I do want to get a camera. I want to be able to do things like visit the little Jewish Cemetery and do b/w photos of graves. A Canon PowerShot sd1100 would be inexpensive and quick and simple, and I'd finally learn what one does with a digital camera. But something like a Nikon D40 would let me do more things... I'll have to think about it. And solicit advice from friends and correspondents. If I have any left.

Ms. Chang is listening to Devo and Missing Persons--- bands from my Lost Youth ---but also Metric and The Sounds. I know nothing at all about them. Once upon a time, I'd have asked lovely readers and correspondents to tell me about Metric and The Sounds. I don't think that works any more, though. There's no one I can ask about bands and music.

I've always loved Lists. But asking for girls' Mornings-After Kit Lists a couple of weeks ago is just something I bitterly regret. That triggered a cascade of Very Bad Things. The Mornings-After Kit Lists led to me being Dismissed by people I've cared about for years...and to girls with whom I'd hoped to construct a friendship Dismissing me with contempt and derision. And the Lists themselves made me all-too-aware of my own lack of Value.

Looking back over the answers to the Mornings-After Kit List question, I will note one clear thing. Girls sent lists of items, but not one of them wrote to say that she'd bring a toothbrush or a change of clothes on a date with me just in case. None of them indicated at all that I was worth bringing a toothbrush for--- which may have been the one thing I think I wanted or needed. Make a list of cities--- NYC, Atlanta, SE Texas, Oregon, Baltimore, Montreal, Seattle: no one thought to say that to me. Not any of the girls I have longed for and cared about. Which tells me all I need to know.

I still want to know if there's a way to send playlists--- or at least playlist catalogs ---to other iPod users. I really would like to know what, e.g., Ginny at ginny_mccoo or Kim at cataplexis or Ms. Chang or Lissy at emigree have on their varous playlists. And I'd love to be able to send them (or at least point them toward) favourite songs. I just don't know if there is a way to do anything like that via iTunes.

This morning I did go out by the pool early and sleep in the sun and listen to my iPod. I didn't see any of the bikini girls doing the Walk O' Shame home. I can only assume that they'd brought their hook-up boys or boyfriends home with them last night. Now...there was a dark-blue Infiniti coupe backing out of the driveway at Nr. 937 across the street at 0830 this morning--- a client or his driver delivering the blonde sugarbaby girl back to the blue-grey house. It's still something I might do--- cash in everything, go across the street with a box o' $100 bills and just offer it to her for the "Leaving Las Vegas" thing.

Back in the Year Two DRL wrote from Houston to complain about the Russian cardiac surgeon (ZB, she called him) she was dating:

From: [DRL] on 10/17/2002 11:44 MST

Subject: *sigh*

Thank you for allowing me to discuss this with you. I am no less disturbed, but I *am* glad to know that you share similar thoughts about this whole thing. I need to disclose things to you... I feel comfortable sharing things of this nature with you, and I think we also share very similar fantasies. I think it's odd that he doesn't enjoy sex in public -- he kept whispering "what if someone comes in??" when I tried to fuck him in the ladies' lounge of a posh restaurant. The matter of being uncircumsized-- yes, I have had european/japanese lovers before... but it was never an issue-- they always bothered with the bit of pulling foreskin back, etc... and i never bothered to learn. Zb complains I'm too tight (it's never been a complaint for anyone before!) and I wonder if that doesn't have to do with certain things not being adjusted on his anatomy??? Moreover, Zb is almost completely unresponsive to my short skirts (no panties) and knee socks, or dark, smoky eyeliner, tousled hair and knee-high boots. Now I have no idea if he is unresponsive because of his schedule (cardiovascular surgery) or because I am entirely too femme for him. The dark, stylized sex you write about, the fantasies about bruising and ice and kimono-clad women are definitely more my style. What to do????

That was the Year Two. DRL herself has Vanished, and doubtless regards me now with contempt and derision. But girls won't be out there to send me questions like that any longer. I won't get messages from girls any more at all--- or voices on the aether. Girls in the Anaheim Hills or in Baltimore or in cities out there across the continent won't be calling to tell me Stories. And of course no ever bothers with explanations of what I've done.

I can't read notes and comments, of course. As much as I want to have lovely readers and correspondents talk to me and discuss entries and the books and music and films I reference, I can't read anything that might be Bad News. The Vanished girl at the_sea_the_sea was right about me, and right about that.

Liz V. at nightmareteeth recommends that I listen to (or at least find the lyrics to) a Ben Folds Five song called "Best Imitation of Myself"...:

I feel like a quote out of context
withholding the rest
so I can be for you what you want to see
I got the gestures and sounds
got the timing down
it's uncanny, yeah
you'd think it was me
do you think I should take a class
to lose my southern accent?
did I make me up
or make the face 'til it stuck?
I do the best imitation of myself.

Good lines--- vur' good lines. I just have to ask if Liz V. is applying them to herself...or to me.

That's something to consider while I open up a new bottle of shochu and drink it away by the pool.