� Vanessa, in e-mail today

I am multitasking. That is to say, I am typing on my laptop at the Laundromat. A while back I told Steve about my bad experiences at the local coin-ops, the panty-petters and all, and he referred me to this here joint on 12th Ave., which charges almost twice as much to wash each load but I don�t care because it is a veritable paradise: an attendant, free coffee, bathrooms, vending machines, clean walls and ditto floor with carpet on it, folding tables, overhead lights that don�t flicker and buzz, and not an Out Of Order sign in sight. It is almost too good to be true � Shangri-Laundromat is more like it. So I am going to write while I am here and then go home and post, because I have a lot to do tonight on one of my increasingly rare nights away from the dacha and, by golly, I am going to do it.

So here is an interesting little dilemma that I lit upon today in correspondence with Vanessa. The only bad part about having Todd see me out with Steve on Friday night at Linda�s is that he is bound to see my so-soon squiring-about as confirmation of his tiresome paranoia that I secretly thought he was a loser and was after other dudes all along, post hoc ergo propter hoc, and despite my recent acquaintance with Epictetus, it does chap my ass that he�ll get to go around thinking, and saying, that he was always right about me. I don�t want him to have that satisfaction. On the other hand, what better, what more stick-it-to-him (sorry, Epictetus) variety of satisfaction can I impart than to happen to be seen with someone who even if you only see him through a window is undeniably attractive, and, OK, hot, than not ostentatiously to show but merely to embody the fact of having traded up? And I�m not all hung up on this, it�s just a point to ponder. I certainly don�t want to be a gloating bitch about it. Anyway, do I know how to call �em or do I know how to call �em, because after one drink at the Gastro birthday � for a woman who�s one year younger than me and whose oldest daughter just got her period, and, yeah, that�s kind of weird � I drove to Capitol Hill and parked in the SCCC garage and as if by an evil spell my eyes were drawn a few rows away to a certain blue car I sometimes used to ride in. Todd�s, bien sur. Oh shit, I thought, because even though I�d talked about, ha ha, don�t you just bet he�s going to be there, I hadn�t taken the possibility seriously, apparently, I hadn�t allowed myself to imagine the visceral fact. So I checked myself in the driver�s side mirror and it was as good as it was going to get and I walked across the street and down the hill. The bouncer took my ID and I chatted with him a little bit, using the interval to calm down calm down calm down before I had to scan the room for the party I was looking for and the party I wasn�t, but as soon as I turned around, there was the latter one, Todd and Lori and crew just like I called it, in one of the booths. Todd was facing the door and I froze for a moment, not out of fear but because this scene was new and hostile to me, and he�d clearly been watching me, he made eye contact and gave me a sheepish half-smile half-wave. Halfsharkalligator half man. Which for some reason absolutely broke and shattered the spell, and if the trepidation still lingered, the major key was deep annoyance. Don�t even try to do that, I thought, don�t *even*, and with my expression I shook off the eye contact firmly and went upstairs to where Steve and his friends were, and if there was a tense minute where I didn�t see them because his back was to me and I called and left a message on his answering machine that I was thinking about going back to my car to wait for him to call me on my cell phone and tell me where he was, I am 100% sure I didn�t show it. (The pay phone is out of sight range of the booth in question.) So there. The seat Steve had saved for me, over by the window, had its back to the other room, and honestly? after a beer�s worth of minutes I forgot what my back was to. And that�s the truth.

And do I know how to call �em or do I utterly not know how to call �em, because Steve�s friends were very nice to me and didn�t talk about the ex at all and seemed interested in what I had to say, spoke of a potential future dinner party, etc. Argh. I am a moron, an idiot savant of self-abnegation. I must figure out how to do penance. But the really amazing thing that happened is that while we were all sitting there talking, Rich came up to me and said hello. Rich! He said that he was sorry about how things had gone down and that he was taking everything with a grain of salt so as not to take sides, and that he�d like to keep in touch with me. I couldn�t believe that I could be so happy, so many good things happening to me at the same time and in the same place. I won�t go on and on. It was a terrific little moment, and let�s just leave it at that. While he was there and we were chatting, I did introduce Rich to Steve, and I hope this did not come off as obnoxious or showoffy, but I had my hand on Steve�s thigh, and I didn�t see any good reason to move it. Rich and I said goodbye and he went back to his table, and some time later as they had just left the bar on the way up to Chop Suey � wait a minute, would Todd walk all the way from Linda�s to Chop Suey? Or wherever they were going, I guess � in the act of passing the window that our grouping faced, Rich and Todd and Lori engaged in an activity for which the technical term was Totally Checking Steve Out. He noticed this and waved to Rich with bonhomie, and Rich, after a beat, waved back. That was all there was to it. I don�t think that I will be trepidatious anymore.

