I'll have to fill in other bits later. For now it's most important to blog that i saw UD again tonight. He texted me, saying how bad he was feeling, and how he needed to talk to someone. I thought for a moment that he might have meant me, but i didn't see how he could have, really. As i was formulating my reply, i got another text, (You'll notice that infernal device, so long abhorred, the mobile phone, becoming more prevalent in my life now my dependance on the internet has been thwarted.) asking if he could brave the rain (The weather wonderful in its heavy handed use of the pathetic fallacy. Honestly, people can hardly expect directors to stop pouring buckets of water on their characters at moments of emotional importance if the climate's going to carry on taunting them with its own uncriticised use of such crass sentimentality.) and come see me. I agreed, and made a hurried attempt to tidy room a little. Then, realising it would take him a while to arrive, a more leisurely attempt to make the place acceptable, including choosing the right music, (I felt abominably like the main character of my book of the moment, The Rachel Papers.) which i decided to be Yann Tiersen's Rue Des Cascades.

He arrived, bringing his own music, O by Damien Rice. It was lovely but, as he said, rather depressing. I'd chosen to sit on the seat opposite the bed, with my books, which i do tend to see as an extension of myself, filling the wall to my right. When he sat down, i obviously couldn't look him in the eye, so i found an interesting fold of the bed to look at. I alternated my gaze between that and some tassles. At the beginning it looked awfully like the back of a neck, (I don't think particularly that it was E's. It was just the neck of some imaginary boy. Necks seem an odd part to fixate on.) but by the end of the evning, without actually having changed it had become the face of a woman.

I wasn't terribly able to talk well. I never am, but now i was worse. At one point i felt forced to resort to using a portable whiteboardy slatey thing i keep in my drawer. But, despite various impediments, our conversation progressed. Quite satisfactorily, i felt. I can now call him my friend, which was more than i feared i could. I feel much better now. Less guilty.