monday june 25 2001    |    6:06 p.m.

after getting very impatient with myself, i have laughed and laughed at things and forbidden myself to wallow. surprisingly it has been easy. if it weren't for my foot i'd probably be calling amy and roly to see about going to iguana cantina one of these nights.

there is something wrong with my toe. it looked dislocated or maybe broken, but it didn't hurt or bother me in the least, so i let it be. but then it looks like last thursday's traipsing through columbus and various airports with bad shoes on until three in the morning finally did some damage. it was swollen like crazy and truly beet-red and oh, the pain. the pain! my poor toe.

still, saturday night with denise, johnny and patrick, a little help from the buddha, and a grand tour of barnes & noble in coral gables in denise's fuzzy red slippers had some positive effects. (hello, awkward sentence.) the painful madness is now localized around the break area, and it's not nearly as painful. doctor's appointment on friday. patrick is taking bets on whether the toe will be amputated or not. he's a riot, that one.

finally met denise's imaginary friend manna on saturday. (imaginary because she's been talking about him for three years and not once until this weekend had i seen him in person.) he is striking and he is also beautiful, which is a hard combination to pull off. smart and a little insane, cocky and pretty shy, and he takes conversations seriously, not as throwaways, but weighing words, which at the same time come easily to him. did i mention he is also gorgeous? and there's something a little dark about him, and also something a little shallow. interesting. he played us harry connick, jr. in the car -- don't hate me, i loved it -- as we quizzed him about world war 2 trivia -- his favorite subject -- from a book johnny had found. interesting boy.

julie is in bulgaria and she sends updates -- everything going swimmingly -- and a george dubya postcard from d.c., where she stayed for a couple of days. i laughed 'til i cried.

these diary entries are going from bad to worse. swinging from melodrama to complete detachment. who knows.

amnesiac is fucking brilliant.

i'm giving virginia woolf another try, and so far to the lighthouse is surprising me pleasantly.

what i'm looking at right now, on the job front: writing for telenovelas (that is, really lousy latin soaps). that would be fun.

what i'm having for lunch at six in the eve: a hard-boiled egg with mustard. will soon be chased with a camel special light, 100, from a box which patrick found me miraculously at some gas station on the way to south miami. not even at the bahuda market!

what i miss: the lights of the city proper. the bustle of the pequeña habana -- yesterday must have been an exciting day for tertulias at la carreta, with the whole breaking-news story about castro nearly keeling over during a speech -- and the downtown library / miami art museum square, with the deserted cafeteria next door. i need to be out in this city. i'm beginning to think it's the only place that will ever really feel like home.