There's a rock in my pocket, and I am also happy to see you.

You can glory in days like today. Even if you make the mistake I did of trying to go swimming in a fifty-eight degree (Fahrenheit) pool. I felt as if I was being stabbed by a thousand icy daggers, and moving my limbs only made it worse. That whole Titanic disaster makes so much more sense to me now. For the longest time, I shook my head at all who died because I was certain they just didn't want it bad enough. "It" being survival. But, yeah, cold water is no picnic. And a picnic in cold water would also be much less a picnic, if you ask me.

I've been staying out too late. Night after night of coming home at seven a.m. is cranking up the volume on my mother's disapproval-colored concern. And I was sitting in the bath today and had the ironic thought, "I never sleep, AND YET I'm always tired." Existence is riddled with contrast. And some people don't know which conjunctions to use and when.

I went to Lou's today to pick up Mig's fancy schmancy Serge Gainsbourg boxed set. The dudes behind the counter clearly ascribed Mig's coolness to me, even when I let them know that I'm just the girl who is picking the thing up and then opening it and ripping all the tracks from it (with Mig's permission, of course). It's been a long time since I've shopped in a record store with people "cool" enough to take an interest in what I'm purchasing. I have unusual musical proclivities. If I had hung around and shopped any longer, I could very well have been asked out by one of those guys. Or at least offered a sedan chair ride around the store. I bought a way expensive Agnetha Faltskog boxed set on a whim, and that's one of those things that's so dangerously lame as to be cool. I have to be careful not to rack up too many of those points. Dangerously lame eventually tips the scales in its own favor.

I finally got to see Beulah and look at her pictures from her fabulous East Coast trip. I will put some of them up in my own photo pages, because I like them so much, and because she does not (yet) have a web site. And I am also possibly going to be visiting New York in early March for nine or ten days, in which case, I will take all the exact same pictures, only with me in them instead of her.

This is going to be the year I set something on fire and discover that, by doing so, I have released its secret magic. I can't be held responsible if a lot of unmagical burned things litter my wake in the meantime. I'm going to burn it all to the ground. I can feel it.