Reading Richard Dawkins' "The Greatest Show On Earth"... Every time I read about evolution I run my hand over my own skull. It's not just that I fear what could be happening to my hair, not just my fear of a bald spot or of dry, lank, corpse-skull hair. I run my hand over my skull and feel strange depressions in the bone. I know what they are, of course. There's a ridge forming. I'm devolving into Zinjanthropus. The cranium is sinking in and I'm devolving. That's all it can be. I'm melting back into Zinjanthropus.

I have "9 Songs" to watch tonight. "9 Songs" and pinot gris. I can't recall where the recommendation came from--- Miss Ginny at ginny_mccoo or Liz V. at nightmareteeth. It may have been on Laura-Ashlee at bladeoftheknife's Netflix list, too. It might even have come from Alessandra at bel_ebat. I just don't remember.

It does leave me empty and depressed that no lovely clever wicked girl is going through my Netflix or LastFM or GoodReads lists for recommendations. I always loved that about girls like Lissy at emigree or Miss Ginny at ginny_mccoo: finding book and film and song titles and recommendations. I just wish some lovely wicked girl was going through my own lists and entries--- using them as a resource. I've always wanted to be useful, to have value. Booklists, tracklists--- those were key to my value.

Saturday evening here. Grey and rainy all day, though I did go to the coffeeshop this morning with the Dawkins book and the Small Psyduck iPod for skim chai latte and a chocolate chip muffin. I did sleep much of the afternoon. Saturday evening, and I do feel trapped. Even if I did have a Russian bar to go drinking, I hate being alone when I'm out. I need conversation, and I need a lovely co-ed to flirt with. I feel trapped when I'm here at the lakeside flat; I feel like a ghost beyond the glass when I'm out alone.

05. September through 26. September--- no calls, no texts. No Voices or flirtations. I miss the days when I had late-night value to girls, when I knew that there would be calls before sleep, when I felt that the aether was a bridge to other voices and other lives.

I have no idea where the Other Melissa at kraftig_bewegt is tonight. With clients in expensive hotel suites? In a practice room at Juilliard? Sitting in a cocktail dress next to a client at a performance of "Figaro"? I have no idea where Laura-Ashlee at bladeoftheknife is... Climbing out of skinny jeans in a lover's dorm room or a hotel room in NYC or sharing a joint naked in a double sleeping bag while camping with a lover... What I know is that I'll never hear either voice again.

This afternoon I did order the hooded Yale sweatshirt. I knew I'd be doing that. Something I really had to do. After all, there was that photo of Miss Lissy at emigree in a hooded Columbia sweatshirt. I had to make some kind of effort to keep up with her, however futile the attempt. I have no idea if Miss Ginny has a hooded McGill sweatshirt.

At New Haven I never had a hooded sweatshirt. I had some kind of zippered track jacket that I'd wear on my way to and from the squash courts. The jacket had no particular semiotics then, but I'd never wear anything like it now. Far too like something sullen minor East European bureaucrats would wear, or some less-successful member of Tony Soprano's crew.

Trish at kissingverlaine writes that her M.A. advisor told her that she expected Trish's grad work would "lead somewhere"--- published reviews, articles, conference papers. That only depresses me. I never really published--- other than reviews ---because...well...for the same reason I never went to interviews after law school: fear of being told I wasn't good enough, that I'd never been good enough. Fear of being asked to justify myself, which of course I can't do. Plus...I didn't know how to publish. I had no idea how to submit anything, and since I type with one-and-a-half fingers, didn't own a computer until the Year Four, and couldn't afford to hire a typist...it was just daunting to turn my thesis into a manuscript for publication. And I was far too afraid of being not just rejected, but mocked as well. Trish, Lissy, Ginny--- I do envy them the determination to actually submit papers to conferences or journals.

I really, really, really hate weekends. I hate my job, too. I hate it that I have nothing even approaching a future. And I hate feeling trapped and isolated in this flat tonight. I'll watch "9 Songs"; I may even enjoy it. But it'll never be anywhere near as good as whatever Laura-Ashlee at bladeoftheknife or Lissy at emigree or Miss Ginny at ginny_mccoo or Trish at kissingverlaine are doing. Nothing I do, nothing I am, will ever be as good as what they do, what they are.