Do you ever stop and think about the people you love? How they made their way into your lives? Sometimes I think it was fated for me to have these people in my life, and sometimes I think it's just a long string of coincidences. It's chilling to think how differently things could have turned out.

Not that I would know the difference, of course.

My sister, for instance. We're not even biologically related. What stories lie behind our conceptions, our births, our mothers' decisions to give us up? We don't know. We may very well never know. Yet somehow, we both ended up in the same family-- two so very different girls, and yet sisters, in every way that matters.

And Bruce. I have this vague notion that Bruce was put on this earth to bring people together. I tell myself that this is romantic nonsense, but I can't shake the feeling nonetheless. It was Bruce that introduced me to the online world, the Network BBS of oh so long ago. If not for Bruce, I would not have met Tim. Tim! (And many other people, too.)

And Charlotte. How in the hell did I end up in a Girl Scout troop that wasn't even in my own neighborhood? How did Charlotte end up in the same troop? But I did, and I met Charlotte-- at the very moment in my life when I needed her friendship the most. And that friendship changed me, too.

Every single life decision I made could have turned out differently. And then I wouldn't have known these people: Laurie and Joey, Marcy and Matt, Adele and Matthew. And all my online friends and readers-- would I have made my way here? The people I have known have helped make me who I am, for better or for worse.

I am sure I would know other people. Maybe I would have grown up with millionaire geniuses for parents-- but maybe they wouldn't love me and support me unconditionally, the way my parents do. Maybe I would be a good Catholic girl, whose parents moved to Iowa when she was three. Maybe I would have seven older brothers. Maybe I would have three kids and an alcoholic husband.

If things had turned out differently. Maybe I would have spent my childhood fighting to survive, rather than learning to soak up information. Maybe I wouldn't have a best friend-- or any friends at all. Maybe I would be dead by now.

Nobody gets a chance to re-live their lives and make different decisions. I'd be curious to see how things turned out-- not making "better" decisions necessarily, but different ones. Would I be the happy, relatively well-adjusted person I am today? Would I be a better person? Worse?

I'm sure everyone out there could say the same thing. Point to this or that decision that changed their lives. But ultimately, I think, what changes your life is the people who are in it. I'm lucky to have had these people in my life.

Whether it was coincidence, or fate, that brought them here.

Okay, so that concludes the touchy-feely portion of this entry. Unfortunately, I really don't have anything else to say.

Why don't I talk about touchy-feely-ness in general? The most touchy-feely person I know is Matthew. The last time I spent the night at his house (which was during my last trip to Los Angeles) we slept in his waterbed, and he very casually took off his clothes and slept naked. That's how comfortable he is with touching.

His affectionate nature caused major problems in my relationship with Matt-- he was just not used to someone being so aggressively hands-on. I had to tell Matthew to tone it down; I think he was a little offended. But you know. I told him he had to respect that I was in a relationship, and perhaps my boyfriend wouldn't enjoy seeing some other guy groping me.

So things got better, but when Matt wasn't around, Matthew would think nothing of walking around nude in front of me. Not as a sexual thing, just as a comfort thing. More of a brother and sister thing (although some of my friends think his intentions are less-than-innocent). Of course, the first time I ever met Matthew, he flashed me. That sort of set the tenor of our relationship right there.

I'll continue with the wild sex stories from the past. Because that reminds me of this one New Year's Eve-- man, what year was that? 1994 or something? I don't remember. That's a guess right there. But I spent New Year's Eve with Matthew, and a guy friend of mine, and this girlfriend of mine. That was a wild night.

Of course, we were all drinking the old year away. And at the time, both the other girl and the other guy were attracted to Matthew. Among other things that happened that night: someone gave someone else a blow job in the closet, and the person receiving the bj opened the door in the middle to show off his (impressive) erection. A mimosa was involved in this-- and "mimosa" was an inside joke between us four for a long time. Someone else gave me a hickey on my upper inner thigh. (A friendly hickey.) There was definitely touching. And we all slept in one big bed.

More sexual escapades? Alright then. Once, me and a girlfriend of mine almost had a threesome with this married guy. (The married guy turned out to be a real asshole-- once when I was stoned out of my mind, he tried to take advantage of me.) (And I realize that married guys are verboten. I was young and adventurous and maybe not so smart. These were youthful sexual escapades.) My girlfriend was in a relationship at the time, and she ended up bowing out of the whole thing. I ended up giving the guy head in front of her, though.

Wow. That's a memory I haven't dredged up in a while.

What other wild things have happened? There was a big group of us in high school who used to play naked jacuzzi truth or dare. (In this guy's jacuzzi with his parents at home-- how is it we never got caught?) Nothing really crazy ever happened, although I do remember once giving head to this guy (many of my teenage escapades involve fellatio, I notice) in the same room as this other guy. I can't imagine what he must have been listening to, although he certainly knew what was going on, especially when I said, "Oh, I think I got some in my hair." I later found out he was jealous-- he wished he could be the one giving the head to this particular guy.

One other time me and my girlfriend (and this is the same girl who was involved in each of these escapades-- gotta love her) gave her boyfriend a topless back massage, right after we had been watching a bad porno from the 1970s called "Chain Letter." I have no idea how this ended up happening, because alcohol was most definitely not involved, and nothing like this ever happened between us again.

Yikes. I really hope my baby sister stopped reading this about eight paragraphs ago.

The best stories all involve Adele, who was by far the biggest sexually liberated female in the world. Once, I was lying on this couch (someone out there is cringing) at a party in this dark room, and all of a sudden I heard this loud moaning coming from behind the couch. She was back there having oral sex with her boyfriend. And at that point, what could I do? I couldn't say, "Hey! Wait! I'm here!" So I just waited... and waited... and waited.... until they were finished. Finally she popped her head up over the couch, saw me lying there, and said cheerfully, "Hi!" (Well of course she was cheerful.) We cracked up. The poor guy (who I hardly knew at all) just turned bright red.

I went on a cruise with Adele once. She had sex with no less than five people on that cruise: both guys who were staying across the hall from us, both of our cabin stewards and a guy who was part of a bachelor party down the hall. Once, she paid me and Matthew $20 each to get out of the room for an hour. Another time, she didn't even bother. She had sex right in front of us-- and we couldn't even look away. It was a tiny cabin with mirrors everywhere. And in order to get out of this confined space, I'd have had to practically join in.

I remember exchanging looks with the other guy who was traveling with us, like "Holy shit, can you believe this is happening right in front of us?" They weren't under the covers or anything. Of course, on that cruise we had smuggled in a bottle of tequila and were pretty much drunk off our asses for three days straight. So it's no wonder that this craziness happened.

Man, I could go on and on with Adele stories. She was quite the adventuresome girl. But most of the stories aren't really mine to tell, so I'll just stop there, shall I?

Now that is what I call a touchy feely entry.

"I don't know what took me so long to dye my hair black. (And as we all know, once you go black, you never go back, baby.)"