Listening to Scarlatti tonight. Music that reminds me of long afternoons on York Street in New Haven, looking out to the courtyard from my window. Or from the little window seat in Caterina's room.

There's a free PostSecret event at a university on Morningside Heights tonight. I'm taking it as a given that Lissy at emigree will be there. I do envy her. Very much so.

Caitlin at kissmecaitlin wrote me once to say that she found in my writing the oddest mix of "whimsy and bravado". I don't know what to make of that at all. It's a statement with an edge. Caterina used to be good at that--- saying things that almost-but-not-quite had a sting.

Thinking about Caitlin at kissmecaitlin, thinking about "Blood Meridian". Damn it, damn it, my Randall knives aren't in my closet. That means they're up in my storage cube in my old suburb. I need to go get them. Kind of a depressing drive--- going back to part of my life I'd wanted to cut away altogether. But I do want the knives. Not that I can explain why. Blame Cormac McCarthy if you want. I do wonder if Caitlin knows about Randall-Made Knives, and if she's ever wanted her own Model 1. And I will ask her what kind of belt knife she'd carry on a trek across Nuristan or the edge of Xinjiang.

Last night I added a collection of Scarlatti harpsichord sonatas at iTunes. I suppose the reason is easy enough to guess: Miss Lissy at emigree and the Other Melissa discussing Scarlatti and why the harpsichord is the "official instrument of sex". Harpsichord music there in bed on W. 112th St... CD, on her new MacBook Pro, or an iPod worn during sex? That is a question I'd have asked her once upon a time...

The Other Melissa at kraftig_bewegt has posted some of her modelling shots--- elegant, sepia-toned, alluring, austere. She does have those stark, starved cheekbones and dark eyes... I just so need her to make me a mix CD of Baroque music. I know that Laura-Ashlee at bladeoftheknife will never send me the Schubert and Debussy mp3s she promised me, and that Lissy at emigree will never send me the mix CDs of electronica and indie bands she promised. But I keep hoping that the Other Melissa will make a mix CD for me. I trust her tastes in Baroque music...and in anything orchestral or historical-music as well. The Other Melissa at kraftig_bewegt has meant a lot to me the last year or two--- unexpectedly kind and supportive. I miss her voice. And I do hope for a Baroque mix CD...

The wickedly fun Jill at pacificlolita has a birthday coming up in a few days. She will get a birthday card...and my best wishes. She's my favourite NZ girl, after all.

Anyone there on the Skinny Island or in metro NYC... I am still hoping for hard copies of NYC subway maps--- the free folding maps they give away at info kiosks in the big subway stations. Something to unfold and tack up there on the wall over my desk, next to the "Lost in Translation" poster and the map of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1914. I really, really need subway maps--- can anyone offer up any help? (I wouldn't mind a Montreal metro map, either...)

I should have "Assasination of a High School President" to watch tomorrow night. Mischa Barton--- a major crush for me. Another long-legged, much younger train-wreck girl... Always my niche.

Miss Lissy at emigree went off last week with her friend Sophie at flawoftheiris to see her first opera. I do wonder what it was. Caterina and I lost our opera virginity together--- Mussorgsky's "Khovanshchina". I must've chosen it--- I always did like the music. We saw that together, and we saw "Tosca", and we saw "Boris Godunov". Yes--- I do have a taste for Russian music. Miss Lissy's friend Sophie is from Vienna, studying opera in Berlin. I remember Sophie's old journal from her schoolgirl days. A bright and lovely girl. And she and Miss Lissy did wonderful exchanges of stories together, built up wonderful images of how they'd be film noir heroines together, breaking hearts and doing amazing road trips. I so wish Laura-Ashlee at bladeoftheknife could've taken me to opera in Milan or Vienna...or even to chamber performances in NYC.

Miss Ginny at ginny_mccoo came from a family that insisted she be musical. She grew up playing piano. I do wish I could hear her play. Piano, French windows, early-autumn night, Miss Ginny in just a boy's buttondown shirt, cigarette and wineglass... But what would she play? That's one of those questions I need to ask her. She is my Montreal Obsession, after all: one must ask these questions of girls over whom one obsesses. What would she play for me on an October night? That is a key question... And, too: what music would she take me to hear at performances in NYC or Montreal at London? Chamber groups, symphonies--- what would she want me to hear with her?

No girl is likely ever to take me to hear chamber music again, let alone opera. No girl is likely to play piano or viole de gambe or flute for me on a long, dream-touched night. I'm not worth that. I'm not someone worth traveling with or drinking single-malt with across a quayside table. I've seen that bench in Central Park for the last time. I'm listening to Scarlatti and Marin Marais and realising that, yes, I love the music, but that I chose the composers and tracks because I wanted to at least be a ghost around the two Melissas... Because I'm not likely to have a life as good as either Melissa will have.

Schubert's "Fantasie in F Minor"... Laura-Ashlee recommended it. I wish I could hear it with her.

I do wish Miss Ginny would don a keffiyeh and a classic trenchcoat and slide gloved fingers through my own and take me to a small theatre at McGill where we'd hear Scarlatti or Rameau played... I will dream of that.