To further my extensive research into human psychology, I recently altered my body into that of a 28-year-old single white woman. After $9,000 dollars worth of laser hair removal, the placement of 14 pounds of sculptor's putty, and a substantial amount of almost-nude time in the changing rooms of Ann Taylor and Neiman Marcus, I was ready to date the human male. I posted lonely-hearts ads in Yahoo Personals, the Washington City Paper, and on the telegraph poles of suburban Northern Virginia.

Within days I had three dates lined up. What a boost to my self-confidence! The first was with Malcolm, a lobbyist for his own cause. His mission in life is to persuade the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to include National Bohemian beer in the food pyramid. Over dinner at a fashionable Italian restaurant, Malcolm talked at length about the vitalizing properties of "Natty Boh." If the cereal manufacturers of America (Malcolm has a special loathing for the Archer Daniels Midland company) could get that pernicious, leprechaun-flavored breakfast food included in the pyramid, sense would surely prevail and the administration would find a place for National Bohemian.

After one date with Malcolm, I realized that men have only one other thing than sex on their minds. So, with his beery sermon still ringing in my delicately lobed, ever-so-cute ear, I went out the following evening, with great trepidation, to the grand opening of a wretchedly retro hamburger joint with a greaseball prick named Kyle. He, too, was a lobbyist. Kyle was passionate about D.C. statehood. He told me of the demonstrations he'd participated in, and the letters he'd written to the UN Commission on Human Rights.

His passion overflowed (as did my embarrassment) when he conducted an impromptu straw poll of diners and returned a 99% percent approval rate for his position. The dissenting voice was based on the opinion that any city where you can't get true Chicago deep-dish pizza 24-7 deserves no recognition or representation whatsoever. I think the only reason Kyle didn't start a brawl then and there was out of consideration of how utterly adorable I looked. (I bat my eyelids like a pro, you know.) I genuinely considered allowing Kyle to reach second base that night, but recalled how he'd manhandled his half-pounder with cheese and reconsidered. My silicon implants couldn't likely withstand that much of a pounding.

It saddened me that I was approaching my third and final date. I so enjoyed being a young, professional woman-- all the attention, all the beautiful clothes, not having to adjust your sac every seven minutes-- these things make being a woman very special. My third date was with not a lobbyist. In fact, David Speke had little concern with the machinery of politics. He lives, instead, in his own tragically romantic world. It's a world in which Byron and Shelley, Isherwood and Auden stand at the grave of Wilfred Owen and weep eternally for beautiful, doomed youths. Initially, I thought David was so gay. Not that Circuit party, rippled-bod type of gym-queen, but one of those literature gays-- one who knows the wiles of literatures' beguiling females and the downward glances of callow, love-starved boys.

David had chosen an unremarkably decorated (another strike against my gay supposition!) macrobiotic restaurant for our date. He recommended the roasted red pepper and potato soup, and I must commend his choice. Over the course of our long evening together, David introduced me to the music of Heidi Berry. David dwelt on her years growing up in Boston, the daughter of a French Canadian jazz-singing mother and an artist/actor father. David passed lightly over Berry's relationship with ex-Loft (now Wisdom of Harry) guy Pete Astor. I detected a polished jealousy. David reserved his most rapturous words for Berry's early work, notably a track called "North Shore Train."

David told me that he'd first heard "North Shore Train" on a Creation Records sampler called Doing for the Kids. Amid the Momus and Primal Scream tracks, "North Shore Train" harkened back to the romantic poets David so admired. But rather than a song of lost love, David described it as being a song of beautiful despair and a delicate absence of hope. The song is about a train ride from Salem to NYC and the rusted abandonment of the towns along the coast of New England. With a string arrangement every bit as haunting as Richard Kirby's on Nick Drake's "Way to Blue," Berry's elegantly limited vocals give her lyrics an uncommon sensitivity and humanity. David told me that he couldn't live if he could never hear this song again. For years, "North Shore Train" had worked a mysterious glamour upon him. I understand how he feels.

David also told me about other Heidi Berry songs and albums, and perceiving that I was becoming more and more entranced, he gave me a small present: a copy of Pomegranate, an anthology of Heidi Berry's songs. David moved his chair to sit directly next to me, and I shuffled my chair as close to his as was decent. I smelt the shampoo with which he'd washed his hair-- a scent reminiscent of the heathery, wind-swept scent of the Yorkshire moors. Languid, lovelorn sigh. David continued to point out the songs on Pomegranate that were especially meaningful to him.

I noticed how David's lips flushed with adoration as he discussed Spartan ballads such as "Washington Square" and "One-String Violin." He was unsure about "Needle's Eye," a sinister tune in which Berry becomes possessed by a pre-Raphaelite incarnation of Siouxsie Sioux. Candidly admitting to being hardly a huge Bob Mould fan, he swooned at Berry's version of Hüsker Dü's "Up in the Air." Berry's elegantly limited contralto contrasts sublimely with a lyric about escape. David noted how Berry has made the most of her limited range, just as Linda Thompson had done before her. I agreed, although I was distracted by a comment he'd made about "Little Fox" being hewn from the same rock as "North Shore Train"-- I dallied on this because he'd made such a big deal about that song (and one I now realize was justified).

The only definite thing I concluded from my study of the human male is that while I probably could have had room-wrecking great sex with that sweat-slob, Kyle, I would have settled down with the dreamer David. Of course, I have no plans to alter my sex or engage in a same-sex relationship right now. But knowing that there are men out there who more than just appreciate the beautiful melancholy of Heidi Berry makes me feel more comfortable about being who I am and who I might choose to become.

-Paul Cooper