I AM THE MALCONTENT. Malevola? {refusetolearnit to this day} because of
this Elizabethan monstrosity that my brain’s buckling against. My being
is refusing to write! My anadiplotic asyndetonic convoluted (Thanks,
Whitman, I finally since January understand you) interconnected
coherent argument-forming character cluster etcs. are taking hours and
agony. I have prosoufflepreparecrastinated, basically written letters
to every uncle aunt I have, done nothing concrete like research or
laundry in place, but have, like, spilled birth control pills
everywhere and fretted a lot. I really like John Marston and I really
like the security guards at work and I really like comparing myself to
other people then feeling so, so disillusioned then feeling lots
better–but I am so tired of writing this paper! I pinball from feeling
over-qualified to feeling unprepared entirely: I SHOULD READ MEASURE FOR MEASURE
AGAIN or something. Not something–I should write this beast. I am a
little over halfway done and it should take two to three hours, not
five days, not six study sessions, not tears and an hour just
walking… around… Whole Foods…

I was invited to a big film premier club schmooze party those Sex and
the City ladies would actually maybe consider attending and finally
feel like a member of my university community even though I won’t go
because I have my IBUS final due the next morning killme. I keep
thinking I’m going to get A-minuses in everything and then doing
anything but the Marston monst. I don’t know whether to love Collins or
hate him, and keep writing in red Sharpie on Post-Its all over notes of
less important than this could-lower-my-grader of a Marston mess like
Buy Grandmamma sweet plush Robin Red Breast for birthday!!! when it’s
not until after after finals–summer classes will actually have
started!–and I will be so busy on a blanket in Central Park around W.
81st reading Thackeray or something and painting (having?) my nails and
drinking HARD Lorina’s.

Nick and I spent two hours tonight under the covers talking
about/lusting after what we’d do on days home from school, be it true
truancy or actual infirmity. Right now I ache for one of my
grandmother’s lumpy handmixed milkshakes and MY INNOCENCE. I can’t
decide whether to take a million classes or one this summer, to go to
Scotland or instead to the islands or actually just to stay on this
silly island (through August). I should do something.
Ewwwwwwwwwwfinals.

Last weekend I found myself in this glorious karmic-payback thing
scenario: God sent Greg, Nick and I, still ablaze with post-Walk the
Line Johnny Cashfervor all humming “Ring of Fire” down to Ruby’s for
Bronte burgers and Australian beer because the boys’ ground beef went
bad, only to discover that they were out of meat. Oddly, as I
was Alito-bashing on the phone with some ACLU solicitor, coworker Kevin
returned Nick’s phonecall announcing he was coming bearing Burger Joint
burgers with a Harvardian and a Cornell cronie as an even exchange for
the veritable bucket we concocted of Kamikaze shots and bottled
Yuengling, my new absolute favorite beer (which isn’t saying much) on the planet. In
attendence were the usual suspects–sundry suitemates from Nick’s
loftish dwelling of eleven all-males, Dom and Al, and a Scrabble board.
I pranced from beverage station to beverage station and y-chromosome to
y-chromosome dishing out double shots and kicking ass by a huge margin
in the word game. A semester of living in an STD-cesspool-y coed
internmecca’s taken away that residual “guys are here, weird!”
reaction, but the utter lopsidedness of this soiree seemed so utterly
opposite of what I was experiencing right down to the night a year
before that I had to bask in it a little bit.

Conversely, I’m
horrified about Formal Academic Re-entry. I’ve been whittling away at a
stack of everything I’d wanted to read since Senior Summer since
September, and thinking lots, but not writing or responding or
discussing or, I fear, really digesting. It’s agonizing, and I hate
these silly full-circles of Lit Fiendery –> Disenchantment with
Classmates/Instructors/Myself/Who Knows What –> Feelings of Utter
Inadequecy/Terror of Impending Unemployment –> Desire to Attend
Professional School –> Revulsion at Corporate Environment –>
Re-dedicating Myself to Academia. I feel like I’ve ruled out both
options with my antics this semester and that not enough of my heart’s
anywhere to know what to register for in the Spring. What I ought to
do’s: buck up, be swallowed again by Auden, and realize that English Is
It. AIN’T NO SHAME!

