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The sermon for Apr. 20, 2004 is: almost an epiphany 10:01 a.m. 'allo, Diary: good morning. I woke up a few minutes ago, in my brightly sunlit and unkempt room, not unhappy; and listened to the birds singing (they nest in my attic, schlooping and bobsledding through the drainpipes) and blinking happily to find myself alive another morning. I had an idea, several ideas, about what to do with myself today, so decided to call Rebecca and find out what she was up to so I could discover the shape of the landmass of the day and plan out my navigation; not surprisingly, her voicemail was on, and I immediately forgot all my grandiose ambitions at the sound of the beep. I left a long yammering rambling idiotic theoditic message. The danger about leaving voicemails for me is that, after leaving a message, a need begins to build up within me to actually converse with someone (there've been times I've called random customer service people just to chat, so hungry sometimes I've been for human nonvoicemail contact). I started going down my list of names in my address book: Guy, Valerie Rosenberg, Therese Suarez, Kristin Chew. Voicemail, voicemail, voicemail, arggggh. Finally I called Stephanie -- the first time I've called her successfully, though she's been calling and we'd been talking rather regularly. "Is this Stephanie Gyure?" I said. "Don't ever call me again," she said, and hung up. I've written about this before: the absolute dizzyness I experience when people announce such things and then imperiously disconnect, without explanation nor chance of reply. I lay abed with the phone receiver in my hand, wondering and blinking at this vertigo I was experiencing; frankly, I was stunned, I think, by the ex nihil obstat character of such communications, rather than the content of the communication itself. (That Stephanie, like Yong or Valerie, said this to me is irrelevant; character is fluid, especially in emotional context; what stuns me is the violence of my reaction to such trivial games: it is simply unimaginable for me to discourse in unilateral ultimatums.) At any rate... at any rate, que s�ra s�ra. I've calmed down, suddenly: whilst writing this angry, half-sensible screed, I realised something. I don't believe in unilateralism. This seems profound to me, for some reason; I think I'll probe the implications of such a philosophy more, over breakfast, and then take a walk in the bright birdsinging. I think I will make a bagel.
 
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