Dear Internet,

It’s very nice that you like me so much and all, but really, it’s not necessary to leave me 127 comments in the space of nine hours telling me how much you like my website, how lovely the color scheme I’ve chosen is, how informative I am, and how much you’ve learned from visiting. Honestly. It’s very sweet of you but I got it the first time. However, I was very intrigued to discover that your personal blog is all about Poker Tournaments and Blackjack! How on earth did you know that those are my two favorite addictive games of chance? And you have all these other blogs with helpful posts about Lorazepam, Phentermine, Tramadol, and cellphone ringtones? Wow, Nettie. Can I call you Nettie? You are certainly a busy little bee. But Oh! Goodness! Look at this! I did not know that that is what you meant by “slot-machine.” I am blushing now, Nettie-you-saucy-devil-you.

I do have a question though — is your name really Euphemia Snider? Really? Because that is a tremendously great name, and it totally does not sound made-up at all. I don’t understand why you sometimes feel the need to hide behind the alias Jose Maria Livermore, instead. Or Edwd Koeffl. Internet, that is just sad.

While we’re on the subject of things that are sad, I have to admit that although I love you, there is something that casts me down a little. I hate to say it, because you are clearly trying very hard… but you seem to have a little spelling problem. It makes me frown. Here, Internet, is a brief list of the things you do not seem to know how to spell:

1) Faze, as in Euphemia Snider’s penchant for spelling “faze” “phase” did not faze me in the slightest.

2) Lose, as in You’re starting to lose me, friend. Are you sure you really want me to loose inches around my waist? That doesn’t sound very pleasant.

3) Amateur, as in Apparently, amateur porn is often made by amateur spellers.

I’m sorry to be so hard on you, Internet. Because in the end, who is a better friend than you? Who keeps me company when I can’t sleep and Ross is dead to the world? Who keeps me informed on the latest animal tricks and crazy Japanese inventions? You, Internet, that’s who. And that’s why it’s so nice to know you love me back.

Just stop telling me, ok?

Today the world felt like my friend, with its soft cool breezes kissing the hair away from my face and swirling the skirts around my legs. Stepping out of the office this afternoon I couldn’t bear to just walk right back into the train station, so I walked two stops over to Park Street on dappled paths. I passed the lake in the Public Gardens: the tiny yellow ducklings Avi and I saw over lunch two months ago are big now, bigger than my hands but still new in the world. A squirrel hopped manically over the grass. Music sounded in my ears from the white-haired man playing the blues guitar by the gates of the park. Coming into the Common there were dragonflies zooming past me (I tried to count them but they were too fast) and mommas holding happy babies in the Frog Pond, which becomes a wading pool in the summer. I saw a new painted cow and thought “That one looks like it’s wrapped in Japanese origami paper!” When I leaned over to find out its name I saw that it was in fact a Kimoono Maiden and I laughed out loud. By the T-stop, the summer smell of fried dough and hot dogs and the summer throng of subburned folk. And another cow, covered with a map of the train lines — three people standing around it leaning gently on its heavy porcelain shoulders, talking and smiling. The cow looked pleased with itself, having just managed to tell a good joke. Through the tree-lined path that takes me part of the way home from Kendall Square a strong wind blew, lifting me up and carrying me home on a current of pleasure. And when I was almost there, I had to stop for a train: spray-painted on its side, the wryly plaintive message “6/06: Camera Broken — Life on Hold.” I smiled at the words until they disappeared.

*All external links, obviously, representative only of the views of the authors.

It is too hot for humans out there today. Too hot for coffee, too hot for strolling, too hot for thinking, too hot for typing with my burny melty laptop on my knees. Walking home I felt the sun laughing at me from behind its fingers of BLINDINGLY HOT FIERY DOOM.

So, brevity (see above re: too hot for).

1) Our first anniversary = a giant yay! We were going to have dinner at Blue Ginger but they turned out not to be open on Sundays, so it was Boston’s best Japanese restaurant instead. Which, by the way, is so huge and efficient that they have greeters at various points along the seemingly infinite stairways and corridors to say hello and make sure you don’t wander into the Twilight Zone. They also have headsets, which is useful when you (I) forget to sign your (my) credit card slip — because by the time you get to the front door, someone has spotted it and they’ve spread the word all along the line so that the receptionist catches your arm as you’re about to sweep past and sweetly explains that you’ve got to actually put your name on the piece of paper, dear. Also a big yay: duck tataki. Oh sweet, sweet, duck tataki. I could spend the rest of my life with no one but you, duck tataki. You and Ross.

2) The current situation in the Middle East, according to Avi and every single other person living there = shite. I need to take a break from reading those; I feel like someone finally invented the time machine, and it’s not a good thing.

