i spent a lovely twenty hours in the company of two darkly-curly-haired girls i don’t get to see often enough. when various people called the one whose house it was she chatted briefly then said, “listen, tho, i have two high skool friends over …” funny: i don’t feel like a high skool anything. i guess it’s a convenient label. we rolled our eyes at high skool for the most part and discussed college, marriage, grad skool, when we’ll be adults; baked no-pudge fudge and ate popcorn with sesame oil (hey, that’s good stuff); and watched titanic — yes, titanic — in two parts. and wept. at least i did. i always do.

we slept three to a bed, well, dreamlessly, and woke to continue the conversation until near sunset today. we’re very different, except for hair and height (and body image problems and faith and class …) rather, i should say, we are as different as three female honor students the same age from the same background raised in two-parent liberal households within 20 miles of each other can be while sharing a sense of humor. not that different at all, i guess. i should remember that more often. just like perhaps i’m not that different than i was three years ago when i couldn’t imagine being more than 20 miles apart from them. nostalgia: my drug of choice.

home for the first time in 03 and hours from some of my favorite playmates. well i have three books to comfort me: two my indulgent father bought me yesterday (another chabon, another franzen) and one i’d forgotten my aunt gave me for hannukah.

sidenote: in high skool it was so simple. everyone celebrated hannukah. that was it. no stockings, no ho-ho-ho, no carolling (unless you were mocking them) certainly no presents under christmas trees. when ben’s father added, on the evening designated as their gift exchange, that something lay wrapped under the tree for me, i was so flummoxed i viscerally learned the meaning of the word. that the gift turned out to be classical music — “no words,” grinned ross, looking over my shoulder — unsettled me further. no one ever taught me how to sit still and listen to classical music. after 20 minutes of staring into the candelabra ben’s dad had set up in the fireplace, my ADD started kicking in. when the music ended i wanted to say something profound and simply could not think of a thing. i blame the tree.

ross ben and i had spent that evening with ross’s 2nd set of maternal grandparents, up in the country where they own their own vineyard. george, our disaffected intellectual host, went to harvard and studied government with jfk, for whom the skool was later named. michelle, our redgrave-like hostess, studied at juliard and danced on broadway before shifting her focus to culinary skool. they prepared us a lovely dinner and served their own, surprisingly good wine.

the day before we’d paid a visit to ben’s russian grandmother in the bronx. she compensated for her difficulties with english with her ease with food, urging on us cake fruit chocolate buttered-bread coffee wine brandy.

now after all that family i’m with my own again. i guess i have to get started on that stuff i have to do. or maybe i’ll go read wonder boys … or explore mckee’s website. the guy from adaptation — yet another meta level. wow. that’s the kind of thing i need, a story seminar. structure is my weak point in fiction too. i can’t stand those conventional endings where everyone grows and learns and is happy forever after. i really liked about schmidt’s ending even if i had issues with the film. it worked for that character; it felt plausible. but making that compromise between what’s plausible and what’s palatable is really damn hard.

on new years, you write resolutions. on your birthday, you make wishes. since my birthday and new years lie almost precisely 6 months apart it feels appropriate that the corresponding demands each make are diametrically opposite. except i have trouble with both. on my birthday, i wished for more. now, that round-new-years time, i’m tempted to resolve same. more. only call it Renovation instead of Resolution, a la brilliant liz, and worry cause i don’t mean it to sound like i’m greedy. i’d be fine if things stayed the same. renovation-wise, i just want the evolutions in me to keep on grinding: more of the progress: more courage, more self-sufficience, more adventure, more forgivingness, more openness. basically i’ve been happy since i turned 18 and hit an emotional growth spurt, and i want more.

i’m in new york still, 6 hours south-east of where ben, rebecca, ross and i spent new years. ben, our intrepid invalid coachman, got us safely there and safely back despite wrenching weather conditions. once there we sprawled. i finished three books in the first couple days: rushdie’s east/west, leant to me by the other becca with whom i spent a lovely preface-type afternoon, the ice storm, and the fermata. the latter engaged me most by virtue of being entirely different than anything else i’ve read — ross and rebecca, both of whom have read it before, smiled knowingly at my devotion to it. one review i came across labeled it “morally confused,” from which it derives part of its charm. nearly plotless, insightful, funny, and [borderline?] offensive, i found it squirmingly fun to read.

anyway, we parted from the mountain idyll, having finished off two homemade pizzas, two stirfrys, one bottle of champagne, two bottles of wine, one bottle of kahlua, one pitcher of margaritas, one tray of homemade nachos, one yule log, one pumpkin pie, one apple-pear pie, one package of tortillas, several diet cokes and much more besides, including one afternoon-long monopoly game won by yours truly. for the first time ever, i think.

ross ben and i saw about schmidt in the city, which was more controversial than i expected it to be. pointlessly misanthropic, manipulative and depressing or scathing perceptive reactionary satire? for hours afterwards, ben and i mulled over films that we both find wonderful and rewarding, and we settled on harold and maude, barton fink, and mallrats.

