January 2008:

"I can't write when I am happy," I say to her.

"You'll never become a writer, in that case. I'll never let you be unhappy."

It seems unthinkable that life was ever any different; the memories of loneliness have melted away with the warmth of her embrace. she loves me as nobody ever has.

I am content, for once. There is no pain, no aching void, no angst; she fills my waking minutes and my dreams as well.

I do not remember what it was like to be lonely. Now that I am apart from her I try to conjure up the visions of winters past - a crushing sense of desolation, the silent halls and the empty labs filled with the low, lifeless buzz of a hundred machines. the walk back home in the snow; nothing outside and nothing inside but the knowledge - the hope - that this too shall pass away.

for once in my life i do not want to read; i do not seek escape, i am perfectly happy.

She is always happy; she wants to be happy. She is beautiful; a bright flash of red against the desert sand. Princess of the gypsies, classical lines standing out in sharp relief to sensuous curves.

Ithaca is a place of joy, after all.