I thought I would open up the old journal and uncap the old fountain-blue Pilot and have a go at recording my very secret thoughts again. Of course all of this talk of pens, paper, secrets, thoughts is all a lot of poppycock: the internet bastards have set me up with something they call a blog, which I think sounds like a Nintendo character or possibly some barf. Nevertheless, being a fictional young woman (ssshhh, I didn't let that slip, did I? Truly, I exist, and I can say it as much as you or yours can), I can pretend that these words exist somewhere in the rich thickness of the physical world, rubbed deeply into the fibers of some rare egyptian paper. At any rate, I haven't written since December; what have I done since then?

Well, to begin with, my anthropological project is really beginning to get off the ground: I uncovered one or two really exceptional new women with whom Paul is most assuredly in love, and I'm hoping to get an interview with a couple more of them soon. Sadly, it's harder to get a couple of minutes with Drew Barrymore -- or even the woman who plays Aphrodite on Xena -- than it is to get three hours and four vodka tonics out of some pathetic foreign exchange student in Paris. Who knew? Still, all those charm lessons they gave me in finishing school when I was nine should come to something, right? Certainly, being able to walk six miles with a fucking dictionary on my head has been really useful indeed.

Otherwise I've been decorating my apartment -- mostly boxes of geraniums, ceramic polar bears from the Red Rose tea cartons -- swimming in the local gymnasium (I have a tangerine-colored bathing suit for summer in which I look quite white and interesting), practicing my glottal stops, and experimenting with a number of sea-kelpy fast-hold texturizing gels, which I think might still be fashionable. I've also had six or seven dates with three or four real characters: one was my cousin's boyfriend's uncle, who sells tackle in Sarasota (near the Ringling Museum, where he took me after we knocked back six whiskeys. It was a thirteen-hour drive & we stayed at one motel and three greasy spoons along the way. Our relationship went technically unconsummated but we watched an absolutely stunning episode of Diff'rent Strokes whilst smoking marlboro ultralights 100s in bed together and eating turkish delight which I discovered in the bottom of my purse, much like a moment from The Magician's Nephew). Another was a bag-boy at the organic grocery store, and the others -- this is getting tiresome.

What do you think I should do with myself when my grant money runs out, dear readers? Please write & tell.