A Santa Monica girl who's a friend of Liz V. at nightmareteeth wrote today to tell me to cheer up, not to be so depressed. She's a lovely blonde musician/dj girl, and I appreciate the thought. But it is hard not to be depressed. I discovered that there's been one more Dismissal. KdG at k_navit has Dismissed me. Again, I have no idea why. It hurts to have someone like Rachel at sirena73, whom I'd hoped would become a close friend, Dismiss me. But KdG has known me for twenty years. We've been friends since before the Wall fell in Berlin. She's someone I've admired and had in my life since ever before I was Herr Doktor de Guzman. KdG is getting her own PhD now--- she's a girl of first-rate intellect, and a girl who's been a voice on the aether for me since ever the elder Bush was president. And now I've been Dismissed without explanation; I can't even leave comments at her journal. I have no idea why--- after all, she's been through major depressions with me (mine and hers both) before. But there's one less voice out there for me.

It'll be an odd weekend. I'm having the paint renewed on my Small Black Saturn, and the shop will have the car over the weekend. So I'm pretty much...grounded. I can walk to the corner grocery and to my office and to the little downtown branch library, but I can't get out to the university, the coffeeshop by the university gates, or to the Zeppelin Pilots' club. I'll stay by the pool and read, or spend time on line. But it's odd to just be...here...without a car, even if only for a few days.

I told Ginny at ginny_mccoo that I want to read East European lit again. It's always easiest to start with the Poles--- more translations. But I want to do at least a few Hungarians...and some Estonians. The problem is always translations: who's any good? What am I not getting when I read translations? And I do miss being immersed in Eastern Europe. Kelsey at clush was always a major fan of modern Polish writers--- she pointed me to Hania Poswiatowska, for which I do have to thank her. I know I have a copy of Sandor Marai's "Embers" here somewhere; I do need to read it.

Kelsey at clush has promised to discuss the whole set of assumptions behind my 7 + 2 entry (or 8 + 2, now) with me. That's something I do want to hear from her. I wish I could hear from Lissy at emigree and even Ms. Flox at besideserato and Kim at cataplexis about the issues there. And I'd think that Stella at stelladellasera would have something pertinent to say, too. I just don't have any correspondents and readers out there any more.

I'm listening right now to Eluvium's "Talk Amongst the Trees"--- lovely ambient music that Lissy at emigree first pointed me to. I miss her very deeply. Lissy's voice and thoughts and laugh and advice have meant a lot to me since the middle of the Year Six...

I have two DVDs to watch this weekned--- "Hannah Takes the Stairs" and "Miss Austen Regrets"... I'll be watching "1900" again next week (a nod here to Ginny at ginny_mccoo) and a small noir piece with Heather Graham called "Broken". I do want to see "1900" again after so many years...

I ordered new copies of "Steps" and "Cockpit" by Jerzy Kosinski today. They are old favourites--- books I do want to recommend... They're things I want to hear back from Kelsey and Lissy and Libet and Ginny at ginny_mccoo about. Kosinski is forgotten now--- he killed himself in the early Nineties, and his reputation had been destroyed by a trumped-up plagiarism scandal a decade earlier. But when I was an undergraduate, "Steps" and "Cockpit" and "Blind Date" and "The Painted Bird" meant a lot to me. Kosinski's voice--- cold, crisp, affectless, knowing, able to describe terrifying things ---was a voice I wanted to have. I had a little paperback of "Steps" I'd bought used for a dollar--- a book I had with me for years, from age sixteen or so on. Kosinski wrote in vignettes, but that's a style I like.

I am thinking of buying a digital camera--- perhaps a Canon PowerShot sd1000. That's a recommendation via Alessandra at bel_ebat. I'd like to get back into doing photography--- I used to love doing b/w architectural shots, and I loved putting a yellow filter on my Canon 35mm SLR and using infrared colour film. I know that Kelsey and Lissy both like doing photography--- I wish I could sit down with both of them and talk photography.

I'd like to hear from Kim at cataplexis as well as Kelsey and Lissy about a book by Zia Jaffrey called "The Invisibles". It's about the hijras of India--- ritual eunuchs, ritual "third-sex" performers, a closed and ancient world. Lovely writing. I worked as a researcher for one of my law school professors on a project about law codes among the hijra, about how they administered justice amongst their clans, and I do love the book.

Liz V.'s friend skylinehaze tells me not to be depressed. So does the vur' lovely Tiffany at vanity_overkill. But I do miss Lissy...and I miss knowing that KdG at k_navit is there in my life. If KdG can dismiss me after twenty years, then how can I not feel a major sense of loss...?