What the doctor should have meant: dishery.diaryland.com

I was feeling so nostalgic yesterday driving home, for some reason, in a way that felt more analytical than sentimental. I drove past the purple house in which Vanessa and I looked at the apartment last year, and I thought about whether, despite the stuffiness and dingy walls and carpet and the small viewless kitchen and the fact that back then we thought she�d only be around for a few months before leaving for Maryland, we shouldn�t have taken in anyway. Three bedrooms, access to bus lines, walking distance of Cap Hill, cheap rent. It�s also pretty much guaranteed that Todd would have dumped me flat if I�d done that, which in retrospect it�s so easy to see is what I should have wished for all along. The purple house is within walking distance, within spitting distance even, of Steve�s � if I lived in it, would I have met him, maybe while we were both going on runs around the neighborhood: Would I have seen the superhero thighs flash past me on their bicycle, and would I have gone googly? Don�t know, don�t know. Also this: how would my life be different, now, if for x number of months I�d been bathed in the daily medicine of simple friendship, if where I laid my head each night had been a place associated with companionship and camaraderie and TV nights with Rolling Rock, easy conversation and the thermostat at a glorious 68, a place that made me happy to come back to and that was allowed to feel like my home? Don�t know. (Back to that topic later, maybe.) I was listening to the Elvis Costello "Girls! Girls! Girls!" collection as I drove, which has the single version of "I Want You" on it, and I remembered how my friend Katya and I sneaked out of a cross-country meet � a hanging offense � to go see him in concert later that night, how my father had pulled some strings to get us sixth-row center seats. We couldn�t believe how somnolent the audience was, like they were taking it all for granted, and, wanting to make it up to Elvis, we stood up and clapped after every song so that after a while he responded to our applause each time by bowing deeply in our direction, which, well, was about the most wonderful thing ever. Then � yesterday, not at the concert with Katya � it suddenly hit me like certainty that that night, when he did an unholy, terrifying version of "I Want You" in which he quoted Dionne Warwick � Every night when I go off to bed / And when I wake up / And put on my makeup / I say a little prayer for you / Because I want you � was the moment that I became marked, that it became inevitable, and, yes, I mean on account of that version of that song, that years later I would meet HNB. HNB, I bet you would be so interesting and so not dangerous to know now. HNB, how are you, you and your manic-depressive ballerina and your passel of children. HNB, ignore this speculation of mine and pretend we never knew each other. I thought about that summer with HNB, not to get all TMI on you but What He Taught Me, the day for example with the silver polish and "Tommy" and that burgundy calico sundress, me in bare feet. And then I was listening to the car stereo again, thinking that if I could listen to only one artist for the rest of my life, in a New York second I would say Elvis Costello and I would probably never regret it, and then I realized how many guys I�ve gone out with have all misunderstood me in the same way: they would never have believed that. One would have said, oh-you-kids smirking on account of the band�s name, that surely I was selling short my devotion to the Ass Ponys, and some would have corrected me, saying, No, you mean Nick Cave, you mean XTC, you mean the Pixies, you mean Patti Smith, you mean Tom Waits. One would have called me a liar and insisted that I was covering up what I really wanted to say � the Rolling Stones � because I knew he didn�t like them as much as the Beatles. But nope. It�s always and only Elvis. Nothing in-your-face, nothing that goes up to 11, nothing baroque or fetishistically produced, no lie. For a moment I wondered what it would have been like in each case, what would have been the impact, if I could have convinced them that that was all there was to it. They would have seen me differently then. Why did they not want to see me, or why � giving them one kind of the benefit of the doubt � did they paternalistically think that I was not able to see myself? Don�t know.

