I am so close to coming back now, but for the week, I have a place to stay, cozy and full of contradictions. It is nice, not to be able to watch television, one of my crutches. The internet is still here but I want to go out, and honestly, if it were a tiny bit warmer, I would be outside, every chance I got.

In the meantime I am curled in a corner, sort of like a fort, in an old old house with wood-paneled walls and nautical pictures, with a funny hundred-year-old smell and three dogs, curled around each other and my feet. In the corner, there are some shingles, whitewashed and waterlogged, because this room is connected to the porch. I love the idea of a loft. The only thing I love more than a loft is being underneath it.

I went to The Dock, three days in a row, because I am absolutely going out of my mind and need to get out. When I get towards the stretch, I aim towards East Hampton, and somehow wind up turning around every time, because I want to eat, but I also want to wear this worn and dirty sweatshirt, even though deep down it could remind me of him.

The point is, I don't want to get dressed up to go out, I just want something warm -- the warmth associated with three pints of Bass Ale and a bartender who knows your name. When I show up there alone, I feel like I've been silly all this time, to think I never belonged. I start to think it would be ok for me to be, wherever the frick it is I am.