Gray and cool outside this morning. Remarkably so for mid-August in the Deepest South. I won't have the Small Black Saturn this weekend, so I've been here all day. I walked up to the corner grocery for fresh French-roast coffee vur' early, and then settled in on the upper deck with my notebooks and the little Psyduck iPod. I listened to Pet Shop Boys and Massive Attack and drank coffee and made notes.

I wanted to tell Kelsey at clush that when she read Philips' "Prague" she did need to note how often everyone in Budapest drank Unicum. The Hungarian national drink--- apertif, yes, but also drunk in shots. Bitter--- but with a surprising ability to make you feel light and talkative. I've heard expat girls in Budapest call it "liquid E", but then sorority girls in the States say that about tequila shots, too. Kelsey will be in Cologne and Berlin in September, not Budapest. But she needs to search out a bottle of Unicum in liquor stores in Germany, do shots, and imagine being in Buda on an autumn night.

I want to get a larger set of headphones for the iPod--- not just earbuds. I like headsets, actually. Before telemarketers ruined the look for everyone, headsets always had a certain flair. You could imagine yourself in some sort of WW-2 submarine film or as the pilot of a starship or bomber: Colonel de Guzman banks his B-1B through the night sky as the strike force swoops low over Tehran to drop its JDAMs and leave the city in flames...

The little Psyduck iPod has something like three days' worth of music on it. I really do have to talk to Ginny at ginny_mccoo and Lissy at emigree about what they have on their own iPods. (And what would Siobhan in Adelaide have on hers? What do Kim at cataplexis and Umi at ivich have on theirs?) I must ask about some way to exchange playlists.

It's starting to rain outside. I can see the first raindrops hitting the surface of the swimming pool. I'll stand outside and watch the rain--- always a favourite thing to do. I've arranged for a ride to a Big Box store this evening. Even lovely cachexical starved-beautiful girls are telling me to eat. So I may buy a couple of small steaks to do...and see if I can talk someone into going for sushi tomorrow evening.

Shopping is always vaguely embarrassing. Lissy at emigree keeps three credit cards in her wallet. I have a debit card and a gas card, but I have a credit rating of flat zero. So while Lissy or Ioana or Ms. Chang can have MasterCards and Visas, I probably won't have any for a while... One more piece of evidence to show that I'm a failure net to any of them. We won't even mention the girl teaching at Oxford.

No word from KdG at k_navit. No word from Rachel at sirena73 or Lissy at emigree or Jenifer at jourdannex. And of course nothing from dehumidifier. And now Mari at violetsnvalium has Dismissed me as well. No messages, no warning. I am running out of readers and correspondents.

Ms. Chang is leaving for St.-Petersburg in ten days. She's been putting together her carry-on luggage. Some of it is stuff from a travel list Ms. Flox at besideserato once did--- eye mask, moisturiser, activated-charcoal capsules, small neck pillow. Alessandra at bel_ebat always recommends a pashmina for travel. Pashminas, Alessy says, can dress up any outfit, and they offer warmth there on long flights. I will have to ask other girls who spend time on long flights (e.g., Stella at stelladellasera, Umi at ivich, Siobhan in Adelaide, Delighted and Genetikerin at D-Land) about what they'd bring. I do wonder what Ms. Chang is bringing on her iPod...and what Southeast at D-Land has on hers in Budapest and Bratislava this month...

I sent Catherine Hanrahan's story "Watch the Monkey Scare the Children", Zoetrope All-Story Extra 39 (2002) to, inter alia, Ginny at ginny_mccoo and to Lissy at emigree and to Kim at cataplexis. The story was Hanrahan's first use of the narrator from her "Lost Girls and Love Hotels", and I do want to hear from girls who've read both the novel and the earlier story.

Last night I watched "Hannah Takes The Stairs"--- vur' nice little indie film. Charming and funny, and the girl (Greta Gerwig) who plays Hannah is leggy and bright and radiantly sexy. It's one of those little films I enjoy--- and enjoy recommending.

I did discover that I drank an entire bottle of Gekeikkan sake last night...and finished a bottle of Skyy as well. The bottles were there on my counter this morning. Somewhere--- some novel I can't recall ---empty wine bottles are called "dead soldiers". A character talks of finding "dead soldiers" strewn around his study. Interesting choice of terms. I just have to remember where it came from.

I just wish I had a few bottles of Unicum.