Still no bouillabaisse. Something I may have to file away for the future.

Where does that leave me? Lentil soup at the Lebanese place? Thai lemon grass soup? Or just a club sandwich (no cheese, no tomato) at lunch tomorrow? I don't eat breakfast, and I don't eat at night. I do define my day around lunch. That at least gets me out of the office--- a reason to just wander downtown for a bit.

Rumour says that Miss DanceItsTorture at Twitter--- Lissy at emigree ---has been having serious motherboard problems with her laptop. I do remember when she got her laptop--- an HP Pavilion named Florentine ---late in the fall of the Year Seven. She was very proud of it, and when she came back from her Adulterous Spring Vacation in Stockholm, she wrote that home was where the laptop was, and that she and Florentine would never be separated again. She's been hinting to the Other Melissa at kraftig_bewegt since late spring that she planned to buy a MacBook or MacBook Pro when she went to law school. Motherboard issues now? Hmmm... Will Miss Lissy be buying herself a MacBook for the fall semester? Is that what her reveries about the Apple Lifestyle mean? Is she buying herself a MacBook? She did note that she'd "never have another PC". I always wonder how she'll be affording it, but that's something I'll never know, any more than I'll know whether she already has a MacBook or if she replaced her 30gb iPod Roland with a newer 160gb iPod Classic...or if she ever did finish and publish her latest 'zine issue--- "Revolver, Dauphin" Nr. 6. There are just things I'll never know. Of course she'll end up with the full Apple Lifestyle--- MacBook Pro, iPod, iPhone, all synced together. After all--- she can jump rope and box and row crew and run five miles a day and have lovers and trips to London and languages and a life on Morningside Heights. She's a girl who always gets what she wants and realises her dreams.

Another girl--- a girl who crushed all my faith in myself and my future and in others ---has a MacBook Pro, too. She uses it for her musicology researches, carries it everywhere. We were going to sit there on our hotel bed and plan out an October trip to the Skinny Island. Needless to say, I'll never be able to afford a MacBook. And whenever I see MacBook ads I do reflect on my own failures and how valueless and inferior I am in comparison to the girls I know who do have MacBooks and the Apple Lifestyle, whether in Manhattan or Birmingham.

I don't have a bowl of bouillabaisse, either.

I have "Genghis Blues" to watch tonight. A film I do want to recommend to Miss Ginny at ginny_mccoo (another girl who wants a MacBook Pro). She's in a Tuva phase--- throat singing, the grasslands, the language. I do want her to watch "Genghis Blues" and talk with me about it. One of the things I most want to do with Miss Ginny--- get her to engage with me about books and music and films. I need that--- being able to talk with someone late into the night over the things that do matter to me.

I did read Ralph Leighton's "Tuva or Bust: Richard Feynman's Last Journey" not long after it first came out--- read it there at Bookmonger at Auburn, drinking latte in their little cafe nook one autumn Saturday. I did write to the Feynman Society and get on their Tuva mailing list. I had a CD of Tuvan throat singing--- scared all my neighbours at my apartment there near the university. I think I still have a few Tuva postcards--- I do want to mail one to Miss Ginny. If she reads "Tuva or Bust" or sees the "Richard Feynman--- The Last Journey of a Genius" video, I do want her to tell me what she thinks.

Artemis at artemislives, Alessandra at bel_ebat, Miss Ginny at ginny_mccoo, even Lissy at emigree... I do want them to read Sybille Bedford's "A Compass Error" and talk with me about the novel. I so need to be able to talk about books and ideas with someone. And "A Compass Error" is on the list of books I'll always offer up to girls I like.

Sybille Bedford asks in "Jigsaw" whether her memories of the 1920s could be true, if people really did live like they were in an E.F. Benson novel. Well, then. I've seen the Benson "Lucia" novels but never actually read them. Maybe I'll Netflix the "Mapp and Lucia" DVDs.

It's been a full week since last anyone called me or texted me. I don't expect any girl to call me this weekend, or for any kind of foreseeable future. No Voices on the late-night aether, no flirtation or seduction, no gentle affection. A month ago someone appeared and made me think that I might have a future--- for the autumn and beyond ---and that I might have some value. That voice is gone, now. And there won't be any Voices at all at night.

Or bouillabaisse. Or a MacBook.

I wish I could hear Miss Ginny's voice tonight. I wish I could believe that there were Voices on the aether still.