2002-03-02 - 12:22 a.m.

Just got back from the bathroom. Had to go poo-poo.

I'm really, really embarrassed about going poo-poo. In my fantasy world, only weightlifters, junkies, republicans, and landlords actually have to go poo-poo. Nobody I know goes poo-poo, and nor do I. Without this fantasy, social interaction for me would be like eating a hamburger whilst listening to a modern-day Upton Sinclair lecture on the topic of rHBT, cow slaughtering, growth hormones, the meat packing industry, bacteria, mad cow disease and swiss-cheese brains, and the sanitary foibles of your friendly neighborhood McDonald's.

I had some sushi with C. (from work). It was a lovely dinner. We talked about the sewer system (she's been down there, and I have always been intrigued by the magic city beneath), among other things. Pleasant walk home, and she was coming over for a couple of beers.

The Girlfriend was there, and so was the Roommate. And so was this girl, by the way, who the Girlfriend had met through Diaryland. Later on, the Roommate's friend J. showed up.

The Girlfriend and this girl were going to see Waking Life at the Coolidge, and C. (from work) decided to go with them. For some reason, I really just wanted to stay home, so I did.

The Roommate never really gets that much time to hang out with her friends, and when she gets together with the Roommate�s friend J., it's pretty obvious that they just wanna be together.

So I leave 'em alone, making a wacky-roommate appearance every now an then, just to be a doofus.

The problem is, the Roommate's friend J. is the queen of making me want to go poo-poo.

This has nothing to do with her as a person. At all. I like the Roommate's friend J. It's just that every time I see her, I somehow really feel the need to go poo-poo.

Last time she was over, I spent over an hour holed up in my room, deleting old Hotmail e-mails, waiting for her to leave.

Cause I'm so paranoid 'bout going poo-poo around other people.

Well, tonight, I decided that it was time to go poo-poo while she was still over.

Not that anyone noticed, of course. I heard some unrelated giggling, which of course I immediately assumed was over the fact that I was going poo-poo, but I think that the coast is clear now.

Thank God. Feel so much better now.

Oh, and welcome to my life, the Roommate's friend J. I've gone poo-poo in the same building as you.

In other news, H. is in Germany!

She's doing some sort of room-attendant job in a ski resort for American GI's (note to self�tease her and offend her political sensibilities at the same time by calling her a maid). I'm very happy for her, and very relieved--she was staying with her folks for a couple of months, to much anguish.

So...

I really care about H. Enough to actually e-mail her regularly. This is sort of a first--I'm a bastard when it comes to e-mailing friends that move away.

Seriously. I think about these people all the time, these far away friends, and hope that their lives are going well, but I can't think of a goddamn thing to say to them, so I don't write to them.

Asshole.

But I'm going to try to write to H.

But here's the problem--if I'm going to talk about things that happen in my life, and I also talk about things that happen in my life here, how much content is allowed to overlap? It's not like there's so much stuff going on in my life that I can portion it out, some here, some there.

I kinda wrote H. a letter about my day. Can I write an entry here and then repeat the same stuff without forgoing the intimate and personal side of sending someone a letter? And (and I really am a friggin� bastard, aren�t I?) would it be OK for me to copy a letter to her, paste it here, and then edit it a little? And if so, why not just send H. the link to this narrative and forego the correspondence altogether?

I use the how long will this take me to make? test when I decide what frozen food to buy at the supermarket. How did those Civil War dolts have the patience to so eloquently correspond with their sweethearts and/or family back home?

Red Badge of Courage, my ass.