friday september 26 2003    |    7:09 p.m.

a small fact: my first diaryland entry dates back to may of 2000, ohio; i was 20. now it's fall in florida (for whatever that's worth) and i am 24. virtual ages have passed, and here i am still, typing inside this little white shell.

the more time passes, the less use i find in the spoken word, the more conservatively i act towards what i write. there is so much noise already.

dave eggers, he of the fantastic overwrought titles, has been keeping me on my toes, for which i am grateful. i've been going along on the ride of you shall know our velocity!, on the bus and during lunch at work, for days missing the first book and wondering what all this new fuss was about, and suddenly today being drop-kicked three-quarters of the way through the length of the new one. i love this man.

but what i love more than anything -- more than anyone? -- is lost in translation. it's not a movie, it's a recurring dream, or an hour-and-a-half case of déjà vu, or maybe that's actually how sofia coppola's life feels like occasionally or even daily. she got it, dead on the centermost point of whatever target i'm trying to find my way to. she gets it.

of course kevin shields yada yada first in a bloody decade blah blah fucking brilliant.

but the point is the whole.

i told ben to run the fuck out of his house and go see it, because i think he gets it too.

i am still missing a winter in columbus about four years ago. i was in the city with friends, my feet soaking wet from trudging in the snow, ratty punk music in danny's ratty-ass car, stopping by the drexel (my first time), somebody's parents' house, a forgettable band in a gallery-cum-warehouse with beer and panes of glass and chairs jutting out of the walls. that was one night of a good winter.

nostalgia sucks. you know you don't like where you're at if you're nostalgic, and you rub some more salt on the wounds to make things worse.

oh, i moved a few weeks ago. if you are interested in sending me some mail in the post, please e-mail me with your intentions and i will e-mail you back the pertinent information. i now live a block east of where i had been living for the past nine (!) months.

we also have a kitten. she was rescued from certain death from starvation by our ex-roommate, and we took her in. she answers to poodle and kitty and pretty much anything else we call her, preferably high-pitched, and also to the rattle of her kitty food inside its bag. we believe she has cataracts (kitty cataracts, no less), and we know for sure she's nearly blind, so she plays with things that don't exist and with the air conditioning current, and she moves her head a little oddly sometimes, and she crashes into things and wipes out a lot. she is, without a doubt, the most fearless and amazing kitty there ever was.

and that's all so far in september.