having little to do is a serious predicament, particularly right now. even when amusements present themselves, a good time isn’t guaranteed. for instance, last night i went to to the a capella jamboree, a swarthmore tradition in which twelve-too-many a capella groups sing sets that are five minutes too long. that’s not the point though. the event can still be enjoyable and occasionally it was.
in the last set, the sight of one individual forced a realization down like a piano on my head: the seniors are leaving. the seniors are leaving. that individual, and another that he reminded me of, a girl i’d always wanted to be friends with, would be leaving; i’d never see either again.
i managed to regain my composure when the group did something funny. but that backfired: i congratulated one of the members of that group in a way that my companions alerted me was stupid. i hate knowing i’ve said something stupid. if i could have, i would have chased that guy down, tackled him and forced him to give me it back. sadly i couldn’t and now i’ll know that he gets to carry my stupid remark around with him forever.
this wouldn’t have mattered so much if i hadn’t been sad. o was i sad. as soon as i escaped my companions i started bawling. i mean on the stairwell. in a way there’s no better place — stairways have cathedral quality acoustics. at least no one happened upon me and my resounding misery in the stairwell.
better today. still aimless. i finished postcards from the edge whose happy ending — and plot, and structure, and focus — differs entirely from the film version. i love carrie fisher’s voice. it reminds me of dorothy parker, jean rhys, and rebecca eisenberg, of everyone in fact who writes well about neurotic witty upper-class women. i think i used to read so much about neurotic witty upper-class women that i wanted to be one. now i’ve read so much of the same that i decidedly do not. that’s growth.