And now back to Suzanne for a moment.

I e-mailed her back last night and am still waiting for a reply. In twelve years I've never quite figured out her motives, nor my own in regards to her. She is invariably the catalyst for exquisite disaster whenever she decides to wander into my life. I hope she writes back soon. I've been bored. It wasn't until talking to Elisabeth about her today that I began to clue in to what Suzanne is to me. She's no mere acquaintance, not a friend, nor a lover. She's a competitor, a catalyst... a muse. Something about her feeds the Bohemian in me. Corresponding with her fuels a creative urge in me that only smoulders when she isn't in my life. I have no idea what to call that. I've mistaken it for love, hate, friendship, and misery at different times.

The first line of her e-mail was "Is this poking disaster in the eye with a stick?". It always has been, but I've always walked out of them further ahead than I would have been without them. After hitting "send" on my reply I had the peculiar sense of horror that comes with a resolution to do something terrifying and brilliant - like deciding one day in Pamplona to revive the ancient Minoan art of bull-vaulting...