It feels like rain. Perhaps it’s just the change from the hot-hot of afternoon – but I’m sitting at my desk in the darkness, the breeze surrounding me, and it just feels right. It feels right to be alone on a Saturday night in front of my computer, an empty glass of iced tea next to me, thinking about books and friends and sleep. I have to be doing better if I can say these things.

Spent some time this evening thinking about my body – how sometimes I feel a part of it, sometimes I feel more than it, sometimes I feel like I’m something totally separate. There are days when my lips feel fuller, when my hips seem to swing a bit more, when every step I take feels a little like dancing, when I feel like every eye in the room is on me. I was at the grocery one evening after work and saw an undeniably beautiful woman in a green gingham sundress reaching for something on a top shelf, her short skirt lifting a bit, the muscles in her tan and fit legs rising as her body extended. This was the first time I saw a man literally do a double-take, that body’s moving but the head’s staying in the same place thing that you see in the movies and on bad sitcoms. You couldn’t keep your eyes off of her. I don’t know if she was aware of her own beauty, aware of the way she transfixed the dairy section of Logli’s on a weeknight – but it was incredible to behold. I don’t know why I’m telling that story – it just sort of occured to me. I guess tonight’s just one of those nights where despite my exhaustion the fire seems to be burning brighter in my eyes – things seem warmer, softer, more luxuriant. I feel it in the way my hair falls against my face, the way my skin pricked in the almost too cold shower this afternoon, the way I was so conscious of my mouth moving while I sung along with the radio on the way home. Tonight I feel like more – and not in a sexual way at all – just in an exulting in the ecstasies of being sort of way.

I finished Hey, Nostradamus! tonight at Chuck’s house – it was more than I thought, and less. These days my life seems full of such contradictions. It is about loss and faith – and the things we do to feel whole again. It is about believing – in God, in love, in some other person – because you can’t not, even when all signs are to the contrary. I think I’ll wait to reread it, as I’ve done with Coupland’s last few books. Shawn is reading Microserfs right now, which makes me really happy. I’m glad that book has aged with me – somehow its simplicity speaks to me so fundamentally – and in different ways with each rereading. That’s the sign of successful fiction.

I want sleep but I’m craving this solitude as well, not wanting to squander it. N’s at Chuck’s watching the game – I wanted to stay, felt bad leaving, but knew I was only going to fall asleep. So I came home. My plans for the rest of the evening? I’ve already called Sarah and Shawn – I checked my email – that leaves reading and ice cream and sleep. Good night, friends.