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The sermon for Sept. 03, 2002 is: tell me tomorrow 12:16 a.m. Yong, despite his drug addiction, is attempting to become A Better Person so that he can pick up chicks. He has been advertising himself on Match.com and those other internet swing clubs and going on, what do they call those again? oh yes, "dates." He's unsuccessful, however, in finding That Special Other--- either they are utterly unattractive or too close to his age, or he suddenly finds himself morose and drymouthed in their presence, overaware suddenly of How Unworthy he is of their company. I can't remember exactly how he described this feeling that overwhelmes him when telling me about this on the phone--- something like how he becomes suddenly aware that not only is he unworthy of these women's attention, but he's actually a drawback and liability in their evolution and life's progress towards absolute perfection. Does this make sense at all? What I mean is that he believes that not only should they not go out with him, or, god forbid, become emotionally involved with him, but moreover just their mere acknowledgement of him in their lives is a serious flaw in the bulwark of their psyche. Ugh, I hope you know what I mean, dear Diary, because I'm not explaining this right. When he told me all this, I thought he was merely insecure and silly, and I told him so. But now, just now, after Stephanie called me to report on her holiday travels, I think I understand what Yong was talking about. For Stephanie is wonderful, you know that, she's too wonderful for me. How could I equal the splendour of her dreaming, how could I be so niggardly as to want to hoard her to myself? I told her all this, and she said, Pshaw. (Not a direct quote.) I told her, You're majestic, you're so splendid, my girl, and I feel like a peasant, a serf, a mere nothing, a blot on the deskblotter of god. You can contradict me whenever you want, you know. She said, I will when I disagree. Oh well. I love her, la. At any rate, I'm falling asleep; and I was blathering with Stephanie on the phone, talking absolute piffle, all in a desperate attempt to keep her on the phone and devour hungrily the soft music of her voice; I fear I'm blathering here as well. My apologies, dear Diary. Before I utterly lose consciousness and break free for a short time of the misery of coherence, I... wanted to tell you of my weekend. But I'm forgetting what happened to me this weekend. Basically I hung about with Danielle and with Lily, wandering about in a kind of daze in this unbearable Labour Day heat, ostensibly "scouting locations" for Danielle's film but really just being lost all over the world smiling at trees. I told her that I wanted to take a picture of her and post it here, with the caption "DANIELLE HORACE-COVIN 1979-2002." She approved mightily. We went to the beach and something eventful happened there. Etcetera. Afterwards we went to a bookstore and I read to her from Rilke, the first two Duino Elegies. "Who, if I cried out, would hear me in all the angels' hierarchies? And even if one pressed me suddenly against his heart, I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure...." There was a nice moment: I bought Stanley Kunitz's "Collected Poems"; the cashier was looking at my credit card somewhat sceptically, and finally looked at me and said, "Are you the Jonathan David that Belle and Sebastian did their song about?" (Oh, my first two names are 'Jonathan David,' by the way.) I said, YES! YES I AM! Later on I realised that something I had longed for a long, long time had come to pass without my notice, namely a complete stranger came up to me and recognised me as someone who adored Belle and Sebastian. And when I got home I put on Carl Theodor Dreyer's "Passion of Joan of Arc" and watched it in a kind of religious exhaltation and despair over the world. Have you seen this film? I would like to be more awake to talk about its heartbreak and fury and despair, so that I could detail its effects and disrepair upon my heart, but oh Diary I'm falling asleep, forgive me. I spend these days in a perpetual trembling before god, whose evidence and cruel beauty litter the world about me. Oh my god. The radio's playing Debussy's "Suite Bergamasque" right now. Oh dear, this is too beautiful. This beauty, Stephanie, Debussy, the sun, everything, it's just all too much for me right now. Yong is emotional too. He told me about watching a Simpsons episode, the one where Lisa gets a substitute teacher who transforms her life and then leaves on the train. He gives her a note to sustain her in his stead, whenever you feel alone and unappreciated, he says, just look at this note. And when the train leaves and Lisa's alone on the platform, she unfolds it and reads, YOU ARE LISA SIMPSON. Yong wept and wept. I'm kinda weepy too. You are you, dear Diary. You are glorious and brilliant like a star, and you have seen a world I will never know, and you have shared moments that belong only to you. I envy you your anonymous majesty and I wish to god that I could know you and listen to stories of your childhood and lovers and music teachers and terrible things you wish you hadn't done. Oh world, world, you are so enormous and variable and I want so much to know you completely, because I am so in love with you. Yes, okay, I'll go to sleep now. Goodnight. Dream large. Tell me tomorrow.
 
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