March 17, 2003 | 11:02 AM

At Coney Island we watch the sun glint off the ocean, each beam of light dancing like an angel on the head of a pin. We sit next to each other on a picnic table bench sipping beer from paper cups and noshing on french fries. We watch lovers walk by and photographers heading for the Cyclone.

We are silent and easy with each other.

The night before when I�d gotten off the bus, we went straight to the bar�the one in Port Authority with the good juke box. Conversation flowed like wine spilling from a three-gallon jug. At the bar, on the subway to Bedford, and on the walk to his apartment building��Buckingham Place� as he calls it. Words stack on top of one another, a pyramid of conversation and our fingers interlace.

I meet his sister�a beautiful friendly girl with Sean�s dark eyes. We hit it off immediately. Sean and I discuss our friendship�how much deeper and more intense it�s become�how intimate over the past months. We stay awake until 6AM. The cat, Thisbe, sleeps on my chest.

On my birthday, breakfast at the local diner, and on to Coney Island, so romantic and trashy and sad. All day taking it in. Perfect. Just perfect.

And then back exhausted to Sean�s apartment. I watch him make me dinner, cutting up vegetables and cooking pasta, and I am thrilled to to the gills to be here in New York with him and love bubbles up like lava inside me. There is no other way I�d rather spend my birthday.

Having spent the whole day out, Sean asks me if I wouldn�t mind just staying in. I am relieved as all I want to do is be alone with him and I am all barred out. We drink makers and cokes and Sam Adams. We talk about our families and we tell ghost stories. We make our own ouji board on the back of a painting. We watch a Lou Reed documentary. We talk until our voices are low and horse. Sean�s sister arrives eventually and there is more discussion about love and monogamy and relationships and trust. Sean goes to bed and she and I talk until dawn.

I sleep until almost 3PM Sunday.

Breakfast at the diner. Walk around Brooklyn. Subway to Manhattan. Tearful good-bye.

Loving New York. Loving Sean. Loving my birthday. Loving the freedom I feel and the sense of rightness about my life. Even loving the sadness as insight separates me from my past.

On the bus ride home, I study my script.