Friday, Feb. 13, 2004 | 2:45 AM

Today I bought Matt the book, Freeing the Natural Voice by Kristin Linklater, who taught at the college I went to and who once told my acting teacher that I had the most emotionally well connected scream she�d ever heard. That is definitely one of the top ten compliments I�ve ever received.

I inscribed the book with an allusion to the play Fences which the two of us had discussed a couple of nights ago:

Dear Matt,

I would love to give you a house where you could sing,

All of my love,

Anna

Read the play and you�ll know what I mean.

I stopped at his place to meet him on our way to band practice and I was wearing what my boss refers to as my Rivendale dress. It�s blue and form fitting on top and has bell sleeves. Matt answered the door with,

Wow�you look so pretty

Pretty. He called me pretty. I almost turned to jelly. And I started giggling like a retarded schoolgirl. He totally didn�t get that I was just going gaga over him and took it instead as me being uncomfortable with his flattery. Silly silly boy. Flatter flatter away, please.

On Saturday he is coming over and we are cooking coco vin, goat cheese and garlic mashed potatoes, and asparagus with some creamy sauce, and for dessert I think chocolate covered fruit and champagne. And then we�re going to work on the techniques from the Linklater book. Then we�ll play some guitar and sing, and I believe that a viewing of Dr. Zhivago is also on the agenda.

Band practice tonight was transcendent. The three of us have our shit together and I am being dead honest when I say that we are fucking terrific. The harmonies are out of this world. Once we have the keyboards and the drums and the second guitar�holy shit. They�ll be no stopping us.

We played for four hours straight. We nailed down and solidified the skeletons of three songs, and came up with a medley of covers by a certain semi cheesy sixties rock band that is gonna knock all ya�all on your asses. While I was singing I�d look over at Matt and he�d be looking at me and we�d both start smiling like crazy because it�s just fucking magic. I really really like being part of an actual group, and I love the contributions everyone is making. The band seems already like a whole unit, and as Matt put it on the way home,

It feels like we�ve just always been playing together.

We have another practice scheduled for tomorrow .

Oh babies, I am so so so SOOOOOOOOO happy right now. I�m too excited to sleep, which pretty much sucks ass since I have to be at work at 8 in the AM.

Office lackey by day, rock Goddess by night. I suppose there are worse gigs than that.