Cleo,

You always much more guarded and proper than I, but wow, sometimes, like tonight, G2 just received this email from of all people the Squirrel, asking how Fishy is and all that. Memories.

And then I am not going to my family’s house for thanksgiving due to so many things, money, etc, and I may go hang with Craig and Rachel OR go hang with Dasher and his family and GUESS who is now dating Dasher’s little sister who is like 18???? Your old friend Joel! Small world. so I will end up eating thanksgiving with that guy Joel. What a strange small world this is indeed.

Anyway, I just got back from an amazing party full of celebrities, me being the smartest and best looking of course... and am feeling a little tipsy, and just have such a longing to reconnect with you one day as true friends the way we did when we first met. I guess hearing about Joel and then that email from the Squirrel made me homesick for the connection we used to have.

Our connection is so forced sometimes, so unspoken, so fucking hard most of the time. So strained. Poor us I feel most of the time. I guess because of our current circumstances. How strange and crazy they are between us. how tumultuous it has been for us. how totally insane these nine years have been for us. half the time I feel as though you are my best friend in the world, at least my closest person in the world certainly, and half the time I feel like you are my arch enemy and just want to destroy me. How crazy indeed. How stupid.

Hey one day we are going to open and up and speak like we were kids again. once some more water washes under the bridge. Like best friends. I know and understand that in our present circumstances that you cannot and never will be able to be freely open with me, perhaps never again. I understand that. even though I give you a hard time about being in New York and not telling me I understand. I believe that we both feel that it would be great if we didn't have to see each other face to face for years and years. I think we both dread it. but one day I believe all that will disappear for us. and we will get to a different place.

In any case, how amazing you are and how amazing our lives have been and how amazing you were to my life and all that you contributed to it. so much of who I am comes from knowing you, a lot of the good stuff.

At a café on Miami beach. Determined to keep the cool vibage of Italy even here. typing on my laptop drinking glasses of a new Italian wine known as vermintina. 

Today I went to the office and started packing all my things. wow. This was slightly heavy although not that big of a deal. I am so filled with these feelings of excitement and 

Reconnected with the stallion although it is too difficult for her. Still feels bad that we never made a run for it. although it was so nice to reconnect with her. She has found a new boyfriend now. 

When you are a single man and you get a lot of it, people think that life is so good. but I told Maddie last night, I would give it all up if I met the one. some girl who just totally blew me away and made my heart sing. is it like Manfred the mad German lawyer said one day at lunch, “don't wait too long young man, because the longer you wait the harder it gets to settle with anyone’s idiosyncrasies....” I don't know. I'm slightly drunk right now I think. me and my laptop on my lap literally while I shove huge forkfuls of salad and goat cheese into my mouth for the entire world to see. I can hear Maddie now, ‘you are such a  fucking freak....’ 

But it is the life of the artist. one can easily see how easy it would be to go insane. Living this lifestyle. 

So last night I talked to Madelyn for about two hours and it was so nice. she is pregnant now. having a baby. All my ex girls are either married or pregnant. Tells you something. Although what it tells you I don't know. I have reached this point—it is as funny as it is frustrating  and peculiar—where I just can’t fake it anymore. Look Rosie sex is natural desire in men, it’s a basic need as strong maybe stronger as the need for food or shelter—o.k. much stronger than the need for shelter—so yes there is this need to have sex and touch and affection and passion and all of that. but man I've just totally lost my ability to bullshit with the girls. I don't know what it is. but if I perceive that a girl isn't the one for me, isn't someone I can be with for real—I mean seriously, if it isn't her, I just don't even want to talk to her. So for sex you just use the professional women. I told this to my little cuzzie wuzzie and she just freaked out. “You have never been with one of THOSE WOMEN have you?” “No of course not. I'm just kidding.” oh god it was funny. I just couldn’t go through with telling her about it. 

[For the benefit of all working women the world over. Rosie acts like it’s a sin. Just completely alarmed at the thought of it. and I guess if you are a 21 year old born again Christian, then prostitution probably is a sin to you, but if you're a thirty year old man who hasn’t had sex in a month or two then I would call it a blessing. Prostitutes are Gods gift to all men everywhere. What an amazing thing a professional girl is when you think about it. the fact that they are willing to do that for us. and vice versa for the guys that do it too. I know some girls that have called men over... they loved it. The first time I was with a pro, I was so fucking nervous I couldn’t even talk straight. But by the time it was over I was holding her and thanking her. I gave her extra money. I felt re-energized and relieved and just so happy. and she was like look here's my house number, call me anytime. It’s a win win. I see what my guy friends go through out there. How they want to stay out all night at the clubs just because they want or need to have sex so badly. So they stay in these smoky clubs all night not doing anything remotely productive. Listening to bad music, talking to tons of uninteresting girls one after the other, just trying to get laid. And if they get lucky they end up bringing some stank stupid two bit back to their house to sleep with them. and they still aren't happy. little do they know they could just pick up the phone and call one over in the comfort of their own home. no clubs. No staying out all night with that stupid drunken desperate look on all their faces hoping to get lucky. I mean, that's what the pros are for. They’re there for us. and in return we are there for them. they need money. that's how they make their living. And they're alright with it. and we need sex and they're alright with that too. say what you will about doing it the old fashioned way. and spend all night in some stupid club that is beneath you just so you can try to get laid. And by the time you bring your nasty drunken two bit back to your pad and waste even more time having to talk to them about nothing in order to get in, I'm already fast asleep after a good nights lovemaking and I got a lot of work done as well.]

