But how to frame those words? How to make them come out soft and pleasing and sweet? Or is there not any soft, pleasing and sweet way to do this? I hope she is not of the shunning nature of many fundamentalists. I do not know. I think she's a little more sophisticated. But I don't know. So there I am. Reluctant to end a renewing friendship, when it is just begun. Reluctant to make my cousin shudder in horror at my pages.

But I know the responsibility for any shuddering lies with her. I must cross the bridge as I am, and hope to find a welcoming embrace at the other end.

This is not a recent feature, due to gaining poundage. No, I had this 'bovine' feature when I was a trim lass of 120 pounds. It was in my early teen years that I first discovered this. My friends and cousins had fashionable knee high boots. I wanted to be fashionable, too. Alas, I don't think I made it. My Dad took me from shoe store to shoe store. While he waited patiently, I tried on pair after pair of the 'groovy' things. With each pair, it was the same. I could only zip them up so high, and was prevented by zipping them further by a rather large and muscular calf muscle.

Finally, we did find a pair that would work, and bought them. But I was not proud of them. They were clunky, and looked like 'old lady boots', not the sleek fashion for which I'd hoped.

My calves have proved difficult in other ways. Back in the seventies, one department store featured the 'fuller and longer' knee sock. These worked, but in the decades since, no ladies over the calf socks have proved suitable. They can not stretch the width needed, as well as the height needed. Therefore they all end up a pathetic roll around my ankles.

Yes, folks, to achieve a proper fit, I must be a cross-dresser. At times, this has made me a CROSS dresser, for not even the men's sock departments carry over the calf socks. Everything is 'crew socks'. If by some fluke, over the calf socks can be found, only one shade is available: dark navy, take it or leave it.

I did a net search tonight, hoping to find inexpensive 'over the calf socks'. It is quite amazing the number of websites advising men to wear such socks to create the proper impression at job interviews. That pale and hairy leg, visible when crossing the leg, is so tacky, you know. Few of the websites Google presented actually sold socks. What few were expensive sports socks for skiing, or expensive therapeutic socks for diabetics.

There was one store which offered the proper thing, for sixteen dollars a pair! The poor job aspirant could hardly afford that. The last time I'd invested in socks, which must have been awhile, for my old socks are becoming holey and moth eaten, I'd ordered them through LANDS' END. I remembered they were kind of pricy, but in comparision to sixteen bucks, they were half that.

So I went there again. Oh, I am so ashamed to spend so much on socks. It is all because I don't have delicately tapered feminine legs! This is funny, Julia had to ask me what calves were. She didn't know if she had them. I told her the boot story, showing where the zippers stopped. ''See that bulge there, that's the calf!'' She showed me her leg, ''Do I have such a bulge?'' I looked, and beheld perfectly tapered feminine legs!

But, outside of matters of beauty, it matters not, for she doesn't even wear socks!

Is this fair! Oh well, she wouldn't want to hide those delicate tapers under bulky drab socks, now would she? And besides, it would go against her ancient Roman sense of aesthetics. No, she wouldn't want to do that!

The thin person has no conception of what this is like. My mother proudly 'eats to live', while I, yes, almost nearly 'live to eat', though take away my favorite form of self expression from me, and you will have a battle on your hands.

Thus it is, my 'enneagram' type is most accurate: (Notice the lady in the picture is wielding a pen!)

I am still under siege, though not with the intensity of last night. I couldn't finish watching ''Reign Of Fire'', a sci-fi movie about a future world beset with dragons. Although the dragons were depicted very convincingly, my head hurt too much to concentrate. I hope to do better with today's movie, a comedy called Zoolander.

While at Blockbuster's, besides the pleasant surprise of running into a friend who was also renting movies, I noticed the large bulletin board announcing soon to be released movies. Road To Perdition, a movie with Tom Hanks as a gangster man, and his son who 'saw too much', was the last movie I'd ever seen with Laura. I'm not sure why I didn't review it. It was an intense, but very good movie. Laura and I went to the Main St. Cinema with no set idea of what movie we wanted to see. A lady in line with us said it was good. Having heard nothing about it, we banked on Tom Hanks being a good actor, and took the risk.