1. "Holistically." That is the word I wanted instead of "spiritually."
2. The Mountain Goats� "Going to Queens."
3. This.
4. There is a sticker on the front door of my local post office that reads GOD BLESS THIS STORE. That�s a federal agency � hey, no God, please! I almost want to alert city council or whoever, because as long as it�s Bushcroft standing before the congregation, we are on a slippery slope.
5. Has a more beautiful short story been written, in any language, than Larry Woiwode�s "New Year"?
6. The tights my sister sent me with the thick vertical stripes in black and two shades of blue, when I wore them yesterday, were the second-most-complimented pair ever. Who knew? I dig them because they�re the ticket to an outfit in which one can wear black and navy blue and look not like a colorblind mental patient but downright glamorous.
7. There�s not enough introspection in life in general (said the person who keeps tabs on the quantitative popular response to her hosiery). Or else people are embarrassed of their introspection and keep it hidden away from those with whom they interact except on some manner of intimate level. Why is this? I want to know what people are *thinking*, I want to hear them say it in their own words. Why are they afraid to do this? Do they think it�s not cool? In the more selfish sense, I also want to read them write it. Those of you who introspect in your diaries, I love you for this. Do it more. Do it all the time.
8. Possibly interesting and possibly possible "career" option: editing medical texts.
9. Vanessa burned me a copy of the new Yo La Tengo album, which you hipsters in the reading audience already know is called "Summer Sun." In one of those inexplicable synaptic phenomena, before I owned it and when I only knew the title, I kept getting confused on account of the Sheryl Crow song from last summer (?), "Soak Up The Sun" (yes, I am passably familiar with the oeuvre of Sheryl Crow, and here�s me beating you to the diagnosis: Not Hip Enough By Half), and every time I heard the name I thought everyone was talking about Sheryl Crow. Now, when I listen to the album, I can�t help hearing the vocals on every song as they would sound if she were singing them. This is distressing.

Speaking of sympathy, I get zero from Steve on the above, who of course as a biologist is more fatalistic about the laws of the jungle, plus � and I hate when I have to say this, because so often people use it as a self-righteous weasel out of a debate � I think that with respect to this kind of pecking-order exercise there�s an extent to which the mens and the womens are made of different stuff. (Biology, jungle, weasel, pecking order: sorry I mix metaphors.) This morning he went after me like a prosecutor and I couldn�t think what he wanted, what I�d done, until he said, "All I want you to do is admit that you�re insecure about these things." Ha! Hi, Steve, have we met? I think he is so self-confident that he doesn�t see how it�s possible to have an objective sense of the good adjectives to which one may lay claim in self-description and at the same time to need to be around people who, by engaging with them, reflect the components of our self-worth back at us, giving us evidence: I rest my case to myself. That kind of case-resting is a lovely, secure, at-home-in-the-world feeling, and I guess I�m jealous of him if he can do without it, but at the same time I refuse to apologize for not being the same way, I do not concede that I have a defect. He also says that I have no right both to complain about the shafting and to hold myself to a higher standard of behavior than the shafters. What, does he want me to put together a little weeknight-evening shaftfest of my own, organize something for the specific purpose of leaving out those who have left me out and doing what I can to ensure that word of my counter-machinations drifts back to them? Now that would be a positive expenditure of energy. And what awesome karma! That would make me Allison. Not to sound self-aggrandizing or huffy, but to me it�s a question of personal values. Catharine will understand this, because she and I talked about it so much in the waning days of the Todd Era. What�s implicit in the directive to treat others as you would like to be treated is to treat others the way that you think is right. And don�t give yourself a free pass, you sly dog you, by fudging "the way you would like to be treated" with "the way you expect to be treated." Now I want another word the same way I did last time, because with Catharine�s influence the one I�d automatically use here is "grace." As in, getting it and keeping it, and before that earning it. Being a good person. Doing the extra dishes, making up for someone else�s lousy tip. If your consideration is not returned to you � after how long? � does that mean you�re allowed to call it quits and go over to the shaft side? You don�t need to be a Christian to answer No fucking way.

Once I was at my then-boyfriend�s house, in his room with him, and his parents called. I wanted to give him privacy to talk, so I went out on the second-floor landing with a book. His roommate came out of his own bedroom and asked me why I was sitting there alone, so I told him. "You realize," said the roommate, "that [boyfriend] would not do the same thing for you?" Sure, I said. "You realize that probably nobody you ever date in your life will do the same thing for you?" he asked. Sure, I said. "You realize that I think you�re crazy and that 99.99 percent of the world would agree with me?" Sure, I said. He considered this, and then said, "OK. I�m going down to make coffee � want some?" That's my kind of freedom of religion.

So I think I�m going to slough off paranoia and absent myself for a little while from the social scene that�s giving me tsuris. I�ll study German or Sanskrit and experiment with moisturizers. Maybe I'll finally investigate that writing workshop. Not a big deal � the execution of a contingency plan I didn�t know I had, is all. I tried some things and they did not work. OK. And, looking back over the solitary or one-on-one nature of the times that have given me the rare case-resting sense *of* myself and the greatest � wait for it � holistic pleasure (Catharine, you�ll like this, I hope: one of the first things that came to mind was the day in college that you and I got to talking at the coffee shop about the etymology of "seduire" and then went across the street to the library to consult the OED), maybe I was foolish to have imagined they would. But I won�t apologize for that either.

Am I going to Port Townsend this weekend or not? The plans, they change. Oh and by the way, please don�t read into these philosophical disagreements with Steve that there�s a bust-up on the horizon, trouble in paradise, however you want to put it. I adore him for never caving to me and for the fact that his first loyalty is to the integrity of his opinions: so no and no. On the contrary, the disagreements are one big way I know I�m alive. And I adore him for that too.

(Later:) In case you didn't know, the beotch is back. Also, I got in on time this morning and today has been nothing but one excruciating moment of boredom after another. Bring on the German, bring it on now.