There was a film crew at the top of the hill today when I walked home--- the street blocked off, cameras and grips and production assistants scurrying about a field and one of the houses. Cuba Gooding, Jr. was at a craft services table in a small parking lot. An unexpected find. No idea what the film is about, though.

Long ago there was a girl who'd call me late at night and say that we needed to build a Fort under the covers and stay inside and read and eat fresh-made popcorn. "Come inside," she'd say in the Five Year Old Voice. "It will be Safe." I do miss that. I miss Small Unit Voices. I miss someone wanting to be with me and be Safe together.

Lissy at emigree--- Lissy at _iwenthome then ---left a note about that. Can I come hide with you? she asked. I know how to be very quiet. I miss her from those days. I miss her in her playful and kind mode.

I miss fresh-popped popcorn, too. Not microwaved--- fresh-popped. Just like I miss fresh-made biscuits with boysenberry jam. Yummy things to share in a Fort.

Last night very, very late my phone rang. A Voice I hadn't heard in...three years? Katy V., calling from the San Antonio night. Just...lonely, she said. I haven't forgotten you. She always had the most lovely, gentle voice. A corporate recruiter, now. Still hoping to move to San Francisco. I could hear glass and ice on her end of the phone: vodka and lime. A girl I have missed for a long time. She remembered things we'd said back in the Year Five and the Year Six. That meant a lot. I do want her to call again. She's lovely and dark-eyed and inventive and open to Adventures. I must tell her how much I miss the on-line journal she kept as an undergraduate. I hope she kept copies.

The Year Five, the Year Six... Another world. I miss those days. I went back through archives today and looked at entries for October of the Year Six. In those days I'd find eight, ten, twelve comments at an entry. One exchange ran on past two dozen notes. And here we are in the Year Nine. It's rare to get even two comments at a note. Mostly...nothing. I hate that. I write to tell stories, to create worlds, to talk about books and films and ideas I enjoy. And I need Voices. I write and hope it's part of an extended conversation. I hate not having that. I miss the days when lovely friends-and-correspondents read me and left notes, when we sent notes and e-mails back and forth.

I once wrote that I knew that the Holy Grail was actually a terra-cotta Sippy Cup, and that down at the bottom there was a picture of Hello Kitty and the message "All Gone!" I do miss being able to do that, to write about things like that. I miss thinking about the Bad Baatz Maru Legion launching an expedition to rescue Schroedinger's Kitty from the mysterious Box. I miss little top-hatted sea otters dancing there in the palladium futures ring at the NYMEX. I miss thinking that one day a lovely kind girl and I will adopt a small Rescue Corgi named Little Das Puppy. I miss gentleness and quiet delights.

I miss thinking that someone like Laura-Ashlee at bladeoftheknife or the Other Melissa at kraftig_bewegt finds me worth talking to. And I miss thinking that they find me worth guiding through new music and new styles of music.

Marina at prettyuniverse writes that she's buying a MacBook Pro. 13-inch rather than 15-inch, but--- still a MacBook Pro. I want to tell her to get over to the Apple Store and just...do it. Oh, I'll envy her bitterly. But she should still do it. Aluminum case--- I like that, I think. Though of course I'd want a 15-inch MacBook Pro in black. (Surely they must come in black...) The 15-inch MacBook Pro has become a kind of Grail for me--- or at least an Obsession. After all--- it's a marker for some kind of social value. A substitute for a penis and/or a Life. Let's just say that, like a Life, I'm unlikely ever to have one.

Someone did send me a nasty message the other day. I'd cross-linked to an interesting journal via (I think) Marina at prettyuniverse. Intriguing list of interests, intriguing layout. I left a message complimenting the author and asking her if we might add one another. I got back a really nasty message. Whoever it was said that she knew who I was, that she'd read me long ago, and that I was...well--- see list of Bad Things. I have no idea who she may have been. I recall her profile page saying Queensland, but I can't remember anyone there, and of course profile pages can say anything. Disheartening, nonetheless.

I asked Katy V. about that last night. After all--- I hadn't heard from her in three years. No, she said. There's no way you're those things. You're what I remembered and what I need right now. I never believe things like that. But it meant a lot to have her say them.

I have no idea where Wicked Willie's is, or why the Other Melissa at kraftig_bewegt is drinking there. A lovely sharp-cheekboned girl in a university sweatshirt knocking back pints of ale at an off-campus pub. One of those things that make up long undergraduate evenings. One of the things that get defined as Fun. I just hate it that it's been...well... longer than I can remember...since I've been at a pub drinking black-and-tans with a lovely girl and laughing and talking. And I don't do...Fun. It's just something I don't ever have. What strikes me as a give, of course, is that the Other Melissa would never take me to a pub by Juilliard or one on Morningside Heights. I'm not someone girls ever invite out. And there's no point in being out alone.

I have no idea if Katy V. will ever call again. She was fun and charming and flirty and wicked last night, but promises made late at night have a short half-life once daylight comes. I wish I could hear from the Other Melissa. I wish I could hear from Miss Ginny tonight, too. Voices out of the past, Voices out of the night. I wish they could be there, wish they could be part of something like a Life.