Friday, May. 23, 2003 | 10:36 AM

Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.
--Sarah Bernhardt

When we grow old there can only be one regret�not to have given enough of ourselves.
--Eleanora Duse.

Those are the two quotes I have taped to my computer at work.

Last night I spent a long long time talking to Alamada on the phone. She is incredibly beautiful both inside and out. We had a wonderful conversation and we�re getting together on Saturday to start working on my cabaret act (she�s accompanying me�I�ll let you all know when it is once I have the details.) It�s going to be very diverse. Cole Porter. Jacques Brel. Irving Berlin. Kurt Weil�I think something from Three Penny Opera in the original German. Lou Reed. Rogers and Hart. Leonard Cohen. Sondheim. Joni Mitchell�s Free Man in Paris transposed a couple keys lower. Kander and Ebb. Marianne Faithful. Burt Bacharach. Gershwin. Oh, that song that Annie Ross sings that starts My analyst told me that I was right outta my head. Fucking brilliant. I can�t wait to come up with a set list when Alamada and I get together. I�m so excited. One thing I am 100% confident of is my ability to interpret music. I think that�s my greatest gift. I know how to get inside a song and live in it. It�s very easy and intuitive for me. I find a character in the song and metamorphose into that person. Every good song is a story. There�s so much meaning in every word and note.

Fuck I�m thrilling myself just thinking about how good this is gonna be. Woo Hoo!!!!

Something I�ve realized over the last few days is that I�m going through a phase of being more into women than I am men. My sexuality has always been pretty fluid, but romantically I�ve always had feelings for boys and not girls. This is however changing. In the past I never would have considered a romantic relationship with someone of the same sex, but now I�m thinking it might be kind of fun�it�s something I haven�t done before, and there are so many brilliant beautiful sexy women whom I love so dearly. I think I�m actually falling in love a little bit with a couple of them. One of them is a drop dead gorgeous (think Sandra Berhardt crossed with Marilyn Monroe) ivy league graduate, professional photographer and dancer who has the best sense of humor and is a hott fucking kisser. And the other one is an accomplished theatre professional with golden hair and a beautiful soprano. Christ I�m fickle. Just last week I was all moon eyed over Co-Star, whom I still by the way adore, but now that we aren�t onstage together anymore and I don�t get to kiss him every day (yow, he was one helluva good kisser�hott damn) the magic is vanishing.

We�ll see what happens. At this point there are just so many possibilities in terms of boys and girls that I hardly know which way to look. I�m suddenly in style or something and I think it�s because I�m finally confident and doing exactly as I please, and I don�t need anyone to validate me. Such a wonderful difference between need and love. And for the very first time in my whole life, I really like who I am. It�s a strange thing to go from self loathing to loving yourself, but it�s actually very easy. Once you push through all of your fears and start treating yourself with respect, and demanding respect from others, and connecting with your own impulses and not giving a flying fuck what other people think, suddenly you�re someone you like.

I can�t believe it took me until the age of 26 to understand all of this. It�s really been through theatre. Everything that�s true about the stage is also true about life. They mirror each other. And whenever I find out something new about acting, there�s a corresponding truism that relates to the world at large. Learning to let each moment be exactly what it is and responding to it with honesty and inner life has been a revelation. You can�t force anything on stage and you can�t force anything in the real world.

My new favorite word is organically. It�s all gotta bloom of it�s own accord. There is magic in the natural world folks. Things growing all around us, and we�re all in a constant state of becoming.

In the past year, my heart has grown about a million times its former size, and it doesn�t seem to stop. It�s like Jack�s Bean Stalk. Soon I�ll be one with the sun.