I, overly guest-relations-primed arrived Wednesday and also riding out
an immense independence/poverty streak did not take a cab but rather
the A Train all the way from Far Rockaway in Queens–gasp. Coupled with
my following marijuana into the only well-windowed room of Nick’s
coworker’s damn adorable Thompson St. apartment, this sent me off the
My Girlfriend’s Growing Up Scale and into the realm of I Want to Marry
You, and it’s so ironic because the consequent last thing on my mind’s
matrimony. So:

-I ate my way through the city. We had
near-daily dim sum in Chinatown’s Sara D. Roosevelt Park among
shirtless European soccerplayers and impossibly-emerald turf, Bronte
burgers from Ruby’s, almost-nightly cannoli at Palermo–oh, the joys of
residing where Chinatown slams into Soho straddles Little Italy.
Back-to-back wine nights post-dosa and pre-Positano only primed me for
cocktails and La Esquina avocado tacos… how I’m fitting the business
attire upon return’s a mystery to me.

-I absorbed enough
testosterone in those seven nights lofted with eleven males to undo
even more than my nine months of Mt. Holyoke damage. But it wasn’t all
bodily function humor and lesbian porn–I finally had a See How This is
All Fitting Together moment (or ten thousand) during a long long
discussion on corporate ethics with Al, and bonded almost disturbingly
rapidly with Nick’s outdoorsy budding-History prof of a hilarious and
utter foodie roommate, Greg, whose parents OWN A CANDY COMPANY. Free
licorice and incredibly satisfying conversation??? I was sold. We’re
all entertaining the idea of running off to Wyoming in January and
renting a huge house and skiing and cracking up fireside and apres-ing
heartily, to be certain. I’d love to have that happen.

-I got
to see Emily lots and Mark a little and both were a great delight. O
that I will be finally with nearly everyone wonderful in my world, and
soon.

-I, upon awakening, omeletting, sending Nick off with a
kiss, browsing Calypso Enfant et Bebe and buying a red pepper from Dean
and Deluca then meeting him again for sandwiches in the park before an
afternoon of room straightening and reading Rushdie and an evening
spent sauce-thickening realized how I do need a career to be taken
seriously in this (any, I assume) relationship, which is good, because
I’m no longer glorifying stupid things that aren’t substantial. I’d
much rather grab that pepper in a rush home and then have help with the
salad, because I hated answering “What did you do this morning?” with
“Spent six minutes searching for a perfectly ripe pepper!” after weeks
and weeks of I MET THE COOLEST EXECUTIVE WHO WORKED ON… or I SOLD A
PAINTING IN ITALIAN, SOMEHOW! or even just GOSH MY LIFE SUCKED TODAY
BUT AT LEAST I HAVE ONE.

I hate being blindingly in love and
back to e-mailing letter writing goofy text bombarding cell phoning
thrice-daily etc., but there are things to look forward to (Everything
is Illuminated, Folk Art Museum, bookgroup, Saturdays off, the city
again in December and Taboo Night and Emeril’s for vodka tonics–I have
to list them to feel better, but it works) and great literature and bad
music and it’s just two more months. I am having a tough time juggling
friendships all over–I feel like Nick Time takes out of
Jeff/Josh/Kioko/Will Time, as does girl-roommate time, that Coworker
Time’s superfluous since I see them every damn day, but still,
cocktails and gallery takings-in and films and food are fine, and
always that I’m so far from the Northerners and forever fighting the
urge to just drive beachward to a wonderful family bed pool kitchen and
Erin’s just an hour and a half up and over, aaack. More concerted
effort here I come, plus Sorry I’m Sketchy CDs, which I must burn NOW.

Oh my gosh, I’m reading this Abbe Prevost and feeling
overexteeendeeeed. Nick seemed notenthusiastic with me tonight out of
sheer exhaustion and I, petty still (some), told my mother who turned
it into one big you oughtn’t visit him in early Decemberfest, + you are
lavish and spend way too much money on everything like prosciutto and
travel, and hurt my heart so I called back Nick and woke the poor
darned chap up and sniffled a lot for a good hour and he is SO
REASONABLE, SO RATIONAL, pulls out these amazing kernels of just
sagacity and salve-stuff that I just cannot contest so now I am
yippeeee, in love, and wanting things to be fine with my mother even
though the whole issue is: look at me, I’m independent, I don’t need
your blessing!!!, though goodness it feels much better to have it. I
guess it’s like senility, how in the old changing habits appetites
ranges of mobility memories temperaments and sooo on help us see It’s
Not the Same Person, although I’m sure like almost everything I think
and feel of late, that’s something Everyone Else realized ages ago. I
just adore my mother and think she has the best sense of humor and wish
I didn’t have to be essentially entirely financially dependent on her
because I guess she couldn’t criticize my choices but I suppose she
would anyway inherent-or-some-way-ly so I may as well mooch and so
forth. But ew, holding things over the heads of others or flinging them
in another’s face equals NE COOL PAS with me.

