Life is crazy silly. Now that I live alone, it's as if I don't think as much. Less to analyze, less stress. I think I'm actually calm and collected and feeling pretty good. I get home and I feel tired and I want to do so many things, like cook something great for dinner, or maybe read a million pages of about a million books, or go out to see friends and hopefully go dancing, or fix my web page or sit and write in my notebooks for an hour or watch the three movies I've been meaning to watch for the last three weeks.

I never know how I get to do whatever it is I want to do, but it is as if I'm cheating time, or rather, cheating myself of using the time wisely. But I don't harp on it; I don't focus on it. I have been paying a lot more attention to my sexuality and reading books and feeling my body thinking "hm."

I wrote that story open (linked above under "more ellie") and I still love it. I want to write more like it: discovery. Who am I, what do I like? I got a new toy and the catalog made it look so great; I got it and it's about as big as my hand--and skinnier than my finger. It's not at all what I expected and when I went to use it, I stopped (I was tired) and pulled out the ever-reliable magic wand. I like taking my time, figuring it out, and when I feel like it isn't going to happen, then I struggle. Should I just stop? Should I keep trying? Should I figure out what it is that will make it happen? There has to be a way, right??

Sometimes, I feel like, "Okay. It's very sensitive; it feels like it's ready to just break out into song--and yet it's not happening," and I wonder if that halfway-there feeling is better than being frustrated, but then I kept going so that it was almost painful but eventually, it was a fantastic orgasm.

I love my apartment. I love the coziness, the plants, my books piled on the floors, my kitchen table. I love everything about being alone and padding around and trying to figure out what my pattern is.

I've discovered that I use a lot of utensils, mostly because I eat things like olive right out of the jar and so use a fork and get it dirty. I eat a lot of chocolate. I like nuts. I like crackers. I like laying on the futon and just laying.

It's great.