I have plans to make for the autumn. There is a chance that a lovely wicked green-eyed co-ed will surprise me with a sudden arrival. I do want that to happen--- a phone call from the aerodrome or the bus station on a weekday afternoon, or even a knock on my office door. And of course I need to go to Birmingham, to fly in and see my Lovely Co-Ed Victim waiting for me at the gate. I flew off to the Skinny Island last October. I need to do that again, to be in Manhattan on an autumn evening with a lover. I like the thought of coordinating flights. JetBlue to JFK from ATL--- and a leggy girl sitting with her carry-on and her MacBook there at the gate at ATL, rising to her feet and kissing me. I want her there in NYC with me. I want her on the train from JFK into the city with me. We will coordinate that. JetBlue, the A train, the Pod Hotel, and being Margot and Richie at the AMNH and listening to Renaissance music on a golden afternoon at The Cloisters. We'll do that--- I want her to know that.

Snow Patrol is playing. I'd forgotten how much I like them. Last fall, walking out to the train stop at JFK, so much came back to me: a sense of belonging in the city, the walk and presence I used to have. I stood on the train and felt at home again. I want to feel that with the lovely Laura next to me. I'll have Mika doing "Any Other World" or Beirut doing "Cherbourg" on the Small Psyduck iPod. And I'll be showing my green-eyed co-ed the city where I've always belonged.

I've traveled alone all over Eastern Europe and the Balkans. But I want to travel with a lover. I want to walk at night through Chelsea or sit at Sevilla in the West Village and feel part of something, to share the night and the autumn with a lover.

"Somewhere a Clock is Ticking" and "Chocolate"... I do like the songs.

Miss Laura asked me something today that Cynthia Gralla has asked me last week: why am I not seriously writing? There's no good answer to that. Cynthia tells me that her pledge is to write four pages a day. I need to do that. I have so many things I want to write--- the Virginia-McCoo-at-19 story, at least one more Marissa-and-Christian story, something with the Incestuous Siblings idea. And, yes, damn it. I do have my doctoral thesis, all four hundred-odd pages of it. It was good research. No one has done anything on the topic in the intervening years. I need to revise it, publish it. I have a doctorate. The standard is and remains something like "original research making a substantial contribution to the field". I need to prove that point--- publish my thesis.

I do want to read Miss Ginny at ginny_mccoo's doctoral thesis on Mavis Gallant and Nabokov and the idea of exile. (I would like to read her MA thesis, too) And when Anna at Sumi37 gets her doctoral thesis in maritime history done, I want to read that, too. Laura is looking at an MA in Historical Musicology, and I want to read it one day--- and to watch her write it in our hotel beds in Europe.

There's a song Miss Laura added to a playlist for me: Get Up Kids' "I'll Catch You". It's sad and romantic and lovely. I do want her to tell me the backstory--- how she found the song, what it means to her.

I want her sitting with me at dusk on that famous bench in Central Park, charcoal pashmina around her, telling me her stories...music and dreams and love.

There's a poem I was sent long ago. The Vanished girl who keeps her writing journal at anatomyoflovers wrote it and sent it to me from her old Despatches From The Aqua Underbelly site. Almost two years old, now. But one of the things she gave me that I've liked most. Dated 22 October 2007--- "Turnstile Afterglow":

It's morning,
lovely, fair, mild
and my clock reads:
seven forty-two
Shit
twelve minutes
8th Ave to
West 14th
and that's
pushing it.

Fumbling around
six-fifteen and
you always like
a morning fuck
and I fall all
pink in love with
you, you all lean,
persuasive. You:
"wing it", languid
in bed, registering

...next semester.
"Wing it?"
I don't.

So coffee's out.
Not enough Walk signs.
Three minutes,
the crowd pulses
and undulates,
the Chelsea waltz,
and I'm weaving in and out
three, two, one block---

and my Metrocard? Damn,
damn! No--- here.
Got it. Golden.
Stairs, turnstile, catch the
L, clutch the railing.
Train squeals to life,
shrill as our alarm
clock. Hit snooze, I surrender.
I'll get coffee,
be late for class.
"Wing it."

Golden.

I like the poem, liked it in that lost Year Seven. Miss anatomyoflovers knew even then what she wanted. She'd been headed for Goucher to finish her degree, but there in the summer of the Year Seven, she knew what she really needed. The Chelsea Waltz--- I love that image, love the term. Two years later, she has everything in that poem. I have to envy her. I won't let myself be bitter, but I do envy her. I really do.

One night I want Laura to tell me about the cities she dreams of, tell me how she sees herself in five years. Five years--- well: despite so many things, I'll be there if she wants me. The Chelsea Waltz? Well, the West Eighties Pavane. Or the Mariahilferstrasse Waltz.

I did send Miss Ginny at ginny_mccoo two more meme letters: G and P. I want to hear from her about those. Just as I want to hear from Miss Ginny about where she imagines herself in a year or two: Montreal, London, Toronto, Warsaw? Details Matter, and I do want to hear about how the Designated L-Girl imagines her future.

The Sounds--- "Living in America". Oh yes. It was Ms. Chang who sent me to both Metric and The Sounds. I have to thank her for both things. And I'll want to read her honours thesis and her MA thesis, too.

Arrivals and transit lounges and HopStop maps... I want all those things this fall. I can imagine Laura-Ashlee phoning me and saying that she's...alighting from the aerodrome shuttle at the boutique-y Hilton downtown. I'd tell her to walk across the street to the coffeeshop in the Arts Centre and then I'd dash the four blocks from my office and sweep her up from an outside table and spin her around. And very soon--- very soon ---we'll be sitting at Sevilla on W. 4th and watching the autumn night around us.