Melancholy is the Word of the Day.

Because I'm not sad, but all the same there's a deep, warm, sweet ache inside me. Something hurts, although not too much.

Nostalgia might be another Word of the Day.

Item Number One: It happened about a year ago

About a year ago. We still lived in the old neighbourhood, it was the early evening, and it had just rained hard. Despite of the rain, it was very hot in the apartment, because May-June are always hot in these latitudes. We'd been watching tv and suffocating in this humid heat, and on a commercial break Belendor stood up to light a cigarette. Because he was so hot, he went to the window to smoke it. Instead of looking through the big windows, which overlooked the building's interior, like he usually did, he went to look out the bedroom window, which had a view to the street. He looked down to the street, laughed and called me.

She was sitting on the curb, examining a sewer. She heard us talking about her, so she looked around to see who was speaking and then she looked up directly into my eyes. I said hi, she said hi. I asked her what she was doing. She answered. I laughed. Then a car parked right beside her and she retreated into the shadows, and we couldn't see her anymore. We thought she'd gone, so we returned to the tv.

Twenty minutes later, Arwen arrived and parked in front of the building. She got down, locked the car and, when she opened the door to the building, she noticed she was being followed. Arwen looked at her and also said hi. She answered. They talked for awhile, and then Arwen entered the building. She followed her. Arwen asked her what she intended by following her and received no direct answer. Upon reaching the third story and finding she was still being followed, Arwen gave up, took her in her arms and brought her home.

Once in the apartment, she came to me and sat on my legs. She was unapologizing and made us pretty clear she would stay. And she did. Since she came, I have not had a moment of peace in my life, making the bed has become a challenge, and I haven't felt alone again, nor unloved.

Thank you for coming, Momichi Cow, you chose correctly.

Item Number Two: Pearl Jam is out of the question

No money. My mature self says, 'I don't care', but there's a part of me which will always be eleven years old and will always think it's 1990. The part of me which is sitting in this chair, listening to 'Jeremy', and wailing. My mature self tries to explain to that little kid that the tickets are too expensive, that we can't afford them, that anyway that time is over and Pearl Jam is eight years past its prime, that anyway Pearl Jam wasn't even my absolute favorite band back then nor it is now, but the little kid still cries and says that we must go, that we have waited ten years for this, that they probably won't ever come back, and that, even if Pearl Jam wasn't my favorite band back then, it still is the only one I'll ever get to see: Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Temple of the Dog, all those bands are dust in the wind, Pearl Jam is the only one left. It's useless, as well, hoping for Radiohead to come; they won't ever come. Or they'll come twenty years from now, when they're old and bad and their music has turned to crap, like Metallica did, like Pearl Jam is now.

Item Number Three: Learning experience

I've got to finally hammer it into my head: Life Is Not Fair.

When I was a little younger, I used to feel an actual surge of hate every time I heard someone I knew was going to Europe. Nowadays I am more or less over it, but I still feel a twinge inside me everytime I hear someone comment about their trips to Europe: "Bueh, the bars are more fun here", or: "You know, all those museums and historical places are kind of boring. But Italians aren't as handsome as they say". You wouldn't believe how many times I've heard comments like that. Or, once I asked a friend who had just returned from Paris if he had been to Versailles. He looked at me and asked "Huh? Who was Versailles?"

I've been thinking a lot about Europe lately, due to a number of things. Red-Handed Serge is in London (learning English. My oh my, I've been studying, reading, thinking, writing, eating, courting, seducing and loving English for eons and no one ever offered to take ME to London). Ánwyin, a good friend from France, is coming over to stay at Arwen's house. I've been emailing with a very nice girl from London. Joseph, my ex, returned last week also from London. We had a long conversation last night, and I don't know if I liked it or not. He told me he'd been to St Paul's Cathedral in Liverpool, the place where John Lennon and Paul McCartney met, that he had sat on one of the benches and cried. "I wish you'd been there with me," he said. "You would have been the only one to understand." When he told me that, I felt like crying. Because I understood, and I knew he meant what he said in a good way. And I also wished I'd been there, if only to touch the ground and cry with him, despite of all that has happened between us.

Today, on my ride home, I was thinking about all he said, everything about London, about the Royal Crows, about the grays and the blues, the oldness of the streets, the Thames and the bridges, and I felt tears coming to my eyes. Stop it, I told myself, that's stupid, you know. I couldn't stop. I just cuddled in the seat and looked out the window and wept. I could feel the people in the bus looking at me, and I could hear two ladies behind me wondering why I was crying. I wondered too, but I couldn't stop.