and June, and this past week: I had my birthday, was awarded a large bouquet of lilies by Stephen (he can take me to the prom, by the way, although--also by the way-- being able to take someone to the prom doesn't mean being able to love or marry them and vicey-versa) and had fifteen friends at my apartment eating Caprese salads and linguine and ice cream with fruit on it, and drinking too much tequila, and playing cards, and guitar, and the fool (that's a zeugma, ain't it?). Generally I don't approve of playing guitar at birthday parties but it was all right because it was late & we were drunk. Oisin, the baby, was there, which may not have been a good idea, but he slept through most of it, and looked like a fat little angel. And don't worry, the IR slept over & did not drive or walk home with her baby strapped to her wrong or something.

Then this weekend I went to a bunch of other parties--cranberry juice and vodka and soda and lime at some bar, and then talking about Troy, the movie, with maybe twelve separate people at my friend Katharine's house (everyone had an opinion; I, drunk, lay across the couch and talked warmly and nonsensically about how excluded ladies feel when all the men are homosexual, but I meant it about warrish hypermasculinized societies like ancient Greece where there's nothing else for the ladies to do but weave and have nothing said about themselves, not about the modern era. If ever, ever, ever, ever, ever you hear me say something along the lines of, "All the good ones are gay or taken," know at once that I'm making some very subtle joke, because for some reason I think that statement is offensive to everybody in the whole world, and it makes me sad when people say it. I'm not really sure why it upsets me but it does! and I figured out why once, over some bean soup, with my friend, but I don't remember now. But it may be related to what I was talking about w/ a friend-of-a-friend at party #3: how, Alanis Morrisette, is that the man of your dreams if he already has a beautiful wife?) Then I fell into bed, and then the next day I had an incredible hangover, and then I went to two barbecues and watched a horserace in a hat w/ netting on it and then went to another party and all the while the heels of my pink Prada shoes kept getting wedged into things. Tight spaces. At the final party I talked about sex in an inappropriate manner with some girls I went to college with, and at one point I was saying something inappropriate and the music stopped and it was embarrassing. "How can you be embarrassed, Nonnie?" inquire my readers. "You are a world-famous Ann-Landers-type celebrity sex columnist/phone-sex operator!" But you see, sometimes you are still embarrassed! In certain contexts!

o, comfort me. just kidding; I am very comfortable indeed.