear" (yes, I would cut it off-- on the spot) or bringing a toothbrush. I'm angry that I'm not fuckable. It doesn't matter if a girl could ever fall for me because of my personality or intelligence--- that's not being first-date fuckable. Not that I ever get first dates. Or have a girl like Ms. cataplexis come over to me at parties.

Ms. Chang is doing a Blogspot blog called "A Developing Discourse" for her trip to Russia. It will be worth reading.

Ioana sent a postcard from Barcelona to say that she'd had random sex in the lee of a cathedral, and that someone had written poetry in Catalan on her bare breasts in a darkened bar. One more thing making me bitter and filled with envy and self-loathing.

I should never have asked girls about Mornings-After Kits or hotel sex. I never, ever should've asked. I told Ms. Chang that Thursday night. All that did was remind me that no girl wants me, or finds me fuckable. It reminds me that Others are having sex, and that I will never again have sex that doesn't involve being on the phone. Details Matter--- I know that. Details Matter obsessively. And so do Lists. But all the Lists and the Mornings-After Kits have done is make me bitter and filled with self-loathing. I makes me look at girls I do like--- Baltimore, NYC, Florida, Daegu, wherever ---with an envy that's tinged with anger.

And of course I'm very very angry that I haven't heard from Lissy at emigree. She's Vanished, yes--- and Dismissed me. I don't know what it is that I've done. Wednesday night she was still sending me Facebook messages about bands and her university plans and sending me messages at gmail about Adventures in her Past. And then...without a word, without a call, without even a text message, I was just...Dismissed. At Facebook, at her non-secret diary at LJ. I've known Lissy at emigree since early in the Year Six, and she is vur' dear to me. I miss her voice, and being able to hear her thoughts. I miss her--- and it's all the worse since I have no idea what it is that I might have done. I hate it that I'm not even worth a phone call. Even if she's not in Baltimore this weekend, she could call on her LG keitai... I hate not knowing what I did--- and I hate not being worth a phone call.

Ginny at ginny_mccoo has been reading Paul Theroux's "Riding the Iron Rooster". I just recommended Alan Moorehead's "The Blue Nile" to Ginny--- she's interested in Ethiopia ---and I may have to re-read the Theroux book on my own.

It's now something like five or six days since I've eaten. Black coffee at work, iced shochu or vodka-lime at home. I can't sleep, and I can't pass out. I can't even hallucinate. All I have is a kind of vague abstract appreciation for what my body is doing--- even if I can't stand upright or sit without pain.

I really do want Lissy at emigree to call. And I want desperately to feel like I won't spend the rest of my life isolated and un-fuckable, to feel that some girl would bring a toothbrush on a date with me. I'd settle for kisses from a lovely stranger--- that would actually be a brilliant thing, to just be found worth making out with by some lovely girl with no name. Sex with strangers always says more about Value than romances do. At least I'd have the kind of Value that allows others to have hotel sex or train compartment sex.

I can leave here and go home and try to read. But there won't be a girl who'll kiss me in all the Year Eight, or in any other year.