monday september 10 2001    |    9:49 a.m.

dreadful morning.

actually no. the weather is how i like it: moody enough, slightly overcast, less humid than usual. still too early for little kids and noise to flock down to the pool. the house is quiet.

but i'm not enjoying any of it. i couldn't sleep last night, so i didn't, and still haven't. my mother was supposed to take me to the bank this morning, but she overslept and was running late for work, and so now i'm sitting here with my ancient uncashed checks next to me. just sent my résumé to the headhunters: i'll take pretty much anything they can give me.

i'm probably repeating myself here but i really don't care. i miss the long, long talks with daniel, sitting in his room or last year on the apartment stoop, spinning records, sipping good kentucky bourbon, talking about our dreams like they were a done deal, a glass of whiskey and a graduation ceremony away. the topics would weave in and out with the changing records, distractions on the street, recalling of mental notes we'd been saving each other. i miss being able to call him whenever and vice-versa: hey, i was thinking maybe you could meet me in the quad for a cigarette, code for i need to talk to you right now. the cigarette breaks outside of gund while we were both writing papers; five-minute breaks that would turn into hours and then all-night bleary-eyed typing sessions. all the different stages of that friendship, the waxing and the waning, but always the same fierce, unconditional connection.

i miss that. it's not the same over email.

and i miss the boys. steve-o emailed me yesterday and i was ecstatic to hear from him, but it just made the nostalgia worse. i miss the apartment i came to and went from like it was my own, the bear hugs whenever i needed them, the wacky fun of beer pong, the silliness, the little rituals, roddy's wesley willis collection, the long talks in the stairwell over cigarettes and andy's cloves, john always the perfect host and the center of gravity, ian's sweeping entrances lighing up the room like a bomb exploding...

so many things. i miss everything. i miss my friends. to think that it's never going to be the same... i don't know. it blows my mind. four years like that really leave a dent.

i wish i had a cigarette.

i want to be in indonesia where rick is right now, climbing volcanoes to multicolored crater pools, fresh off the coast of bali, in month ten of his epic the-hell-with-everything-you-only-live-once trip. this is what i need to be doing. at some point. relatively soon.

always the qualifiers.

rick, you are my hero.

see, i don't think my rampant anglophilia is quite that misplaced.