This applies to roommates, partic. J.W. Krissy and I were thinking of
plastering a Signs That You Suffer From Passive-Aggressive Disorder and
Coping Strategies Etc. print-out on J.W. and Moriah’s door, but we soon
realized that it’d be a little, well,
passive-aggressive to do so. Last week hands-down boasted the highest
concentration of amazing young ubran working-folk social experiences I
will likely ever enjoy again–the wine flowed so Friday, and I prepared
a cornucopia of fall flavor thing dinner party with Jeff to the sounds
of old standards we ended up merlot-sloppy swingdancing to for about an
hour, and everyone ate drank merriment-made and all until late then
carried our things/us, essentially, back to our apartment and we talked
’til later still. I awoke utterly aching, and so read the whole day
off, but recovered in time for two nights’ later’s martini nighting, a
hilarious evening that saw our flambouyant Jeff and his
typically-straight-laced Kenyan suitemate Kioko escort Kristan,
Arlaine, Lauren (the best girls I know here right now) and I to the
lounge where I met so so so many eager professionals I hardly remember,
danced until my legs couldn’t hold me, and just laughed the night away.
Barring a little roommate tension, the transition from cocktails to
Folk Art Museum volunteering to my not-too-stressful workweek and back
to SoCo Wednesday was a smooth one, and we finally assembled all four
of the 10301 boys for a grand night both in and out which culminated in
an e-mail through which I expressed to Nick my love for him with all my
awareness, among other things (we still all wonder at that one), and we all played football by the clubhouse and I caught the
silly thing! Jeff and I want a lot of the same things out of life (men,
for one… and literature) and I think Kris wants such different things
that we all set one another of in weird, challenging, dynamic, but
utterly addictive directions. Ever since things have been tame; I’ve
just been reading lots of nonfiction and thinking about certain social
issues. I’ve also become very close with David, who is the nicest boy
and so intelligent and gentle and promises me an epidural and a half if
I ever do reproduce because he is studying to be an anesthesiologist.

I don’t really need anything to happen, except there’s a little peace to be found, but I am fortunate.

This week I was struck a new sort of summer-sick: sick for some reason
for the West coast, for afternoons where all the world asked of me was
that I navigate grape-clothed hills and pick at shrimp ceviche grinning
at Nick eating a burrito the size of my torso in the soft sunlight etc.
There’s a problem (or maybe not): that whole time we talked of nothing
but a grand Alps getaway this winter, ordered the ROMANTIC EUROPEAN
WINTERS FOR REFINED FOLKS AND SO FORTH Frommer’s and emptied our
pockets into an empty carafe crayoned Wine Fund for January,
essentially. But now, after last weekend’s realisations and the
present’s sort of sorry state (I’m beyond overworked and a truant and
my throat’s sore and other things) my dream destination is really the
least glamorous cabin you’ll rent me in Wyomingish with the most stars
and the biggest fireplace.

My work is this odd brainwashhybrid: menial meets noble, and my
roommate darling and my spirits high, sadly, I feel, the result of coed
interaction, finally, which I could have gotten to begin with. No
matter! I’ll think of it as an extended summer job, with an emphasis on
the cashflow and corporate exposure and will say to myself seven times
a day I’m an Intern, it’s a Little to be Anticipated this triviality.
What I’ve been doing is: (albeit much-needed) socializing,
incessantly–sushi hystericallaughterfests, cocktail parties, wine
tastings, watching Al Capone specials on the History Channel and
hottubbing with Heinekens with my new Urban Family of sorts, Krissy and
Jeff, with far-reaching othersstrata but mainly and always back to
those two. OHMYGOSH I can’t stand up straight after nine hours in three
and a half inch heels, I took them off and security laughed at me
prancing into the complex in stockinged feet and Rainbows. If I can
survive four more hours of it in the morning I’m having dinner in this
gracious verandahed Mediterranean place for the madre’s birthday,
imbibing all the white wine I can handle, then running around Epcot
with some friends before Japanese and a MUCHNEEDED night spent at my
parents’ before the day off I’d die without we’ll spend sunning in
Cocoa Beach. Goodness. I’m getting a library card tomorrow, and I’ll do
everything I need to by Thursday, how’s that? Erin’s near, Emily too,
even, but not Nick, and gosh I miss feeling that way. I think being in
the same time zone at long last’ll aid that, but sheesh, we haven’t had
a conversation where he’s not distracted or I’m not hysterical or he’s
not hungry or I’m not tipsy in a week, and it’s been the most
burstingattheseems week I’ve experienced in a while so it’s
particularly awful. I like knowing even things like I had Crispix or My
run was cut short, and tonight we had jobs applied for and plans
dramatically altered. I hate sweeping overviews and I need to be more
disciplined, but Monday I’m mailing him Dinosaur stickers and cigars
for him and the boys, and god hopefully I’ll be able to set aside time
I’d kill to be spending with him to talk and write and think. Three hours of sleep a night on
average’s no good, and neither is my coked-up-seeming inability to slow
down. AAAAAH, WORKING WORLD.

