"Oh dear, you inspired your neighbor", is what seshat wrote in her comment yesterday. Can one be inspired like this? Seshat mentions some bisexual tendencies she has and her feelings when looking at a particular girl, but it does not seem so clear. On the other hand, homosexual male friends of mine say that you are either this or that, and heterosexuals always maintain that there is no "inspiration" of that kind whatsoever. So are women different?

An old professor of mine always said that all women have bisexual or even lesbian tendencies - this could be proved easily. I always contradicted him. But I must say that what has happened with me in the last few years makes me doubt my former conviction. When I was in my student years, I never felt anything like this - only guys appealed to me and even if I was in a threesome, it was strictly heterosexual to indulge the guy and help him live out his fantasy.

But then Maria came into my life again, and I completely fell for her. We meet very seldom, but when we do, our bodies tear into each other until utter exhaustion, and I give myself over to her totally, so much that I am sure if we decided to stay together I might be able to life the life of a lesbian with her. At least she makes me feel so. But there have been others: I have done it with Tanja - we were slightly drunk and on holiday though. I have licked Traudl the Elf's crean-shaven and awkwardly protruding pussy and her juices tasted like milk and honey, better than anything I have ever tasted, and they made me swoon. I have never done it with Elsie.

But now Helene - married with a lovely little son - she will "try it once if I like". Do I like? I did last Tuesday - it was a spontaneous impulse when touching her warm firm flesh. But no affair - no tears and no suffering - no, this certainly not.

Lisa stays with me over the weekend - another Elisabeth like Elsie - it's a very popular name here. She is a former colleague of mine who is in her fifties, a very lively, funny woman, although her life has been all but easy. When she was still young with two children, her husband died in an avelanche. Being an engineer, he was giving skiing courses for blind people in his free time, and the tragic thing was that they had started the avelanche artifically to clear the slopes, not knowing that there was so much snow and it would go that far. Shortly after that, she found out that her little daughter was deaf, and now as she is in her twenties, she will also go blind. Deaf and blind - imagine such a life where the only contact is what people signal into your hand by help of a special finger alphabet.

We had dinner together and talked way into the night, and she so much admired my house and garden because she lives in town. This morning we had breakfast together on the sunny porch, after swimming a little right after getting up. She is one of the most entertaining people I know, although she hardly sleeps at night, as she suffers from a special sleeping disorder which keeps her awake and only allows her to doze for an hour at a time. She was in a local sleeping clinic more than once, with little outcome. Yet she insisted on having slept wonderfully as it was so unusually quiet and peaceful in my house. Now she has walked over to the house of someone she knows from work, too, and will have lunch there.

While looking through my mail yesterday I found an envelope without any address, so I couldn't have been brought by the postman. There was a card inside with an an old-fashioned, romantic picture of a little girl kissing another little girl's cheek, and some text at the back: "Dear Alpina, [...] I was a so shocked last Tuesday afternoon when I saw this look in your eyes and didn't know what to do [...] I just want to tell you that I have never done it but that I would try it once if you like [...] Kisses, Helene."

I had Elsie with me until I went shopping to town early this morning. We were sitting at the kitchen table and talking until late, and she only stopped crying when we had a swim way after midnight and I toweled her down and laid her into my bed where she virtually slept in my arms. I had always expressed some doubts with their arrangement with the girl, but afterwards it's easy to be clever and know it better.

Kueken is over the third month and she seems to have guessed all along what the character of her "illness" was. Now she expresses that she wants to give Joerg a son - "a son no-one else around seems to be able to give him". This hurts Elsie, and even more that Joerg seems to be proud of becoming a father, "which has been his dream all his life."

Elsie doesn't know what to do. Her first impulse was to move to her sister in Klagenfurt - which she has always done in a crisis - but she is afraid that Kueken will just replace her. I can't do much - I said I would be here for her whenever she needed advice, or a shoulder to cry, or a bed to sleep. A lot depends on Joerg - if he comes to his senses soon or if it will take painfully long again like at other times.

Kueken is pregnant - that's the big news tonight and Elsie is close to devastated. She will come over later, she just told me the news on the phone. That's why the girl often felt sick and tired lately. And Joerg is the father with a hundred percent certainty.

You remember that my friends don't have any children of their own. First they didn't get any, and later they didn't want any. They never tried to find out why they hadn't had any and didn't see a doctor about it. Lately Elsie has taken the pill and so has Kueken - at least they thought so. And now this.

I doubt that this will end well for my friends.

