While Tim was here, we went to a shop on Pier 39 called Charms by the Bay, and I saw a silver charm bracelet with a cable car charm on it. I was... well... charmed by it. After thinking about it for a while, I decided that I'd really like to have just such a bracelet. And I'll tell you why.

I thought it would be a nifty idea to have the bracelet, and add a charm to commemorate any huge life events or accomplishments. When I get my degree, for instance, I will buy myself a graduation charm. Perhaps when I finish all 350 books on my reading list, I will acquire a book charm. And so on, and so forth.

I was happy to find that the store was still open this evening when I got there. So, I bought myself a simple silver bracelet and I picked out a cable car charm. (They had many cable cars of different sizes, prices, degrees of detail and levels of shininess.) I got one of the cheaper ones, but it's fairly detailed. There are even two tiny little cable car operators inside; isn't that the cutest thing?

In case you hadn't guessed, the cable car symbolizes the fact that I moved to San Francisco to pursue my dream of being a poet. (The Golden Gate Bridge is probably a more apt symbol, but the bridge charms are all long and pointy, and basically stupid looking.)

I can't help smiling every time I look at my wrist. I don't have money to waste on frivolous gifts for myself, such as CDs or DVDs, but the bracelet was a fantastic idea.

Speaking of Tim, I'm guessing some of you are wondering about my reaction to his guest entry.

I started to write a response, but it was impossibly difficult. I realized that I was confused about my audience, and it simply wasn't working. Was I addressing Tim, or addressing my readers, or passive aggressively addressing Tim using my readers as a proxy...? Far too confusing. Even this paragraph is confusing me. So I unfurled my innermost thoughts in a letter to Tim, and feel quite satisfied with that.

His entry mostly just made me happy, especially the soft squishy bits. I know how lucky I am, to feel so strongly about a friend who reciprocates that feeling.

His cynicism about life and relationships, well, not a big shocker to me. I am slightly familiar with his personality, after all. (Blowjob face.) It WAS thought provoking, though, to consider how differently he and I see relationships.

I only disagree with one thing. While I don't necessarily think Tim + Mo would be a good idea, I also don't think we'd be at each other's throats. I don't know what it would be like. I remember writing once that there must be an incredible payoff for nine years of sexual tension. (It's more like romantic tension, but still.) That's probably true, but it's a moot point. First off, Tim has no desire to try the experiment. And secondly, there's an excellent chance that it would end badly, thus destroying our friendship.

Which, in case you missed it, is extremely important to me. And him too, apparently, Who knew?

So that's it, really. I'm happy. Tim's happy. Everyone's happy. Sorry, if you were hoping for some drama or something. Nothing to see here, lookyloos.

My sister, by the way, ran across Tim's guest entry. "The only thing I didn't understand," she told me, "was why he said he wasn't Tim. I was reading it, and I thought, Huh? Of course it's Tim. And then he signed it Tim."

I said, "Well, you know, his name isn't actually Tim." (She knows this, of course. She's known the man behind the alias for many, many years.) "Oh," she said. "Now I get it."

She's so cute, my sister.

Speaking of Abby (note to Abby: that's not your real name either) she has been showing my site off to everyone she works with. Or, as she put it, "The hot tip around the office is mopie dot com."

That's such a trip, to think of everyone in her office reading my entries. Not only that, I'm teaching them new words. You may recall that I used the word "flummoxed" in a recent entry. That's become the new word around the office. Only, instead of pronouncing it "FLUM-moxed" they've been pronouncing it "flum-MOXED." So it's like a brand new word. I'm going to have to pronounce it flum-MOXED too from now on, just to show my solidarity. I hope it doesn't flum-MOX people too badly when I use it in conversation.

She's also thinking about her own guest entry. She read the entry where I mentioned that all this praise might be going to my head, and in retaliation, she wants to tell embarrassing stories about me. That's my little sister. Her specialty: publicly humiliating her family in exchange for cheap laughs.

Man, I hope she goes for it.

"I have two things to be ashamed of. One, I watch Seventh Heaven on a regular basis. Two, I listen to Semisonic."