two more weeks of break. is this heaven or what?

last night we weren’t going. ben was sick, hoarse, crackling, in no condition to get out of bed let alone drive. this morning he went to discuss the matter with ross and rebecca on the phone. he came back with a black scarf around his head and a white one around his neck, kissed my cheek, rousing me from a dream of a bomb in a bible in a playground, and said, “let’s go.” will it work? who knows. off we head into the frozen north.

happy new year everyone. see you in 03.

i just found one of the primary ghosts of my adolescence through the internet. twenty minutes of google searching and boom, there she is: address, home phone number, even bizarrely her age. a standard site option flashed, “do you want to buy [her] flowers??” well, no, but apart from that i don’t know much. should i write? should i call? when you haven’t seen or spoken to, heard from or heard about someone in five years, what’s the protocol?

thankfully i cycled past crisis as soon as i wrote about it. i guess that got it out of my system. that and several more movies: breathtaking chicago — who knew richard gere could sing?, or that a severely-waifed-out renee zellweger could make catharine z.j. seem bulky?, or that a musical could be so successfully transplanted to the screen? i enjoyed it as much as adaptation. so far they’re my two favorites. two towers, however exciting and visually stunning, suffers from a less-than-mediocre script and characters who seemed more than ever like Types. catch me if you can, which i saw today with two members of my family on the rare suggestion of my father, is enjoyable and well-done. unique among spielberg’s films for its sex, it compensates for making the encounters entirely devoid of chemistry. still, it’s in no way a film worth remembering.

as for the not-in-theaters, last nite liz and i watched kissing jessica stein — good for romantic comedy, good for a mainstream queer flick, overall seemed lacking somehow. their 3rd act breakup came so suddenly, and the direction was irritatingly irregular throughout — and attempted to watch the first episode of twin peaks. a half hour in or so we turned it off, befuddled, tired of waiting for the trite to magically, surreally, lyncially become, well, magical, surreal, and Lynch. why was it so popular? what gives?

i’m slowly putting together my Top Ten. having not seen about schmidt or the hours i’m reluctant to. for the other 8 so far i’m thinking, in random order:

y tu mama tambien, chicago, adaptation, monsoon wedding, punch-drunk love, catch me if you can, secretary, far from heaven. maybe instead of secretary, bowling for columbine — but secretary was so damned unique. i’m sure talk to her will displace something too once i get around to that.

i think i’m in the midst of a slow creeping crisis. not the melodramatic kind, mid-life or quarter-life or existential or identity. it’s just — suddenly i want to lock myself in a room and write and write and write, and at the same time i want to keep seeing movies and keep reading books cause i have nothing to say. my father made fun of me for tracking down two libraries over the five days we were in florida, but had i been really insistent i’m sure we could have found more. the truth is i don’t entirely know where babblebook is going, anymore than i know where i’m going (existentially) or my sociallife is (identitalllly). (from which we can infer that perhaps this crisis is of the aforementioned varieties, as objectionable — in terms of verboten cliches — as that is.) in between fielding calls, i wonder why no one calls me. i pull old notebooks from the recesses of the closet and pore over them, turning pages coated, hatted and mittened with nostalgia, looking for an answer as to why my journaling has grown infrequent and perhaps forced.

i spent a lovely xmas day with becca and, for a few hours as we revelled in a free showing of funny girl at visions, 40% of the jewish population of the metropolitan area. now i’m off to get my existential ass out of my existential house and to existential bethesda to shop with my perennial partner (in crises and in health) liz and perhaps ari too. no sign of lana, without whom no time at home could be complete. perhaps all i need is another good book, or a kick in the ass, or to lose at tennis.

… and i’m back. not quite so brown as i hoped. my skin has to do that sunset thing: blaze red then fade to a more civilized twilight. there wasn’t enough time to devote to that process when there were so many relatives to be visited, smalltalked with, laughed with, appeased, and met. my father and i spent the majority of the five days together, reading or playing the word game, driving or watching movies. i dragged him to Two Towers, he dragged me to the everglades. boy am i glad i waited til i got home to see Adaptation — had i seen that bit with the gators, i’d never had had the courage to do an airboat tour. recently having seen Jaws was bad enough.

i think about death too much. it’s terrible. my imagination has never let up on me. any new piece of stimulus i feed my brain it translates into a creative new potential torture device. in my room as a child i learned to sleep on my back rather than curl up facing the closet (from which monsters/demons/eyeless doll-children could emerge) or the window (through which robbers/rapists/eyeless doll-children could climb). facing one invited its attackers or demonstrated that you naively expected to sleep safe. more than death even, i’ve always feared being proven naive, dying from a cause i didn’t imagine beforehand.