"Love you're latest writing. How do u know if I wasn't watching you apply the lotion??? Signed, xx". This PM I got yesterday reminds me of something that happened some years ago when I got a friedly letter from some guy who proved to be an amateur astronomer. He said how much he had enjoyed all summer because one day when he had put his telescope in position on one of the neighbouring hills, he had accidentally directed it into my garden and what he had seen had given him a lot of pleasure. Now he was moving to Vienna to go on with his studies, but he regretted it in a way. There is quite a high fence around my garden, but I can easily see the hills even if I apply lotion on my lawn. So maybe another astronomer has moved into our region. And this long, thick object which he is lovingly stroking must certainly be his telescope ...
Last night there was a social function in a local hotel where the students who have recently finished school meet with their teachers. It takes place every year and it's quite pleasant, because it's amazing how the students have changed in these few weeks. Before they were playing a role and for that they also used standard behaviour and standard clothing in order not to differ too much from others, but now they have become more of their individual selves; different hair-styles, adult clothes, make-up, and the guys suddenly move around like men.

I talked a lot with a guy called Werner who was not in one of my classes, but had taken part in my drama project and acted an important part. The son of a doctor, he is not only tall and very handsome, but also talented. He plays the cello in a youth orchestra and is a freelance writer for a local newspaper. His aim is to follow his father and also become a doctor. It was quite interesting because he, too, has abandoned the student sterotype and he was quite open and said things about me which I found very interesting, and I must admit, flattering. It must have been my Sister Hide whispering over my shoulder that when he felt like it he should visit me at my place one of these days, knowing of course that he has better things to do now school is over.

Tonight is Jacuzzi Thursday, and I am looking forward to it. Elsie has invited me, but she seemed a little worried on the phone: Kueken still feels bad and she has decided to see a doctor with her this afternoon. After all this work lately, I am glad to be in for some bubbles.

It was so sunny in the afternoon that I asked Helene from next door if she wanted to come over and have a swim until little Oliver was back from school. She loved to and even brought some cake to my coffee and together with the warm sun, all was perfect. As she knows I always swim in the nude she was not shy and undressed, too, and afterwards we two nudies were lying next to each other on my giant towel in the grass.

As the sun was quite hot she asked me if I could apply some sunoil to her back, which I readily did. She has a good, firm, young body and is enviably sun-tanned, and her back felt very muscular under my slippery hands, not at all flabby like some. I massaged her back and then also her buttocks and legs, and she felt very good under my hands. I certainly rubbed a little too long, but she seemed to enjoy it and didn't budge.

I don't know what made me ask if I also ought to rub her front. Certainly is was her firm and bouncy flesh in my hands, and the warmth of her skin. When she turned round, her eyes were a tiny bit apprehensive, but then she relaxed and closed her eyes. And I also spread the oil on her tummy and her breasts, her sides and thighs down to her knees and back - real, real slow, and with deliberate movements.

It was so erotic - I had to hold myself back with all the sense I could muster, so that I kept my fiery skin from hers. I was burning and my thoughts swooned, and I was suddenly so wet I could feel it all in me and I thought one could see it trickle down the insides of my thighs. Then she opened her eyes and I knew there would be nothing. And I was glad - in a way.

I have been correcting essays for my finals whenever I had time - now I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. But there wasn't much going on anyway, my life seems at a stillstand somehow. It's mainly work, work work and no play. I was at Annalena's funeral yesterday and most people were shocked how fast a life can find its end - it could hit each one of us, like in a giant, cruel lottery from which no-one can abscond. I miss something or somebody to show me that I am still alive - I'd love to feel my body. Sometimes when the sun is out and I sit at the pool after swimming I feel the sun and the wind on my skin, or Elsie and Joerg's hands at Jacuzzi last week. But I desperately need some stronger stimuli or I definitely turn sour and rancid.

If one has to be buried - why not here?

I didn't mention Annalena lately, although I tried to stay in contact with her and to keep informed about her state of health. But it got worse and worse and she didn't want people to see her anymore - they should remember her the way she had been before her illness - the beautiful, kind teacher with her ready smile, not the hairless skeleton which she thought lung cancer had turned her into.

Everything had been planned so nicely - she wanted to spend a holiday over in Switzerland where assisted suicide is legal, at the beginning of July. She had already met the doctor who would give her the lethal cocktail, she knew what its effects were. Her day of death should be July 8th - the day she had met her husband.

Some days ago she contracted pneumonia; they had first thought it was only flu. It got worse quickly. From what I have heard she virtually drowned in her bed, as her lungs gradually filled with water. It seems to have been a painfully slow process of which she was fully conscious till the very end.

I makes me sad because she had been teaching next door to me for so long. And although we were never really close, I miss her and her beautiful smile a lot.

Juicy, thanks for your information; I have googled through it and found some useful hints with wikipedia. I was quite surprised to find out that this seemingly well known American musical is based on an Austrian script. I must admit that I have not heard of it before, but in a local encyclopaedia I have read that the musical presents one of the best-known outside views of our country, although it's practically unknown. Maybe I can organise a video of it somewhere.

This does not seem to be untypical. For a long time, the German speaking readers' view of America was strongly influenced by an author called Karl May, who predominantly wrote about indians and settlers and gold diggers and trappers. One of his literary protagonists was an indian chief called Winnetou, and he is by far the best known native American here - there are are numerous books and a number of films about him. Only few readers know that the author himself was never outside Germany, and I am sure none of his books are sold beyond the Atlantic.