2003-01-08 - 5:11 p.m.

They came in last night, and brought with them the old habits, the beer drinking habit, I'd forgotten how much beer we used to drink!

And they looked lovely and were somehow the same, even though i know they're just getting better and better it just felt right being with them, like back in the same good place, like wearing the most comfy sweatshirt in the world at the back of your dad's closet that you didn't think he still had, that's how it felt -

and we watched Buffy in a huge group (although last night was the worst episode this year) and suddenly it was not as if we hadn't seen them in a year but it was as if this was how we always are, giggling and smoking together -

And I found myself to be my boldest brashest self around them, the girl who was the fag hag in Atlanta and taught to snap her fingers and say funny things, and it felt like me, the same me, but somehow different, too, more complete with the most complete audience -

And late at night, over the last cigarette of the evening, i asked them if they thought i was different. Had LA made me hard? Or slick? And they told me that i was exactly the same as Atlanta Dreamself and Canadian Dreamself - The only difference, they said, was that LA Dreamself is completely happy. They said they always knew me to be a peppy girl, but underneath they said there was always this undercurrent of melancholy. The melancholy is gone they said.

It always feels so good to hear about yourself through other's eyes - Not that it matters what other people think of you, but that you get a chance to see some truth about you maybe you can't see, and examine it for its validity or not.

And what they said struck such a chord - i never thought of myself as melancholy, but i realized suddenly i had been, for years even, there was always something under the surface waiting to cry - Like I remember being so peppy and ready to party but get me drunk enough and i'd end up crying, or being wistfully beautiful with misty eyes, never admitting my deep tragic poetic sadness (my fantasty!)

But now I really AM happy. Sure life has its ups and downs, and i feel them, but really, this last year and particularly the last 6 months have been some of the happiest of my life.

And life is only getting BETTER.