I have the 1963 b/w "The Haunting" to watch tonight... One of the few horror films I like. Abstract, cold, distanced, brooding.

I have "The Art of Travel" and "Joy Division: Under Review" on my Netfix queue. I want to recommend them to Miss Ginny at Ginny_McCoo, and I want to hear from her about them--- just as I want to talk to Laura-Ashlee at BladeOfTheKnife about them.

My phone says that my last incoming call was 5. September. No calls, no texts. There won't be any tonight. No lovely wicked clever girl will call from a 514 number. And a girl whose voice haunted my midsummer nights is somewhere in a dorm room in Birmingham, pulling off skinny-leg jeans and climbing into a boy's bed while Velvet Underground plays.

I'll know I'll spend the autumn agonising and Obsessing over a 15-inch MacBook Pro. "So rad", a Vanished girl now on Morningside Heights says about hers. I'll never have the money for one, any more than I'll ever have money for a car. Or for travel. The MacBook Pro remains a marker, a symbol--- a marker for why I'll never be as good as the girl on Morningside Heights or the girl in Birmingham. I'll never have their Stories, and I'll never have any of their markers for value.

I look at the room in the photo and think---

...there's not a single item there that doesn't make me feel useless. There's a New York subway map tacked up over the desk. I'm not on the Skinny Island; I'll never get to go back. I can't even get people I know in Manhattan to send me copies of subway maps (yes, they are free). I'll never be on the F Train southbound at 14th St. or coming home from partying on the uptown Nr. 1 train late at night. And there's the MacBook Pro ("so rad") on the desk. I'll never have one, or be able to use one even if I did. Question--- the MacBook Pro is on in the photo. Is that the MacBook thing, to leave it on all the time?

I have a DVD of "Across the Universe" to watch. Evan Rachel Wood... Cynthia Gralla and I agree that it's a difficult thing to forgive her for having sex with Marilyn Manson, but that one must forgive the girl from "Thirteen" a great deal indeed. "Across the Universe"... I am looking forward to it. Query to both Miss Ginny at Ginny_McCoo and Laura-Ashlee at BladeOfTheKnife: did you like it? What did you think of the film? And...what did you think of "I'm Not There"?

Long ago, in the Year Six, and even in the Year Seven--- people did leave notes for me. Miss Lissy left notes from her _IWentHome site, even the reticent Miss Ginny left notes. The gentle and lovely Nela at Steeping left a note to say that I was wrong, that more people read my entries than I think. I miss the voices that used to leave notes, though--- WinterByMorning or Clush or Phryx or Kraftig_Bewegt. I wish that BladeOfTheKnife would leave notes. I'd leave them for her, but...I'm afraid of her entries. Afraid of her Stories, of feeling inferior to her life, of feeling sexually valueless compared to her. (And what other value is there, other than being valued as a lover?) I'm afraid of Bad News in any notes she'd leave me. I can't read notes or e-mails that might be Bad News. There hasn't been Good News in anything anyone has sent me in...months.

The Other Melissa at Kraftig_Bewegt is at Juilliard...and taking a class or two at Columbia. I haven't heard her voice since...April? She did--- literally, yes ---save my life at Valentine's. A simple phone call, late late at night. She whispered the Tokyo-Barcelona Magic Formula to me, and then told me to hush while she played Chopin for me on a practice room piano at Juilliard. I miss her. I miss her voice, and her wickedness. I miss the scenarios she'd spin out with me.

I miss Tamara at Drocera, too. I hate it that she Vanished without a word.

I miss Kelsey at Clush, too. She's an ROTC cadet now. How has she changed--- how has her writing changed from the literary, dreamy, Euro-themed girl I started reading four or five years ago? How has she changed from the girl at ForeignHotels?

Whoever reads this--- whoever sees this, whoever reads it the way one might listen to late-night radio voices from somewhere far away ---I hope you'll leave notes. I need to know you're out there. I need to know that I'm not just talking to myself, not just talking inside my own head. If you read this at all--- please do leave notes. Even if I'm too afraid to read them. Just let me know that you're out there.