3) Peter has a new website, which I love because it is so defiantly reflective of who he actually is in mind, heart, and person. He never visits here, so I’m not saying this to make him happy — he really is one of the bravest, funniest people I know. Oh, and also a complete hottie. So if your last name happens to be Bad Wound, listen the hell up. ;-)

The 16th makes one year. More on that tomorrow, I’m sure, when I’ll try my best to be appropriately reflective. ;-)

We went out today and got each other presents — little bits and pieces, nothing crazy. Among other things, I’m wearing my new watch, which has a big red face that I love, and Ross has two incredibly soft shirts waiting for him in his dresser.

P.S. The trumpet returned this afternoon and now we both think it’s a saxophone-serenade…

(I am.)

Today was another gloriously liberating summer Friday, and I spent most of it (after a dutiful dentist’s office visit this morning) with Sean: if you had been there you would have seen us devouring dim sum in Chinatown, sipping sweet libations in Central Square, trawling the trashy/trendy sale racks at Hootenanny’s and Urban Outfitters, and occupying ourselves with various other alliterative pursuits. My travels about the city also included the opportunity to listen to a wonderfully cultured, only partly nonsensical rant delivered in a calm, teacherly voice by a crazy guy in a CVS to nobody in particular (did you know that they drive garbage trucks full of money around the White House grounds? I didn’t. But he was right about the fact that if you want to get ahead in this world, all you have to do is become a Yes Man and tell the people above you what you want to hear.), about a million cups of chrysanthemum tea, and an episode of the mildest possible lawlessness. Who could ask for more?

Well — me, I guess– so tonight we also watched Breakfast on Pluto, a film which I had a feeling I would love. Because, see? It contains a tough-talking, sweetly husky transvestite with huge blue eyes and an Irish accent, lots of bellbottoms, a little magic, a good deal of shiny lipgloss, and a tremendously sentimental soundtrack. I really don’t think I need to tell you how much I adored it.

Here is Sean’s Greek notebook: look how beautiful.

Don’t worry, Sean honey, it wasn’t just the Greek that photographed well today. I promise that at least a few of the 50 million pictures I took of you will be appropriate fodder for your Facebook/Myspace page. :-)

Edited to add:

And also:

On the Green line home today, I saw a woman dressed in a sharp black pin-striped suit with a briefcase on her lap, literally licking the last drops of a container of blueberry yoghurt off her fingers, which she was swirling swiftly around the bottom of the carton. Then she magicked an empty plastic peanut bag from out of nowhere, stuffed it into the container, dropped the whole thing in a shopping bag, and — hands flying — immediately dug out another container of blueberry yoghurt. At this point we were approaching Boylston, and I was not the only person staring at her from under my eyelids. Prying the top off the second cup, she flipped a plastic spoon she’d been holding into position between her thumb and forefinger, and began scooping the creamy purple contents into her mouth without pause: stir, spoon, swallow. Stir, spoon, swallow. Spoon, swallow. Spoon, swallow. As we neared Park Street — just one stop away — I realized she was totally going to make her way to the bottom of the cup before the doors opened. Spoon, spoon, spoon. Intent, quick as a lick, never once looking up or pausing a moment, she made it with time to spare. Voila! We pulled into the station and she flipped the lid back on the now clean container, stuck the spoon in her mouth, pulled it out clean, shoved everything back into her bag, and stood up to get off.

Mystery: How many station stops did it take you to eat the peanuts, lady?

*******

Monday evening, watching TV, I heard something soft and lilting traveling through the dusk outside the window. After a moment I realized it was a horn — or maybe a trumpet — making its way, a little hesitantly, up a lovely ascending line of notes. I’d never heard anything like it in my neighborhood before. I looked out onto the street, but I couldn’t find the source of the music and after a moment I was distracted by Sarah Michelle Gellar killing a couple of hell-hounds.

Tonight, dark and pouring rain outside, the wind blew in more trumpet notes — stronger and more confident than they’d been on Monday, making themselves heard through the crackle and patter of the storm, playing a real tune this time and cutting a bright path across the curtains of water falling from the sky. Again I looked out, and again I could see nothing. The music came and went for half an hour, and then it disappeared.

Mystery: Who made my house sing?

*******

As we were walking through the trees on one of the islands adjacent to Montreal, I saw this ponytailed woman alone on a bench.

Mystery: What kind of magnetic energy pulled those trees towards her?

…towards a choice we’re not sure exists yet. But I can tell you that Ross is a rockstar. You can come up with your own reasons for why that’s the case.

In the middle of the afternoon today a big, brief, thunderstorm broke over the city and turned the sky to night. I am waiting for the next one to come later tonight and turn it back to day. I hope it wakes me.