It just won't stop today. I slept late, and right now I wish that stepping outside would mean stepping onto a beach. I've never wanted to live on the beach before.

What was I thinking about while I was in the shower? "I'm fickle and I brag about it..." I haven't heard that song in weeks and weeks and weeks, and now it keeps appearing in my head. After I first heard it, I listened to it all the time. I think it was the morning after Bees' birthday, so it would have been December. Several of us had spent the night, scattered among various beds and sofas, sleeping in strange combinations. Once Upon A Time In Mexico had just gotten the record and wanted us to listen to it, particularly me and Bees. He put it on in her room and turned the volume up while we sat in the living room and listened. We all sat so still and quiet and soft, rumpled hair and scratchy throats, and listened. That was a good day. And now that I think about it, it wasn't the day after Bees' birthday at all.

I spend a lot of important days with those girls. It's funny how much a part of them I feel now, how I love them and know that they love me. When we met I wanted nothing to do with them. I needed them and didn't even know, and now I think of things like the fun we'll have together when we're old.

It was ideal in so many ways. I had a perfect walk from the subway to their house that day. The air was just right. When I saw those cats in their surprising box I wished I had my camera, but it might be better that I didn't. The clicking sound might have spoiled their nap. Turn right and it's The Greenest Block In Brooklyn (2003). I've had the same songs on my mp3 player for months, but set it to random and they're new again, and the combinations they made were perfect. Approaching the footbridge (and somewhere Falton laughs) fire crackers go off in the distance and a flock of birds shoots by overhead. There's nothing better than noticing how good something is before it's over.

Why am I so restless now? Why is this year so much different? I'm having trouble listening to entire songs because there are thousands and I want to hear them all before I go. It's so easy to believe a compliment that you want to believe. It's so easy to trust someone who says the thing you want someone to say. I have too much to think aloud and too few places to think it, and it hardly ever comes out right anymore. I don't care. I have Amazing Race fever, so I know it'll be okay.