friday, i made it roughly through the length of the workday before i broke down, cracked up and otherwise lost it walking down massachusetts avenue. my girlz, in fine form, rallied around me, coaxed me from my orbit -- sheba in hand, face stickily-misted, mournfully crooning being alive -- to lana's house. they accomplished what cake did not. i spent the night there. the next morning we all convened again for breakfast, and then again that evening for dinner and dangerous lives of altar boys in yuppie bethesda. it's a sweet film, one whose flirtation with cliche is redeemed by the earnestness of the boys' performances and how straightforwardly their relationships are depicted. much like y tu mama, which bizarrely also featured a male-male-female triangle that ends tragic. emerging from the theater, nomi's longstanding boyfriend, yoni, commented on the trailer for the fast runner, shown at this theater before every release. in the amount of time i've spent watching that trailer, i could have seen the movie twice over. as yoni put it, "from a culture that hasn't invented electricity, comes a movie out of focus!"
tamar and i were still laughing as we staggered to the car, passing on the way my old friend ben, sitting with all the popular people i hung out with senior year when i went through my authentic teenage rebellion/fitting in phase. this morning, after dropping tamar off in rockville, and having seemingly run out of friend-type cushioning, i went shopping, only to run into ben again, on his way to philly. i have benz like i have girlz: as necessary to my life, wherever it happens to be taking place, as dairy products and diet coke.

finally i'm back home, home and alone -- and alone is alone, not alive -- and clutching a phone wherever i go. my rationale is that if i have to open a door that has somehow gotten closed while i was gone, i may as well be connected via phone lines with someone somewhere. if the feared villain leaps out and garrotes me, the person i'm talking to will get to hear whatever brilliant and beautiful sentiment floats from my near-blue lips in that last moment of stress and assure my posthumous fame. or could call 911 -- i mean, whatever.