These have been confusing, enlightening months: both happiness and despair. Reading constantly, working, visiting with Cat and Jonathan (among others), and not much else. Since my last entry I have read the following books (this list is composed in no particular order) :
Microserfs. D. Coupland
Girl, Interrupted, S. Kaysen
The Notebok, (Eds.) M. Berry & N. Caple
The Poisonwood Bible, B. Kingsolver
Fear and Loathing in las Vegas, H.S. Thompson
Gender Trouble, J. Butler
Ada, or Ardor, V. Nabokov
Slouching Towards Bethlehem, J. Didion
You: The Owner's Manual, M. Oz & M. Roizen
Monkey Beach, E. Robinson
The Idiot, F. Dostoevsky
Traplines, E. Robinson
Collected Poems, S. Plath
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, & Seymour: An Introduction, J. D. Salinger
Franny & Zooey, J. D. Salinger
Mao II, D. Dellilo
Swann, C. Shields (which I couldn't convince Alena Illnyckyj existed)
Nine Stories, J. D. Salinger
Into Thin Air, J. Krakauer

I am currently finishing Nine Stories, and skimming through M. Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, as well as, H. D. Thoreau's Walden (Pond).

Have you ever missed anyone? I don't mean in the sense that they've gone away on some hunting expedition deep into the African Congo in search of Lions (or Kurtz). I am thinking of something else. I once discussed this topic with Jaime and then with Rob (a propos our love triangle in 1999-2000). You miss someone, like missing a frisbee, when you want to be with them, or adore them, or love them, at a time when they do not care for your existence, one way or another. Later, when you have forgotten about them, or moved on, or whatever, they are suddenly smitten with you. the problem is they're too late. Or vice versa. Thus, you have missed each other. I feel this way reading M.'s insufferable blog. Now, when I visit the thing, it is a reminder of why I don't want to be anywhere near him. But when I peruse his older entries, were we are on good terms and he is at a different place in his life (perhaps a tad less arrogant, pedantic place), I miss him a little. Sometimes I get the urge to contact him; the desire to see an old friend feels instinctual. it is then that I realize what package I will actually be receiving. Not the old which I long for, but the new, which causes me to recoil.