Mail from my sister today: "You're getting married. We're gonna start taking bets soon as to when. I know I won't be invited, but all I have to say is you better tell me before you tell mom." I think there are some cigarette butts in her tea leaves. This is almost as funny as her last theory, which was that I am using Steve for his apartment�s heat, DSL, and cable TV. As for the heat, you would have too if you were in my winter shoes, but dude�s a dialup Luddite and gets � barely � channel 13. Actually I�m thinking of going back to dialup myself. I pay the full cost of DSL and only use it, anymore, for e-mail and reading diaries, and that�s maybe two hours a week, so the equation pleaseth me not.

It is funny how, typing fast and with brain in drug sling, one leaves out little pieces that, while not necessarily germane to the narrative or even the whole, she nevertheless would have liked to include. Like the fact that on Wednesday afternoon while I was what-is-to-become-of-me-ing (couldn�t write yesterday because putting together a grant application for Dr. Carpool) I saw a cover letter and resume from someone applying for a Project Coordinator job upstairs, and the applicant had an MBA (!), and that I found out that the Level Three a few clinics over has an MA. That the doctor who prescribed me the gold-plated regular antibiotics, not my regular doc because she was booked up, looked just like Paul Lynde. That when I got on the scale at the doctor�s office, I found out I weigh over ten pounds less than I thought I did, which made me angry because I�d just been to the DMV and given them the obligatory ten-pounds-under figure to print on the front of my license and here I find out that it�s merely accurate. I weigh 18 pounds under what I did at my most Chow Yun-Fattest, about two and a half years ago, and once my knee will let me run with any regularity I�ll drop at least five of what I�ve got in no time. Which I guess is another reason to be philosophical about the eventuality of losing the license.

Also I didn�t mean to suggest, by my throwaway reference to it, that Vanessa getting laid off � I hope she doesn�t kill me for telling this, but that night, when we were talking, once she slipped and said she�d "gotten laid" instead � is a throwaway occurrence. I didn�t mean to sound blas� about it, because I�m not, and especially because she told me about something that happened as she was leaving the building; she saw a colleague and said, Have a nice life � explaining that she�d just been laid off � and the colleague just said, Oh, OK, and kept on walking, unfazed. (Vanessa, I am sorry if I am telling too much of the story that is yours.) She said how awful that was, the lack of sympathy or acknowledgment and how bad it made her feel, and instantly I felt bad about the way I�d presented the matter in my diary, seemingly-eats-a-bat-boy the same way, because I remember after AcmeWidget.com went under and people would react to me, or non-react, like that. I think it made me more depressed than the situation otherwise would have because it made me feel like my life was a vacuum, you know? That I had to shoulder it alone, to shut up and pretend that nothing had happened � people�s reactions suggested that was the appropriate course of action � and that I wasn�t freaked out and miserable and feeling terribly vulnerable. I wish I�d had Vanessa�s mother, who�s an HR exec and consoled her by saying that people don�t know what to say, that they�re afraid they�ll catch what you�ve got and also now you�re their evidence that it could happen to them, so they have to get back to their desks and start cracking. Vanessa has such the right attitude about everything that I sort of have a little crush on her and I want to touch the hem of her garment. She said that she was upset about it until she realized that if they had come to her the day before and offered her [amount = severance package] to quit, she would have done it with alacrity and pleasure, and after that she was fine.

I can�t go to the Aislers Set tonight because I can�t stand up for that long. Bummer. This time I do indeed have the laundry in the trunk, so I�ll go to the �mat directly from here, maybe make up an errand and walk down to Broadway during the wash cycle � why is there nowhere on Broadway to get falafel? � and have my laundry done before the sun goes down on Friday, what a rock star. Tomorrow I�m driving to Portland, solo because Steve has to work. I�m going to open the sunroof and take a whole stack of Elvis Costello cds. It�s springtime.

I have more to say but damn look at the time. Thanks � again � to Sugar, who seems to have a knack for knowing what I need to hear. Sugar, if you�re ever in my neighborhood, I�ll be mad if you don�t look me up.

Oh, and Jeanne informs me that I�m getting my book back. You know which one.