I haven’t gotten to write about it yet the bike trip for we were too
busy afterward pooling packing and so forth, but last weekend Erin and
I did 36 miles, cold, around the county and it was incredible. We set
off so early there was still dew and all, for you know you have to in
Florida in early August/anytime, really. We reached the highway (our
usual trek’s ending-point) with into-traffic shouts of -I’m not tired
yet! and hardly-heard -Me neither!s, and at the risk of being all Y Tu
Mama Tambien-y and interrupting perfectly self-sufficient adolescent
antics with a too-long pause and half-pertinent social commentary, in
translation, that’s where I feel the trip took a turn. The striking
juxtaposition of Riversedge estates with the Prison-passing shortcut
Erin proposed (they got quite the kick out of us pedaling by in Soffes
down crumbling Detention Center Lane letmetellyou…) made the journey
not only physically grueling, but Tour de Economic Spectrum of Brevard
County-y as well. We stopped for a lovely lunch in Cocoa Village at a
casual cafe with an enchanting courtyard view, then researched puppies
for an hour or so in the Central County Library, right on the water and
well-stocked on grooming, etc., guides. I love Erin so and it felt
amazing to collapse afterward on her formal living room floor–it’s so
serene in there–and look at the collectible plates on the wall in
exhaustion. We rewarded ourselves pre-her going away party the next day
with a nice long float in the pool and new cosmetics, then watched
movies at my house avec Gobstoppers which led to Amber and I laughing
uncontrollably for a good half-hour in my bed and actually calling Nick
at past-midnight I fear his time and asking him to impersonate Arnold
S. in Kindergarten Cop. O “VHULD YOU LIKE TO SHTROKE MY FEGHRET?!”, O
SUMMER!

Life at times like this isn’t trying to say But look what better than
Best Love Ever’ll come your way or See now what you’re learning! but
rather Appreciate what you haven’t, Choose with conviction and is
forcing me to face one big o the humanity and relate outside my pretty
little “You here, You here, Me drinking a mango smoothie with You here,
and You a block away ready to meet Us at the gallery” paperdoll game
that never ever pans out etc. So I read accounts of authors I
admire–Auden living in Berlin slums after Oxford for a year and say
this is only five months and I’m living in a trendy area and have my
mind and the Museum, and of the eccentric peer-worshipped selling fried
chicken or undertaking (the dead), and then my French phrases calendar
reminds me with parenthetic asides of (lit.) or (idiom) that EXPERIENCE
MAKES THE MAN.

To list the Good Things, I’m going this weekend to Gainesville to see
Erin’s new apartment, her ship painting mounted and to walk the town
and read and have tea and talk, finally–it’s been over a week and I’m
right spasming without her to reason things through with. I’m having
lunch with a high school friend I haven’t seen since graduation Monday,
and the member of one of three romances forbidden for religious reasons
but clandestine continuing that I hear updates on at least monthly,
even though we decided it’s silly to add At least we’re ALLOWED to be
together! to the Why Things Could be Worse list. I want to emerge from
the year two thousand five not jealous of anyone, ever, and with sheer
charisma and the ability to be gracious to every being on the planet.
If not, at least Nick and I and maybe the others will be going skiing
for a week then, perhaps even in France.

Doctor Zhivago’s savory on maybe an even disproportionately-so
level–I’m rationing it hourly and reading Tell Me the Truth About Love
over and over in between. Does anyone else feel weepy and fatigued
every time they fly from Pacific time back to Eastern, so that I can
please blame this Zhivagofervor on jetlag? (Marin County’s as amazing
as ever, I was never so happy to see Emily, and Nick and I are closer
yet as friends, with newfound classic rock fiendery on my part and the
freshest food and mad soulshaking love for all.)

