Reading: Ian McEwan, Amsterdam

Moving: walked 2.7 miles to work

House: got most of the books on shelves, if not in order, with only four more large boxes to unpack (and no shelves left)

2 June 2000: Hmmm

I had some light-hearted damn thing in mind about the dresses I bought this weekend. That's not going to happen. Oh, but Cynthia Heimel says that buying dresses is frivolous and thus vital. Well, my next topic isn't going to be trivial (the opposite of frivolous and therefore Wrong). Dresses are important.

I wanted something fun and new to wear to the Cowboy Junkies. I wound up with three things that look exactly like everything else in my closet, which makes me happy. I bought a short, sleeveless, lavender linen dress that claims it's washable, and I wanted something for home that I can sweat in, because I wonder just how hot the house will be this summer. It's almost the exact same color as the bedroom walls. I bought a long, sleeveless, sage green linen dress with princess seams, because I wanted a new office dress. It's almost the exact same color as the rest of the upstairs will be. Also I bought a long, tank-topped, sage-with-lavender print, rayon dress, because hey, I guess these are my favorite colors.

I could have gone on and on about the double-hung rods in the closets and measuring to find out how many drawers we need and whether we should lust after the dressing chest (meant to go at the foot of the bed and to have clothes strewn on it, a good thing since neither of us is particularly tidy) to hold sweaters, but I got some email today.

Actually I got some email last week, too. My friends had been talking about the heterosexual menace in Vermont, those who are opposed to the legislation allowing homosexual unions. HEBD linked to a letter to the editor of a VT paper, and PLT commented on it. In PLT's to-list was everyone from college: SEM, HEBD, Nisou, TJZ, me, and also SEBB.

Neither Nisou nor I have heard from SEBB in going on ten years, so when the next piece of email was from SEBB to everyone in PLT's recipient list including me, I was a little surprised. Surprised that she'd include me at all, and surprised that her first communiqué would be a general contribution to a conversation that I hadn't been participating in. But then, after PLT removed himself from my life forever four years ago, his first chink in forever (only eight months, forever being as short as that in these parts) was email about Clinique and Pooh, and I wish I still had it so I could remember how he linked those two disparate subjects.

So anyway. I mean all our e-addresses are pretty obvious. TJZ uses her initials--see, I'm not the only one-- which SEBB would know; and HEBD uses a family name and SEM a Japanese one that SEBB would recognize; and she's been in contact with the three of them and with PLT, too. But not Nisou or me. She must know that Nisou's living in France, though, and Nisou's e-address ends in .fr; and my address is, of course, lisa@. It's not as if we're random strings of Compuserve digits.

This week, though, I'm thinking that SEBB hit reply-all by mistake and didn't know she'd be talking to Nisou and me. Because over the weekend, SEBB wrote to an old e-address of Nisou's sister that still had their birth name in it, re-introducing herself to my Nisou. Nisou recently told me that her attitude toward SEBB would depend on SEBB's toward me, and I was greatly touched by her love and loyalty. When SEBB then wrote to her, Nisou wondered how to respond. I told her that while I appreciated her devotion to me, friendship is precious and must be clung to. We laughed, remembering how SEBB always made us laugh. Who wouldn't want such a one in her life?

A little aside here about initials. Also at Ross along with the dresses, I bought a book for my sister about making and decorating picture frames for her next attack of craftsiness. Living with Dawn in Aspen restored my sister's love of paste and glitter. Their favorite movie to watch together was "Single White Female," and they were always contesting who should be Bridget Fonda (the good one) and who Jennifer Jason Leigh (the lunatic). Since CLH had moved into Dawn's apartment, she usually had to be the lunatic. When I watched it with them once, they noticed a scene they hadn't paid attention to before of Leigh restoring an old lamp: craftsiness. Dawn was always painting something and gluing other bits to it. Anyway, they signed all their notes to each other "CLH/SWF" or "DBF/SWF."

So. When SEBB wrote to Nisou, first to her sister and then to her, she didn't write to me. I figured what the hell, I only fucked her boyfriend repeatedly while she was miserable in another country, and even though that happened nine thousand years ago and we're all now married to completely different people, I can understand if she doesn't want to be pals with me, and I only hope she will be civil to me at the wedding.

But then she wrote to me.

Me, myself, and not about hateful homophobes but about her and about me.

There're some emails I want tangible proof of. When PLT returned, I touched the screen where Eudora showed his email address. Paper would have felt more real than pixels. When DEDBG wrote me her first email ("darkstar, are there any peanuts on your mission?"), and HEBD hers, I reverently touched my monitor. I love my friends, and we've been in better touch since email than we were directly after fleeing Storrs and first missing each other--and we were all, except our belovedly geeky PLT, late to the internet.

Now, I told RDC, the only person we need to track down and rope back into the herd is SLH, and we'll be complete.

Of course, I haven't responded to SEBB yet. Who knows, she might already read this, although in that case since she wrote to my yahoo account she's being coy as hell. PLT knows about it. But I will. I will, if for no other reason to say, "Been reading Pride and Prejudice again, eh?" because she closed, "I hope you are willing to accept...my best wishes for your health and happiness." Not quite Darcy's "Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness," but close.

So I guess I'd better go write now.