i’m better now. no i’m not. i sleep 5 times better when there’s someone else in the room, tho when people ask me don’t i mind having a roommate, it’s easier to smile and illustrate how awesome brigid is (“you know she brought three bottles of bootleg liquor with her from home? and we play procrastinatory computer games together …”) i have learned how to sleep on my side. that’s something.

and THAT’s a tangent. the point is i’m home. liz and i ventured out into the cold today to see Adaptation and it was wonderful. a glorious meta-meta-meta movie that poked fun at conventions while showing that, if you’re brilliant, no rules need apply. for erev-xmas, a holiday my family has never celebrated, my mother is making a goose. between cooking and preparing and packing for the trip to florida she and my grandparents are taking tomorrow, she hasn’t slept for the past two nights. tonight my grandparents are coming over to not-celebrate with us (we have champagne!) and it will be beautiful: her feasts always are. she will fuss that i’m going hungry, even though every other plate on the table is piled high with vegetarian stuffs. i’ll want to record every moment because, between good films and good novels — franzen’s Corrections fell open in my lap every spare second in miami; now i’m three-quarters of the way through the equally compelling kavalier and clay — i’m filled with frenzied inspiration. how it’ll manifest itself ultimately i don’t know yet. perhaps in grant writing, cuz really that’s what i have to get done.

merry xmas out there, to those of you who like that sort of thing. and to those of you that don’t, dance, laugh, and thank god that tomorrow, once again, that one innocent, purely happy little day, will bring the xmas song season to an end.

i have an hour. this is more or less the only free hour i’ve had in two weeks, since this bloody finals craziness began. but it’s over. i handed in my curriculum project (“a rose is a rose is a rose by any other name would smell as sweet: a multi-cultural survey poetry class”) at 12:10, only 10 minutes late. i may have written the thing in record time, seven hours between last nite and this morning. still, a showing of harold and maude? who was i kidding?

i packed like a fiend after lunch — it’s easy when everything’s dirty — and even did the Good Girlfriend thing (“i seem to have forgotten my clothes. can you pick them up for me?”) the least i can do i guess for someone who takes such profound-looking pictures of me.

so, somehow, miraculously, i have an hour. i’ve said most of my goodbyes. with not enough time to watch anything, i play freecell disinterestedly and browse webpages and mourn the end of this semester.

winston: “this is not the end. it is not even the beginning of the end. but perhaps it is the end of the beginning.”

me: “no, you doof. it’s just the end.”

few fascinating things have happened to me of late. i’ve written (i COUNTED) easily over 50 pages this finals period — that left precious little time for the fascinating. i’ve still managed to enjoy myself. the advanced poetry reading last night made me nostalgic. not anticipatory, even tho i’m going to be in the workshop next semester. who understands these things. my group of people won’t be as pleasant, it doesn’t seem, but hopefully it’ll still be interesting.

mostly i’ve been nostalgic in general. this was a great semester, possibly my favorite. at the very least it ties with freshman spring. which is better, falling in love or being securely nestled in it (1 yr, 10 months, as of today)?

enough schmaltz. (isn’t yiddish a great language. technically schmaltz = chicken fat. the perfect image.) (why do i never get tired of parentheses?) i guess i have stuff to look forward to too; i’m just not as skilled or practiced in that. i’m taking tennis again next semester, and five credits, and i’m directing — officially! — the mainstage production of next semester: oscar wilde’s an ideal husband. more immediately accessible, i’m showing harold and maude this evening in my room. come, you’re welcome: watch one of the greatest romantic films of all time and help me finish off the kahlua.

when i get home my dad’s taking me to florida for a few days. i’ll attend the family gatherings, nod and smile, and whenever i get a free moment i will conk out under the nearest palm tree. when you next see me, i’ll be brown as a pretzel and twice as salty.

man, this trent lott thing just gets better and better. i’m crossing my fingers that the government continues to be absorbed by iraq’s 12,000 page version of war and peace in arabic and doesn’t pop its head up and provide some distraction (anything! quick, drop a bomb! no, who cares where — look! there! belgium! fine.) before this mess gets as messy as it’s going to be. trent lott, racistfuckhead, ousted for being a segregationist? it’s priceless. besides, if he actually RESIGNS, the DEMOCRATIC governor of mississippi gets to appoint his replacement. imagine! a 50-50 senate! now that’s justice.

if you rearrange the letters TRENT LOTT you get ESTER HAS TOO MANY FINALS TO THINK STRAIGHT. i’ve had one small lovely break: friday evening city dinner+movie with pennbecca. i didn’t enjoy personal velocity as much as my parents enjoyed frida — funny cuz the first has received far more glowing reviews than the second. after septa tried to make my life as complicated as possible, i hitched a ride home from 30th street with the chairman of the history department, his wife (an english professor at temple), and their daughter returning from U-Vt. oh, and another: the immortal eddie izzard’s dressed to kill yesterday evening. if you rearrange EDDIE IZZARD it spells CAKE OR DEATH? usually that’s a pretty easy choice. during finals though, gosh, who can say?