SOMEHOW this summer between Sargent signings-in and fiery sentiment
well(sometimes)-directed (Carson McCullers said: “The ideas were so
chaotic, so inconceivable, he could not formulate his protests.” I
looked at that big-eyed then my wall, then wanted to dog-ear it
violently or smear its print with flamingo-hued highlighter fluid in Clock Without Hands tonight), after ego-inflating
overestimates of my programming abilities —> tears, at night, at 4
and entreaties and resignation (quitting/surrendering/sobbing/and so
forth) I reached Where I am Now which I for the first time in ayear,
exactly, wouldn’t change. !!!!!. Right now I have a lucrative if
menialish internship beginning in August, a grand volunteer position
with Orlando’s NPR station reading the NYTimes to the
visually-impaired, Planned Parenthood eventswork, art museum envelope
stuffing, and a network of friends I’ve learned to accept still love me
though we cannot always sleep within five feet of one another/keep up
with letter writing. The thing I want most is to emerge from this
unexpected ebbIguess Gracious.

Nick for twelve days came in July! We did Florida Things: braved the
crowds at Magic Kingdom for a fine wonderful dazzling cuisine reward of
latest-seating dinner on the top floor of the Contemporary during the
fireworks show with explosions so close we couldn’t see their golden
tip-tops from our prime windowside table THANK YOU, INTENDED OCCUPANTS
FOR CANCELLING @ LAST MINUTE. He’s just dreamy–we made eyes at each
other still after six months strong across some damn-good gouda, Splash
Mountain-ed shorts (entirely unappropriate attire) and all. Then I got
a Flash Migraine, passed out-ish in my polenta, and had to be rushed
home, without Cherries Jubilee and with the help of one composed,
-passionate companion who had to navigate the unfamiliar: monorail
system back to my car parked miles from another theme park, network of
gas stations from which to purchase Excedrin, interstates leading back
beachward–how romaaaantic!
I also enjoyed
especially the evening he, Erin and I ended up on the floor of my
former library painting New York City, windmills, and abstract
peacock-centered arabesque, respectively, and drinking merlot from the
bottle. Nick ate pancakes every morning, inhaled whole cartons of
cookies by night, and drank an entire half-gallon of milk each
morning–it was joyous. I have never fried so many ounces of bacon
daily in my life, nor frequented the Taco Bell drive-thru like I did
that week and a half. My entire extended family adored him which felt
wonderful and I will miss him so much this fall but will thankfully be
as busy as can be.

My mother’s had these suitable sayings and excerpts waiting for me on
the breakfast table when I wake up–not Everything Happens for a
Reason!s, but smart, silky snippets from Alcott and (hahahaha) Lady Chatterly’s Lover,
of all things, about sadness and triumph, because I have hated this
year. They are comforting, alone and in the knowledge: that she had
them ready–marked and lining her own tall, narrow bookshelf to
transcribe, and that I’m doing the right thing.

This is definitely a very hideous layout. I’m sick and toying around with cool (huecool palettesense, not like, righteouscols, duuuuude!
cool) colors half-assedly in bed. It’s I’ve realized the first time in
history that attention and cold motherhands and Caffeinefree Diet Coke
slushies haven’t brought on a surge of 11:00 p.m. relief, of F. Scott
Fitzgerald novels to be relished the next absent day from school and
all. For old truant time’s sake I pulled The Last Tycoon from my bookshelf, but all I’m feeling is feverish–what a drag.

I returned from California just a little over too long ago to blame
oheverything on jetlag. The Sonoma County weather allowed for Pacific
Ocean visits, clifftop enchilada consumption (sunbonnetted), and walks
to the small park in Nick’s neighborhood where we waltzed a little
around sandspurs and greeted a black lab named Pinot and his
former-all-boys’-school-classmate master, full skirted me and always
arm-in-arm and grinning. It was wonderful to do House Things, things
that idyllic/suicide-inducing Holyoke hilltops don’t allow and that the
endless New York urge to dart from Degas to Ethiopian into a cab with
Chris and Em and then back for coffee or cocktails and so onandonandon
overlooks–things like him achieving one-quarter-inch thick
chicken  noisy with the tenderizer while I pan-toast pine nuts for
the sage pesto we decided not to storebuy, or me curling up in his worn
plaid pajama pants to watch 700 Club and discuss sleepy over Crispix.
Evenings we’d each read our respective Faulkners on one overstuffed
burgundy sofa, scrambling for each other between hodgepodge hors
d’oeuvre servings, like I was Gloria only without the steel brat
circumstances and much more soulmatelike, silly, ranch-styled. And not
I mean to be trite or spiritual or supermarket smut-line-y, but the
entire time I felt like the breasted, nail painting half of a big
divine thinking challenging supporting and forever-laughing-hard unit.
I miss him so!