I am done here. Cannot wait to go home. Or just get out of Rome. I really don't know where home is now. I've been done with Miami for a while now too. Home has been wherever Cleopatra is for so long. Now home needs to change. Maybe home is where ever I am? A few more days left of school. I haven't even been going to school on time. So my question to myself is ‘have I done it?’ have I found anything? Did I find what I was looking for? Have I found a bit more of myself? Do I feel more whole? Do I feel a bit more like me? 

The new CD arrived today. I had them FedEx it to me here in Rome. Such an exciting feeling opening that baby up and listening to it for the first time. Wwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I was listening to the song keep moving on and thinking about when I wrote it. last year or the year before. Cleo and I had just broken up. I was single for the first time in my life really. Since high school  had always had a grlfre. I was dating girls. I lived in this big house by myself. It was crazy. I felt great. But I also felt lonely and a little confused. I cried at night a lot because I missed Cleo so much. I wondered really how I would ever live without her. I still do sometimes. God who am I kidding. Most of the time. she was the only person who was ever able to take care of me. no not really. Maddie did too. but I'm great at taking care of other people. as long as someone else is taking care of me. man that's weird. ???

But I was listening to this song today and I felt so good about where I am now. I realize now that I can make it through anything. I can do anything. It doesn’t matter where I am or what I am going through, I will make it. those were hard times. But they are over. I kept moving on. G2 told me that he cried when he heard the song for the first time. me too. 

Lunch with one of the Germans. He is about 60 or so. A wealthy retired attorney for some large company there. he knows all these senators in the states. Speaks a few languages. Well spoken man. Interesting. He shared much with me. told me not to wait too long to get married, that the longer you wait, the more faults you find in the person, and the pickier you are, and the less you are willing or able to change of yourself. I thought this was interesting. He thinks it is really awesome what I am doing all on my own going to all these different towns where my family is from and hanging out there. I told him I could feel the places, as if I had a memory in my body of being there before. He said he agreed. It is possible. Probably DNA in our bodies that we share with our grandparents etc. Told me not to forget to go their graves to see them. A good idea. I really like the German people. They are always very nice and intelligent.  

In our afternoon conversation class we have five students. A Korean nun, a Brasilian nun, the retired German lawyer, a Ukrainian college student, a French student, and of course me, an American dilitant. It is so amazing to sit in this class and watch and listen to all of us from such different countries and backgrounds speak a new language. It is frustrating because no one can speak the other person’s native language, so this is rather difficult. We can only speak the Italian. but we find other creative ways of communicating. For example I may know some of the words in Portuguese that I can then tell the teacher what the Brasilian nun is talking about, because she uses like half Italian and half Portuguese when she speaks because they are so similar and it sounds very confusing. Or I can tell the German guy something in English and he can tell the teacher what I am trying to say because he speaks a little English etc. although we are all so different, we are all the same when we are in this class speaking Italian. it is a truly amazing experience to realize. How similar we are. Tomorrow I will talk to the Korean nun about eating cats. I would like to try cat one day.

Difficult day today. total funk kind of after speaking with Cleopatra last night and just realizing how much I am still dependent on her for things. Sometimes I sit in the shower and let the water run on me and pretend I'm dead. Then I snap out of it and pump myself back up. but it is interesting to see how sad or immobile one can get just from not hanging out with another person. But I must find ME. who am I? Without anyone else. who am I? I feel like I have spent so much of my life pretending to be something I am not. I just want to find ME. and depend on ME. and be in love with ME.

On the screen: my big fat Greek wedding. But it was in Italian. so maybe I got about a third of it. cute movie. 

Wow what a day. A guy from Atlanta Georgia flew down this morning to buy my old pick up truck I had when I was just a young struggling long haired rocker. I sold it on eBay. I love eBay. So he flies down and is driving it all the way back to GA now as I type. I said good bye to the old girl. We had some good times together. 

I talked with La Princesa today for the first time in a few months. She is getting married! Crazy. I just stared at the computer screen for ten minutes when I read her email. Combination sadness and joy. She just met this guy on new years. But she is so happy. It just goes to show, you know. we knew that it wasn't going to work out. That it wasn't this ultimate thing for us. and when you follow your intuition like that you can’t go wrong. it was hard for us to separate even though we had only been hanging out for a few months, but we really enjoyed being together and we got a lot out of it. but I followed my gut and so did she and then bam a month later she meets this guy and now she is getting married. Man it just goes to show. Don't hang onto stuff if its not ultimate. Move on and allow other things even better space to come into your life.

The funny part is that our new album is Basically a living breathing testament to the time that we shared together and other girls too. a kind of synopsis of all of those experiences. A lot of the songs are about her and her sketches are being used in the artwork. And she of course will be married to some other guy. I just laugh at the irony of it all. Would you like wheat rye or raison toast with that sir? There are a lot of things you can make choices about in this life, but when it comes to love you just gotta go with the flow.