Walking back from LaVal's Subterranean last night, where Randall was performing with the Berkeley Improvisers, I breathe in the night air and am filled with a longing to write a letter to someone far away. A man with a mohawk ponytail stops on the path in front of me, crouches down by the side, and swears in amazement at a slug roughly the size of a zucchini. It's enormous. There's a smaller one ahead of it, trailblazing. "Find me a ziploc bag," he says to himself, to me, to his companion. It is after this incident that I get the impulse to write, but not about the slug, curiously enough.

However, when I try to think of someone specific to write to, I cannot settle on who. Chris is moving soon, James I don't really know well enough. Phil? Perhaps, though, I should call him. Rich? I pass the building where he lives- he's graduating, has his own life to think about. I wonder if I should write to Sip- and while this idea appealled to me while I was packing my things in the apartment- I have no desire to do it now- have, in fact, forgotten what I wanted to say in such a letter. Perhaps I could write Mary, Ana, Ian, Mark, Paul, Tracy....

Of course, this morning I don't remember what I wanted to say in the letters, only something about looking up at the sky and feeling connected--

----------
I am delighted to hear Maryclare call me a snob.
I'd been searching for the word that would describe my fault of judging others and there it was: nail on the head, a snob, that's me.
A gentle snob, Maryclare is quick to point out, as opposed to a tyrant.
But I am tickled pink to hear it.
A snob.