Ah, back into the life. Running around getting nothing done freaking out about unplanned classes and unpaid bills and unmown lawns and all the detritus of my everyday every day. But here�s the difference: I am full of great heaps of happiness. I am full up on it.

I don�t know why and or maybe or I don�t know where to begin. I feel strong and I feel tired, but good tired, like I worked for this tired. I feel safe. I feel like I love everyone.

Here is how it is with me: I have spent the last days in the presence of the person I love.

Here is how it is with him: he is tight with his current lady. They will probably get married.

Here is how it is with me: I am happy for him.

All I want in the world: to be friends with him. To be real friends again. It�s getting there. I can�t think for how happy this makes me. I can�t think.

I always forget when I�m not around him that he is the only one I ever want to notice me. The only one I ever wanted to notice me. I always forget that I will never not love him.

Here is the difference: I don�t need him to know anymore. I don�t need him to love me back anymore. I don�t actually need anything from him. Not even friendship. I love him and it�s good to know that even this is still possible. I need to know that I can still be in love with someone. He was and is the only one but I remember now how this love feels and I remember now that I�m not an alien. I can love someone. Maybe I will love someone else someday again. I remember now to have a bit of faith.

Being around sfitz makes me happy. That is the whole story. I feel safe around him. He won�t tell me or anyone else any lies. For instance, J-bird (who I love, but in an annoyed older sister kind of way) said to me: �you look thinner� and if you know me you know I don�t give a shit how I look one way or the other and I can�t stand to have people remark on the way I look. Sfitz said: �you look the same to me.� That made me happy.

Sfitz said, �what do you do now Molu? Tell me tell me tell me!� Sftiz said �why didn�t you bring a picture of your damned dog?� Sfitz said, �I�m shy too.� And I remembered sitting in the dark years ago with him and he whispered to me, �I don�t like people to notice me.� He is not a serious person. He is not an intellectual. He does not give a damn about poetry or literature or books. Golly I love him I do.

That�s all for the gushing.

J-bird, who I love but not love, gave me lots of CDs and the Murakami book I wanted and I was happy to see him too. He gets on my damned nerves, but I love him anyway. He�s such a politico. He wants us all to like him more than we like anybody else and for that reason alone I almost do. He is trying harder than anyone I know to be a good person. I feel proud of him, actually. He almost is a good person. Almost.

The Deen and Complaint? Lived up to their names and reputations. They cracked me up. They are the quintessential NYC couple. Too much money, too much anxiety. They are neurotic and high fashion. They had special shoes for every activity. Hiking. Sitting around the campfire. Walking around Boston. Sitting around sfitz�s house in Boston. They had special camping everything. They like to point at the nature and take pictures of it and had me take pictures of them in it too. Lord it was some kind of funny. J-bird and the Deen and Complaint called me their hick friend. I was fine with that. They made us drive around the camp area 10 million times to find just the right camping site, just the perfect one. J-bird pretended I was his daughter. That worked for me. J-bird said, and this was my favorite part, you are just like sftiz. He meant it as an insult. Uh-huh.

I saw the movie Secretary and I absolutely loved it. It was excellent.

I was drunk a lot. I was even stoned once.

I came home and I was anxious as can be to get home because I was gone too long from my Bash, and when I finally did get home, Frances had made all these beautiful mixed tapes and a CD for me and a neat-o card and a Polaroid of Basho at her house with his ears all flattened back and I was like, wait. Weren�t YOU the one, Frances, watching MY pup? I was bowled over by her kindness and her coolness. These tape covers are works of art. And I�m excited about the Steve Earle. And the Nick Drake.

J-bird, the hipster, is all about Steve Earle and Cat Stevens now. I�m all, what the? I don�t understand the hipster scene.

I feel like I haven�t explained the trip at all. What to explain? They all want to run for office, they all live in big cities, they all read Harper�s and drink lots of coffee in the morning and are bagel snobs and listen to NPR and know the hip foods to eat (I didn�t even know there were hip foods), they all see all the movies and they all know everything there is possibly to know about the government and they all talk really fast. I am not like any of them and yet they take me as one of their own and think nothing of it.

We missed Blythe and wished she had been there. We said things that we thought she�d say sometimes to make up for her absence. (Mostly, �let�s play a game��Blythe says that a lot).

Oh! And Adam, also my buddy from college, is staying with his folks just an hour away from me right now and so there�s that. I mean, for fun times.

And also, it�s fucking gorgeous out now. Unbelievable. I love this weather. I love this state.

Ok. So that�s how it is with me. I am hip happy and life is fun and exhausting and hopeful and interesting and I�m going to write my book, goddamnit. I am. And I�m going to find somebody to love because I don�t want to always be alone and I remember how I know what real love feels like. I�m waiting for that time again. That time will happen, right?