The house with what I think were paternal relatives was on a piece of swamp that sported great 1 foot wide bike paths. I was in the house, not ignored or acknowledged. Someone handed her to me. We felt a sense of calm looking into each other's eyes. I was so excited I put her in my bike's carrying basket and took her to see my mom at this house, our house. Great Englishmen with droll wit and winks were talking to her boyfriend, Scott, on the dining room dais while she swam in the pool, being entertained by friends set into the backyard wall and topiary hedges. She wasn't impressed, me holding Katya right above the water, said something about knowing when to immunize people and the right time to do things. I woke up.

There's been a crink in my neck and back the past few days. It flared up as I sat in my business chair, reduced to no butt-cushioning in its steady use. I started talking to Cpttylor and we decided to have a go at chess on AOL. The last time I regularly played chess was in Junior High, he about the same, and we'd decided to play regularly together as something to share. He's played way more games than I have, but somehow I've been forcing wins or draws in the last two bouts. I'm getting better, even if I hate the competitive feeling I get when we play.

Jen came on awhile later and we exchanged details. More unfortunates on her end, nothing much on mine. She was with a friend and later apologized for being distant; I honestly hadn't noticed until she said something. It'd be an unspoken rule of sorts. She'd scored some free booze from an abandoned child of a market cart. Zima, six-pack. Her friend Matt became drunk and, by all accounts, started tweaking one of his nipples. The vibes were strange, but mellow. Would there be more nipples rolled like Bahama joints? What were these vagrant Zima bottles corruptively suggesting to these people? Suddenly I heard my grandmother, sounding the Friday air-raid siren. It was our finest hour: to go out and eat good food, to hell with the bill.

Something inside me was thrilled to be inside the car. I love moving, seeing different locations and people mill about in the temperate summer sunlight. They were going to withdraw cash, Mom using her's to make a Circuit City deposit. The sun was setting just then, my trenchcoat shifting side to side as I looked up at the healthcare skyscrapers. Those red lights on top, so enigmatic, twinkling bright and constant. I commented but she didn't notice as we walked in and paid.

Chores finished, the three of us maintained formation and proceeded to our military objective: good food. I couldn't get over the way the topography and buildings changed as we swept into the richer part of the hills. There's some aloof mysticism in the cobblestones, the tiny sidewalk alders and preserved grand oaks, mixed together in fluorescent lights masquerading as lanterns.

The seafood place was packed like a teenage brassiere. A guy roasting to death in a tutu-sporting gorilla suit was wrapping up a party routine, gladly walking out to the waves of tourists and locals. We were seated at the main veranda as usual. The way the hanging potted plants and planter shrubs looked at me was odd. I was in real life, but I was looking at a screen. Everything was a pattern of sorts: the people, lighting, all the same thing but in different shapes and moods, textures and profiles. I think I've been spending too much time online. I mentioned how weird the plants and everything looked to me, but mom just said 'domestic' plants had a different energy than wild plants; I hadn't meant that.

The coconut curry shrimp was excellent, savored over conversations about my mom's work, a massage company, and how they didn't treat her well enough. She brings in about half the business, getting people to come in from hours away just to be placed under her hands. We sympathized and conspired.

As if by some miracle of timing at 9, just as we got in from getting donuts, Dean called. We have a touch-and-go friendship: we only touch base every few months, but when we do we go to town. For the next five straight hours we talked. At first he recommended Spongebob Squarepants and the Anna Nicole show, describing in intimate detail how incredibly weird and gratifying they were. We then moved on to music and writing. Like a snake charmer he spoke of the 80 album 'rock' group Half Japanese and a secret, one which signified his sexual being. It was intimate, sweet and I smiled as he handed it to me, folding my fingers over the truth like a stone.

And then...we came here, to this diary. Lately, for awhile now, I haven't been satisfied with this place. I brush these pretty strokes, epic, telescopic in scope, but I'm missing something; it feels empty. "You have no sense of Thursday," he kept telling me. For over an hour he drove home the point. He was right: if you opened my journal five months ago and didn't read until now, you would have missed nothing. That revelation gave me pause. I'm sick of feeling like my style is trapped in a box. I'm vain with it, I admit it. I see all these other people pour out so little and yet so many seem to adore their writing. What do I lack? Why does my style feel wanting, like I can bring more to it? I couldn't say then nor now what to do...but Dean pressed an opinion into my other hand: write about thursday, feel thursday, zoom in. Zoom in. He folded my fingers down again as we said goodnight.

This time I don't mind the idea of change so much. I might as well try it. If I can feel motivated to finally get my license and romantically care for someone, I shouldn't fear this either. I will try.

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