Today I found a scrap of conversation that LA Michael and I had over a year ago. About Jennifer Jason Leigh and our favorite production company logos and the films made from Elmore Leonard novels. I remember transcribing it from a telephone conversation when I was sold on the notion of grounding my short stories in real life anecdotes.

I had to share.

It made Michael laugh hard enough to leave me a voice mail asking me to call him and telling me he loved me.

And a girl just can't hear that enough.

On the telephone he performed his new monologue and I gave him ideas for how to make it real. And I believed him when he said that he thought me to be the only person who could really advise him on his performance.

And suddenly today turned into one of those days when I can't even begin to explain the comforts of an old friend. And how much his hoarse laughter and enormous encouragement mean to me.

Who rocks your world?

I picked up one roll of my black and white Paris photographs from being developed today. It doesn't surprise me that I'm disappointed in them.

But then every photograph is a disappointment next to Jay's "Neglected Little Tree" taken in Gugong which arrived with his letter this weekend.

I'm sometimes swept away by good photography, an instant frozen and dissected, so full of promise, so full of potential. In some cases, like Jay's tree, it literally takes my breath away. But as a personal means of expression, it fails me again and again.

Instead I'm married to words, to the turn of a phrase. To scratching and revising, the eraser dust lingering even when you know you've wiped it all away, just trying to turn the ether quality of the moment into tangible, smeared ink on a page.

What's your perfect medium?