it was warm enough last night to stand outside comfortably in the empty streets around my house at two in the morning. my window was the only one in the neighbourhood with a light on, as i imagine it often is. when i was going to bed an hour or so later, it was probably the only room in the region where "san diego zoo" by the 6ths could be heard playing over and over again at that or any hour.

i was out there walking up and down the closest streets and hills of my childhood while talking with lizzie on the phone about my future-- hers too, living together is going to entwine them somewhat. i could talk about the street and the significance of walking up and down it and standing on the rocks near the flagpole and feeling like christine on a significantly warmer june night coming up on a year ago. wondering about the houses around and their lives, then today's suburban bitching and helicopters in the sky searching for a body in the river, fifty minutes or so of conversation between patty, myself, and the guy from next door, reminiscent again of last summer. he said his security lights were going off in the early morning and i would have been walking by then but not at the hour he said and not on the right side of his house. the figure i must have been out there, trying to give advice on things i can't comprehend and dispensing motivational platitudes. i looked up at my own window and expected to see myself there-- i've spent so much time in there, i must have left something behind.

conversations like that are revelatory in nature, though. you find yourself saying things you wouldn't normally say and talking about other people you've revealed things to; sentences go awry and ideas get bogged down by unnecessary words...clocks speed up, or seem to.

and we're making big decisions.

i finished beautiful losers for the second time today and it makes me sad that i'm not living in quebec in the 1960's. again. it's been spring lately, even though there are still patches of snow on the ground. almost seventy tomorrow, then it fades away again with the rain. i'm supposed to meet up with kayleigh-- chase away the sedentary ghosts of school vacations that lounge about in second story windows.