the other day i was thinking about this particular night in july 2002 and then started looking at pictures of the fullerton and of the buildings along the singapore river - these are good, aren't they? they're taken by an american living in shanghai. it makes me miss home terribly. i like the one of parliament house at dusk, with the flag streaming on top, and the roof of the old parliament house peeping over the new.)

i'd made up my mind years ago that i would never again live in a city without a river, but that means i couldn't live in charlottesville again. the only body of water i could think of was beaver creek lake, which really can't count as a river, although uva's crew team did row there. christine j. used to drive out to row at 5 in the mornings, coming back when i was just getting up for breakfast. only crew team members were allowed cars in their first year, and it was this exception which allowed christine to take me on late-night drives all over charlottesville. of course in those days i made her drive past the houses of all the professors i idolised, hoping to catch glimpses of Great Minds at Leisure. there are many things one does when enamoured of another. look at orlando (innamorato! i do love the word, don't you? innamorato!) much like, i remember, how i hauled poach off to grange road with me after school so that we could walk past monsieur quenot's house - it wasn't even the right house, but i did think i had found the right person in the phone book. look, i was thirteen. teenagers are allowed to stalk french teachers now and then, she says with only a slight touch of embarrassment.

[ heath shook his head. it wouldn't have done me any good being besotted with (with, not by, we sorted that one out.) monsieur quenot. french teachers, he explains kindly to me, are most unreliable. "like dancing masters."

and so we pass over these follies.]