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Here's my volunteer auctioneer gig, and evidence that I've gained weight since the last time I was on stage. Well, okay, so it's Not About Me. Check out the inside of the eerie old boat.

I spent the Fourth alone and in the city, just like I did three years ago, when I'd just moved here and my best friend went completely insane and decided I was Satan. I suppose I could have called Neneng-girl and pestered her to invite me upstate, or to whatever whirlwind of fun she's caught up in this week, or I could have volunteered to cook a barbeque in the back yard of H.'s new beach house, or even caught a last-minute flight to Texas. But something in me rejected these solutions, whether it was pride or a need to sort things out.

Basically, the only things I really want to be doing these days are fussing over my potted plants and going to yoga class. I wish I had an actual garden to fuss over--the potted plants don't need much attention. I got a cutting from Baby, the Lady of the Evening plant stolen from Peru six years ago by a friend of J. H.'s, and in only six weeks it has put down roots, sent up a new shaft, and popped out several new leaves, which are all swelling fleshily. The miniature rose on the fire escape is flourishing, as are the ficii, the habanera helix, the Christmas cactus, the rubber plant and the African violets. The orchid and the bromeliad, however, refuse to flower. A guy in a shop in the East Village suggested they might not be getting enough light, there on my bathroom shelf. He may have a point; I moved them both to sunnier windows and will keep you posted.

A good friend recently said, "Therapy is scary. When you confront your issues, it feels like you are dissolving, like you don't exist." He said this, I think, to make me feel better about the fact that my ex-boyfriend dumped me rather than try it. I still thought of it as just another stupid rationalization. But just at the moment I'm questioning every single habitual method I have of relating to people. I still feel like I exist, but I only really feel safe in yoga class and in my apartment, preferably under one or both cats.

I went up on the roof to watch the fireworks, and met my next-door neighbor. This guy has been here since two months after me, and I would swear to never having seen him before. Our roof turned out to be an excellent vantage point--they had synchronized displays on Staten Island, over the East River around midtown, and what looked to be either Harlem or Queens. It was cool, and so was my neighbor, an architect/city planner from India. He turned out to be another valuable source of information regarding buildings in Brooklyn; just as I start thinking 'this project is hopeless, nothing will ever happen,' another clue falls from the sky.

My baby cat is nearly recovered! Just as I thought he surely had AIDS, and would waste away by slow degrees, he meowed when I opened a can of tuna, and snarfed the whole thing down. It was like Tigger and the extract of malt. Six cans of tuna later, he's bopping things again. It's a miracle.