I wanted tools, I got them. I have them. Like I said, let�s move on.

Oh my god the new Long Winters album is so good. And I forgot to mention last time � it got a write up all Next Big Thing-like in the most recent Entertainment Weekly, so if this means the end of Vanessa and me getting to hog the front row at Crocodile shows, it also means that they�ll probably be bringing both show and front row to your town soon. Oh my heavens I love it. Last night my package was waiting for me when I got home (and how about those speed freaks at Barsuk and their one-day order turnaround) but I was a good girl and resisted tearing it open and instead went running like I�d been wanting to all afternoon. I hadn�t gone in a long time and in addition to doing the running-thinking thing I was concentrating hard on not favoring my knee, keeping a steady pace, being careful of my footing � and then maybe forty minutes into it I was running up College Street, feeling so good because all my concentration was paying off, stretching my calves out on the steep hill, and it was warm and still light out and and I was digging Beacon Hill and someone was mowing the lawn and all of a sudden I remembered that I had the cd waiting for me at home like a reward, and realizing this, at that precise point in time, was my best moment that I�ll tell you about in the past few months. And the cd lived up to it. I can�t even tell you what a fantastic mood I�m in.

I went running in the first place because a few weeks ago Lloyd sent mail to Cheryl and me wanting to know if we would do an 8k race with him a week from Sunday, and I was so excited about the prospect of seeing Lloyd and Cheryl again that I forgot my knee�s been creaky enough to keep me pretty much out of my Adidas and I said I would. Then the following week on a few vodka tonics I got into that state of mind where I believe that all my friends must meet because don�t you know they will get along like a house on fire and I mentioned the race to Chris and he signed up too so now there was no possibility of backing out and, say, meeting up with Cheryl and Lloyd for breakfast after: this was an obligation. I�ve been telling myself that it�s only 8k, 8k is nothing, I could show up on race day still not having run in months and still keep pace with Cheryl and not disgrace myself, but with essentially a week to go I�ve been feeling less impervious and I decided to go out and make sure that my knee could hold me up for forty minutes. And hooray, it can � I ran 64 minutes last night. I�ll try to go two or three more times before the race anyway. I�ve been very remiss about stretching, too.

What my opinion is, for the record, about dudes and strip clubs, dudes and porn, is tolerant. I don�t have any problem if some Mr. Man every so often likes to go to the Lusty Lady or Blue Video, though of course this would be a different story if it were (a) a major component element of his life along the lines of what hand-wringing wifeys often write to Dear Prudence about; (b) something he brought to the boudoir with him in the form of complaints that I was not more like Jenna Jameson; (c) a habit in which he expected me to join him; (d) in a hypothetical situation, a significant drain on mutual finances. There may be more, but I think you get my general drift. Personally I don�t care what he does as long as it does not affect his interactions with me, or more to the point me as a three-dimensional human being with whom he is having a grown-up relationship. That said, I don�t particularly want to hear about it either � it�s OK if he tells me where he was last night, but it�s not cool to describe the blonde nineteen-year-old pole dancer in graphic detail up to and including speculation about her weight-training routine. And no physical contact is a given, cowboy. And don�t even start with me about how you can tell by looking at her that she has a rare spark of humanity and intelligence, clearly she will quit this slithering as soon as she gets into grad school or then again maybe she will keep a few shifts a week to pay the bills because she�s that independent and by the way isn�t it awesome that someone like her is able to reconcile academic feminism with real-world blue-collar feminism, it�s so rare and refreshing to meet a woman who is able to understand both perspectives and I did I mention her tits� I mean, "condone" is too censorious and "ratify" is too enthusiastic for the verb with which I esteem Mr. Man�s porn habit, but anyone who is briefing his girlfriend like that, though he may tell himself that he�s doing so in the interest of discretion, has to ask himself how he expect she will realistically react to his soliloquy. Dude, do you want to make your lady uncomfortable? Then shut up. It�s that easy. I like to be briefed on the situational aspect of things and that�s all. (I don�t know whether this is related to my lack of curiosity about the details of his past affairs, beyond names and dates and things. Is it over? Then there�s no reason for me to know unless he tells me there is � I am certainly not going to pry on my own. And any guy who insists on interpreting this equanimity as my not finding him interesting is, I�m sorry, *such* a jackass.) Also, it�s a fact that historically I have tended to prefer the company of men who enjoy porn and without apology admit it; to me this equals an advertisement for a healthy sexual appetite and also suggests that Mr. Man�s honesty � his desire to be honest in the let�s-get-this-on-the-table sense so that if there�s anything to defuse we can defuse it right away � will carry over into other aspects of the relationship. I like guys who like porn. There, I said it. Please don�t take this personally if your boyfriend or husband or best friend fits into this category, because I don�t know from his porn consumption and can only generalize about those for whom I do have that data point, but I�m always a little suspicious of guys who say they don�t like porn. I always think they�re fibbing, and I get obnoxious and keep asking, "You don�t like porn? You really don�t? You�re not a fan of naked chicks at all? What about hot girl-girl action? Come on, everyone likes hot girl-girl action, you can say it" � like I�m part Butthead and part Mike Wallace. I get impatient too when they try to pat themselves on the back with the Well, you know, it degrades women and I really don�t want to participate in that argument; this is where I get even less p.c. than ha ha this entire paragraph has been and say that I�ve always found that terribly patronizing. Who says the women are degraded? (I�m not addressing the issues raised by, e.g., "Not a Love Story," but I do not believe the filmmakers� perspective is the only valid one, and I would like to remind the audience that "propaganda" is a term that covers a lot of ground.) Oh, OK, I see, it�s men � like you � who say that women are degraded. Thanks for your concern, and golly gosh thanks for protecting me against big scary things that you can see and I can�t, you nice strong daddy you. I don�t accept that Mr. Man�s affinity for porn has anything to do with me, so I�m not threatened by it, and there�s a biological case to be made that this is what heterosexual male organisms are hard-wired to do, look at fertile female organisms in an evaluative manner. Big deal. I just can�t get worked up. (Though I will confess that the first time I became aware � note "became aware" as opposed to "he told me himself" � that a guy I was dating was a porn aficionado, it freaked me out. Then later I got rational and asked myself Now why am I freaked out? and then the follow-up questions and I saw that the rational answers did not support freaked-outness.) And what if a guy should ever leave me for the nineteen-year-old pole dancer? Well then that would be a guy I�d have a hard time missing.

Women, please do not flame me via e-mail or in the guestbook. These are only my opinions.

Big Pharma bought lunch. The other May resident, who is wearing a great skirt today, asked me where I got my hair cut. I gots not much to do and more as ever to say but I�m going to sign off here and spend some time this afternoon working on the lesbian murder mystery. I wonder if anyone will notice if I put headphones on.

I did something this morning that I am proud of on at least two levels.