Whenever I sync the Small Psyduck iPod with my LastFM account, I do worry about what's being scrobbled. I want Laura-Ashlee at BladeOfTheKnife and Miss Ginny at Ginny_McCoo and even Miss Lissy at Emigree / WaterColorFire to read through my tracklists and find me valuable. I want them to think that my music is a marker for value, that I'm listening to music that they'd want to talk about with me. I need them to look at my tracklists and share recommendations, to offer up music I might like, or that would be markers for value. I need them to look at my music and think that I might have something valuable to offer.

I wish I could read Miss Lissy's "literary" journal at AnatomyOfLovers, read about Vera Taliessin and her lovers and a reporter named Walter and a season on Manhattan just as a war (2003?) was beginning. In a better world, I'd be reading her notes as she finished the novel she's been polishing--- her autobiographical novel. Or at least someone like the Other Melissa at Kraftig_Bewegt should let me know how the novel is developing. I don't know if Miss Ginny reads at AnatomyOfLovers, just as I don't know if Laura-Ashlee at BladeOfTheKnife reads there. Quaere: Miss Ginny at Ginny_McCoo has copies of half-a-dozen of my own short stories. I so need her to critique them. I really do need that. I may never get to read "Revolver, Dauphin" Nr. 6...or the Nr. 4 I paid for back in the summer of the Year Seven. But I wish I knew how Lissy's stories and novel turned out.

I have to arrange my LastFM songs, have to be careful of how I scrobble. I need to be sure that the songs I want lovely wicked clever girls to see are at the top of my LastFM lists.

I want to ask the Other Melissa at Kraftig_Bewegt about Schubert. I'm a bit afraid to, mind you. The Other Melissa is a Juilliard girl, and she can be acid enough about others' tastes in...orchestral? symphonic?...music. There's a technical definition for "classical", and the Other Melissa has been known her turn her wrath on anyone who misuses the word. Nonetheless, I do need recommendations about Schubert.

I went to my hairdresser this afternoon. I trust Kendal with my hair, trust her professional eye. She was reassuring about my hair. The thing in the mirror...the thing in the mirror has no faith that he'll ever have sex again. After all--- no one with a bald spot can (or should) have sex again. Laura-Ashlee at BladeOfTheKnife once told me not to worry if my hair went grey. But she'd have walked away in contempt if I had a bald spot. Miss Lissy at Emigree once said that if she looked down at me kneeling between her thighs and saw a bald spot, she'd just get wetter at how much more trangressive it would all be. That was in the Year Seven. She can have Manhattan lovers now--- she'd look at me with contempt, and all the more so if I had a bald spot. Kendal was reassuring--- I will give her that. But the thing in the mirror is raddled with decay: no more than a corpse with lank, dead hair. And no chance of being a lover, of ever pleasing anyone. Miss Lissy, Laura-Ashlee, the Other Melissa: I could never be a lover, and I know I never pleased any of them when were Voices on the aether. I know that they all look back on what we did and feel contempt and derision for me. Tonight there's a girl pulling off skinny jeans to lie naked in a dorm bed with a lover and smoke pot and listen to Ravi Shankar and Iron & Wine...and tell her lover how contemptible and incompetent I am. There's another girl sitting with friends at a cafe in Morningside Heights and telling them with derision and contempt about the things I used to talk with her about.

I always wonder... if Miss Lissy at Emigree had gone to Goucher, would she still be talking to me...?

I wanted all summer to travel--- Montreal, NYC, even Vienna. But there was never anyone to travel with. Last year in mid-September I knew I'd be going to the Skinny Island to meet a lover. This year--- I'll never get to leave town. I'll never get to travel again. I'll nevere travel again, even though I learned last autumn that I wasn't afraid to fly any more, that I could fly anywhere again. I have no idea how much money I have--- I refuse ever to read bank statements ---but more to the point, there's no one to travel with. And no girl will ever come visit me.

If any lovely clever wicked girl is reading this, leave a note. I need that. I just need to know that there are people out there, that I'm not trapped outside the glass or just talking inside my own head.

I'm not worth a phone call. I know that. And I'm not worth travel or effort, let alone vaut un detour.

But do leave notes.