I’ve imposed upon myself a similar sentence to last summer’s–I’ll be
working for a local tech company doing documentation for their
heavily-accessed opensource programs and other technical writing tasks.
It seems there will be though room for creativity, and coupling this
with light lovely hours at the museum should result in both
productivity and satisfaction. How nice and job interview-y, and now
for a few pictures:

I DON’T WANT TO STUDY FOR MICROECONOMICS THEREFORE I AM REFLECTING ON MY YEAR!

I received feedback finally on something New and Now I’d written. I
haven’t the Frank-amended piece of fiction itself on hand to TRANSCRIBE
HER DISSATISFACTION WITH MY WORDS AND WAYS but mingled with highest
praise were along-the-lines-of-these things: This is cryptic, this is a
code you’re asking the reader to crack and it’s a bit too demanding and
This is a weak, cop-out adjective–say what you mean and choose one!
after my description of a Tribecan tower as “rising windowed, chrysler
buildinglike,” among other evidentlyineffective things. I put a lot of
thought into whether or not to capitalize the chrysler and the building
and some (that) odd little compellingwhatever compelled me
aesthetically? or then why? not to. I had been thinking about William
Van Allen and about weight, about structures bearing it well and the
Marshall Fields warehouse which was in Chicago and succeeded at just
that; I wasn’t thinking I’ll Use This As Opposed to TALL or SILVER–it
wasn’t even TALL or SILVER in my mind just a great way to say “like
some structure with larger windows at the bottom that narrow and are
spliced-rising as they spear skyward (and all!). Gosh, criticism! But
if I can’t write successful short fiction (though I am certain I’ve
secured an A, after that (those–that’s another story) hugs I got today
(etc.), can’t create these little self-sufficient universes in which I
Know My Characters and Flesh Them Out and Show the Setting But Not too
Much and satisfy but also evoke and provoke, then what genre am I
suited for? The apathy one, please, can I write Xanga entries about
school and love forevar, please, even when I’m an investment banker or
housewife/at home this summer, all summer? (Mmmm.)

It’s been an awful year: I’ve met cruel, cruel girls who did things I
bet girls in high school did but that I managed to avoid because I read
books all day and got to go home at 2:40 p.m., my brain constricted in
this weird way that felt like lifebloodpoetryenergy stuff no longer
flowed through it and I was a cookie-eating gym-going penis-discussing
machine, able to write fluidly only about art history and chronically,
immensely, oppressively unhappy but unable to identify quite why.
(HMMMMMM????) In September I had some experiences I’d occasionally want
to dramatize, really, in these silly screenplay mindmoments. October
and November were hellishish, and December cold and filled with a
little triumph and even less introspection. I read Harper’s and all,
along the way; I earned great grades etc., there were a few novels for
pleasure but what is it about Mount Holyoke College that makes me
miserable miserable miserable and infinitely out-of-touch with just
about everything? It all improved around when I took yoga, pilates, and
kickboxing all at once and read Edna Ferber novels for about four days
straight because of the snow. I went to New York City and laughed and
had incredible Greek, Italian, peanut butter, and Moroccan foods with
Emily and her exhuberant floormates, one of whom I proceeded to fall
slowly and permagrinningly, deeply and thoroughly and
all-faults-encompassingly in love with. Nicholas!

We find good things to say about even the Bad People, we do accents and
giggle and he’s incredible at Physics & other such pursuits but
mainly reading and writing. Our backgrounds are oddly sosimilar and
he’s the kindest, most rational but also spontaneous boy in the
universe who understands entirely my mannerisms, my mind, and can allay
silly needless fears before they even arise. Hooray for Nick. Other
things: I’m transferring in the fall, I’ve decided not to go to Boston
or Belgium for the summer months but rather to spend time at home with
Erin, my mother, others cooking and working at a museum and
soul-searchin’ and restorin’. I
don’t much like these sweeping summaries! Maybe I’ll write lots again
as to never have to do them.