Sometimes the people upstairs sound like bowling balls rolling across the floor. Other times they sound like stiltwalkers with clumsy, lurching thuds. As they move across the room their steps get quiter and quieter. I can't help picturing them doing that that thing where you stand behind something and walk in place while crouching lower and lower, making your steps lighter and lighter as you pretend to descend a staircase. I like hearing them.

Last night I was shivery with a combination of confusion and cold. I can't bring myself to close windows that have been open since spring. I'm thinking of keeping them open all winter and just wearing more and more sweaters. I'm also thinking of never saying anything ever again, but I probably think that about five times a year and it never takes. I have a lot I'm thinking that I sort of want to write abut, but this diary is pretty well doomed anyway and I don't want to push it.

Last night while I was shivery K. called, because he has good timing and I had completely stopped thinking about him. Afterwards I was a little miserable, but I gave myself time to get over it. Most of the time my least favorite feeling is the one that comes with caring about someone who doesn't care back and suspecting that they know it. Lately it's coming from more than one direction. That color quiz knows everything.

Everything feels so sure right now. The weather over the weekend was perfectly decisive. It was like a switch changing everything from fall to FALL, and there's no doubt about any of it. I wasted the last bits of summer not wanting to see or talk to anyone, and while it's made me lonely it's also made me oddly peaceful. I'm having a hard time understanding people, I'm feeling too sensitive to take chances. Sam asked me to meet him today and I said that I would, but I'm afraid I'd be sort of pleased if he had to cancel. He won't though, and maybe he's a good person to ease back into things with. If I can't trust Sam, then who?

I miss my secret security banket.

Otherwise, I've sort of turned my kitchen into an attic, which is not as nice as it might sound. That will keep me busy for the next hour or so. Also, I spent a while yesterday listening to radio stations from other cities and it was a surprising relief to hear the wrong weather, to hear the wrong time. I guess at the moment it seems like it would be nicer to be somewhere else. Maybe next Sunday it will be radio stations from other countries, and the Sunday after it will be radio stations from the moon. Hopefully by then I'll start missing it here, and be happy to remember that I never actually left.