A vur' lovely goth girl in Chicago wrote me yesterday to remind me that I am not "the sum of my fears". I was on my balcony listening to Eurotrash music from a playlist the lovely Kelsey at clush sent me and it struck me that ninjastyle is right. Whatever I am, whatever I've become, I am more than that.

Let's consider. I've written a doctoral thesis. I passed the Bar Exam. I've wandered long after midnight through the Lower East Side in its pre-Giuliani, pre-gentrification days. I've been on busses traveling through "closed zones" in eastern Turkey, through villages where the Kurds and the Turkish army had been fighting. I've walked through towns in Croatia and Bosnia still in ruins from Serb attacks. I've been scuba diving. I've been arrested in Hungary. I've been in fetish clubs in Berlin and NYC. I've ridden horseback across the Alfold. I've done those things. I've taught classes for American army officers and Turkish security police. I was never afraid of that.

So in the end, what exactly am I afraid of? Of not being twenty-four? Being told I'm not pretty? Developing a bald spot? Not being rich? Being told that girls might not fuck me? I'm not twenty-four. I'm whatever age I am. I still want to dance and hear bands. If I develop a bald spot, that's genetics and there's nothing to be done. Cut my hair short and remember that Jason Statham doesn't care about balding. I'm not rich--- but I have a flat and a car and a/c and a laptop. I can afford shochu by the case and Chinese takee-outee. I've been pretty. Club girls in NYC and Houston and Vienna have told me that. I'm not ugly. Girls much prettier than I have any right to expect have slept with me. Girls have told me that I'm reasonably good in bed--- and it really does mean something that girls half my age do call me from across the continent to do phonesex. And even if I turn up not able to be as instantly hard as I was at nineteen, the systems still work. And I have had girls who were primarily lesbians tell me that I was good--- even by lesbian standards ---at oral sex. So why am I afraid? I've been told No before, and I'm still here, and other girls after that did say Yes.

I am not the sum of my fears. I have done things. I can still do things. I just need to keep that in mind. I need to remember that I can still be of use to lovely lithe wicked girls, and that I can still travel and still be on the dance floor.