2002-11-12 - 11:44 p.m.

Dear Lost,

The fact that you're torn means only that you haven't decided. You may be waiting for love to decide, but love will not decide. Love will only stand and wait, casting an occasional sidelong glance at the pool boy.

Freedom is your gulag. The guards have their instructions. Anyone caught trying to escape will be summarily married at dawn.

Watch the writer get out of this one. He set up an epigrammatic style. Now he cannot get back to the conversational.

Freedom is the writer's gulag. The guards have their instructions. Anyone trying to revert to the conversational will be reported.

The writer can't really help you. He doesn't have enough to go on. If he only knew what you wanted.

See that? We're coming about. Soon we'll be out of these waters altogether.

There isn't much to go on here. Hence the epigrams. Treading water, vamping, waiting for ideas.

What if someone just told you what to do? Would it help to use the imperative voice? Pick one, any one, they're all the same anyway!

That Jefferson Airplane song "Triad": "I don't really see/ Why can't we go on as three?" Various and sundry reasons, of course.

Chief among the reasons is the boys. They might not go along. But if they only would, what the heck?

In the gulag that is your freedom, you are forced to do as you wish. You can love up to seven men at a time if you've got the liquor cabinet. The mind bleats at the possibilities.

I'm throwing you a complicated rope; like the rope, you're stranded. You may remain silent. Anything you say can and will be rubbed against you.

It is a mystery this life of yours. You are forced to do as you wish. Your plan, whatever it is, will be executed at dawn.

Wish I could write like that!

The past 12 months
18 months past
24 months past
36 months past
48 months past