Observation No. 1: when I try to talk about why the circumstances of the long slow bust-up did such a number on me, I am mostly talking about the broad category of the liar accusations, I can�t make it make sense to other people, not any kind of sense: why did I put up with it that long, why did it tear me up so bad when I knew it was crap (Epictetus, if only I�d met you earlier), how I managed all of a sudden � and I�m not referring to Steve here � to get over it, how I am so sure I�m over it, how everything, but everything, is different now. So maybe I shouldn�t, because it doesn�t matter. All of these things are secondary to the fact of having overcome it, jumped it like a hurdle, and if I stumbled when my foot hit the ground, I recovered and am back at the head of the pack. The thing is, I want to figure things out, I want to, all right, roll the universe into a ball, and it�s hard for me to keep away from something that�s in a state of non-sense-making. I always feel like the shortcoming is in me and that if I prod and analyze for long enough, I�ll get or absorb what I need to know. But that frame of mind presupposes a theory of the universe which is contrary to my belief system and to everything experience and observation have taught me. In some respects I am not so much a scientist after all.

Observation No. 2: I may be a jack scientist, but I am not a mystic either. Not in the slightest. I leave that to others.

Speaking of Wes Anderson, as we were a few entries ago (when we were speaking of Rich), here he is on Wes Anderson: "Watch this space. What does that mean? That he might be something one day." And here on Anderson comma P.T., the previous entry so I read it too while I was looking up the previous one, "he knows� the necessary affront of a surreal accident like the frogs in �Magnolia.�" The necessary affront of a surreal accident. Isn�t that great? Also: "I like nearly everything about Anderson except the stances he seems bound to take up as self-defense, and the willful arbitrariness of his work."

A big part of the reason why Friday looms so large in this entry is that for the remainder of the weekend after Friday night I pretty much blew my nose, napped, drank tea, read magazines, and watched movies. "The Piano Teacher" is just as harrowing as you�ve heard, and am I sick that I think Isabelle Huppert in that salmon silk blouse and cherry-red cardigan sweater, when she is sitting on the edge of her bed waiting to find out whether the college kid is willing to beat the shit out of her, is the loveliest creature on earth? And, following the same theme, since my main comment about "My Wife Is An Actress" would concern Charlotte Gainsbourg�s legs, am I maybe gay as well? (No.) Also "Seven Days in May," Frankenheimer taking dispassionate, clinical advantage of how Ava Gardner had begun to lose her looks. That one is almost as fresh as the day it was made, and particularly in the context of today�s news about Patriot Act Two, is worth investigation.

Later, at home. I don�t like this entry both because it isn�t well written and also because I told the Friday story more as the continuation of a narrative than because it was what I wanted to think about and enter into my own personal record. Must work on trying to resolve those conflicting impulses, remembering which one is more organic. The Laundromat sure does get clothes clean. I left my canvas sack there and will have to call after it tomorrow. Thursday the anti-Valentine event at the Re-Bar and Friday Long Winters at Graceland. Wednesday a party at the Capitol Club that I may or may not go to because, damn, the extra-domestic laundry experience really does eat up the better part of an evening, and as much as it pains me, I have so so much to do here. Saturday morning first thing I leave for a ski weekend that will involve my maiden attempt at telemarking. This is different from telemarketing, I�m told.

I will try to write something more intelligent tomorrow.

Best compliment ever: "I like the way you throw the English language around, like it was a 90-pound weakling." Oh, you know who.