Magic lantern show. Just look at this silk blouse. The officious bow cracks me up, but the print is so simple and airy, I feel buoyant just looking at it. And that's not easy, the way gravity has been hitting me lately.

Do you ever feel that all the fun and games are behind you? That the only reliable thing you've got comes in a bottle? Is your forwarding address on Well of Loneliness Lane? When then, tadpoles, we are neighbors. I've got a summer home there.

My inner goth girl sublets it for most of the year. There in black silk on a black chaise lounge, she is utterly melancholy. She's decked out in Victorian mourning jewelry and listening to Blind Blake on an old victrola. She drinks black tea from a cracked china. Her only friend, a taxidermied fox, gives her the glass eye.

I stop by now and again to take her out for a walk. I just love how she huddles under her parasol and occassionally trips over the cathedral length train that's hooked to her bustle of shredded tulle and ravens' feathers. We've got an excellent view of Heartbreak Hotel, but I've got to keep my inner goth girl away from Lovers' Leap: it gives her ideas.

If only I could play "Bela Lugosi's Dead" on the ukulele. She would like that. Being with her gives me some perspective on my own sorrow. My blunt, deep and prosaic woes are not half as charming as hers.