All posts by ester

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well, at long last becca and ben met. 7.5 months after the relationship starts, i introduce one of my closest friends to my boyfriend. waiting for the train on the platform, becca and i discussed why. our opinions mean a lot to each other; always have. maybe i understood that i needed to form a judgement entirely on my own.

after dinner, ross and the two of them conducted a roundtable on the subject of blogs. each of them has a very different character

so it should come as no surprise that they approach webjournaling in different ways. i took notes, becca mediated. “what about sex?” she asked at one point. “who’s your audience?” “what are you hesitant to print?” all confessed that they’re afraid of being boring; the boys insisted, however, that they write primarily for themselves. (why not just get notebooks then? i think there’s definitely something about the internet that makes diary-writing acceptable — more legitimate — for them. maybe for boys in general? i wonder how many male bloggers, or bloggers in general, keep external notebooks.)

the other becca, who was conspicuously quiet during dinner and escaped to mccabe thereafter, cut my hair last nite. no one noticed today b/c i kept it back. changes tend to be weird for me and illogically difficult to deal w/.

but i do like it.

it was all very meta to be sitting up there talking about what we write on our websites. (penn)becca made direct reference to that: we’ll go back and write about this, she said, and then it’ll be interesting to read what we each have to say.

i haven’t thought too much about this website in terms of analysis. maybe now that i’m writing an article for the phoenix about it, i’ll have to reflect. why *i’m* doing this, what purpose it serves for me, who my audience is, etc. a phase thru which every writer must pass, no? over and over again ….

speaking of the phoenix, my review of don’t say a word came out this week (titled, ‘don’t waste your time’). after mocking douglas roundly in the first paragraph, i said:

Wow: if he were a Jew, I�d have his children. Unfortunately, Jewish men in these kinds of thrillers are never the folks that get to be the Ideal Husband, Ideal Father of an Adorable Daughter, and Ideal Hero. Those roles are reserved for the dignified, pure-white likes of Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford and Arnold. Not to mention, of course, Douglas himself.

the line generated a few titters on campus, which i was proud of.

then an illustrious professor emailed me, gently correcting: douglas is jewish. at least, his father is.

d’oh.

ah well. that’ll teach me to be so damn clever.

i need break. i really need to relax, to just spend, as kat says, some quality time Not Thinking.

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i feel like all i’ve done for the past two hours is argue. ross is inexhaustible. we quarreled while shopping: how much should we buy, what, could we carry it all back. as it was a huge load, i made the executive decision that we would abscond w/ the cart, which we did. still a poor substitute for a car.

also helped rob lug boxes earlier. he rewarded me before by buying me lunch and later by telling me i looked like a renaissance painting. he’s taking Arth 1 — i guess such images are fresh in his mind.

pennbecca is coming over to see the barn, eat dinner w/ us (and apparently 50 others…) and meet ben at long last. i’m a little nervous which for me is normal. as you can tell from their journals, they’re very different people. but i love them both so whatever.

i’ll have to finish this in a bit. i’m stressing suddenly. now w/ lastminute additions we’re making dinner for 8; i’m tense; ross reproachful. i don’t mean to be antisocial. it’s just that this is a very high maintainance household and i can’t always deal w/ it. i have to go pick up becca.

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“secretly i want to be in charge of women’s reproductive systems”

–joel

“from now on, people who leave their shit on the dining room table will have it removed.”

“how ’bout from now on, people who leave their shit on the dining room table will have their dicks removed?”

“that works too”

“wait, we should make that gender-inclusive …”

–barn convo in our NOW CLEAN common room (really! come see! it’s amazing)

came home to find our pipes murmuring HOT WATER. our sluggard landlord finally came thru. joel was in HouseCleaning mode — he can be impressively singleminded when he decides to be — he had singlehandedly made our common room and kitchen liveable again. after applauding him roundly, and disappearing to take a much-needed and much-enjoyed 20 minute shower (my hair today looked like the exxon-valdez disaster, like a fucking oil spill, like i’m saying you could see the spectrum in each individual strand, i’m not kidding, i had people following me all day b/c they were mesmerized the purty swirling colors) i attacked our mountain of dishes.

what a satisfying feeling. my hair is wet and calm against the back of my neck, the room around me is tidy and spacious, and we’re about to eat dinner. my film paper deadline has been extended. aimee mann is singing in the background. yes, all is right w/ the world.

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i’m supposed to be doing (read: copying over becca’s) stat hw. walked into kohlberg and found joc, who was poring over dante and was glad (seemed glad?) for an interruption. it’s hard to tell w/ her sometimes b/c she can be elaborately political — hmm, how to phrase this. i witnessed it a lot last year: she goes out of her way to make people feel comfortable, cheerful; she laughs a lot and listens to what they say; but the authenticity of each interaction is kinda questionable. she’s excellent at deflecting personal questions, when she wants to, and keeping herself pretty unknown. b/c i lived w/ her last year, i had a greater-than-average opportunity to experience joc in all her forms, but in large part i think she’s still a mystery. i’m often still onguard as to whether she is actually as enthusiastic as she seems or whether she’s acting for politeness’s sake. paranoia in friendship w/ other folks would probably be enuf for me to drop the friendship, yet w/ joc it’s worth it.

so i just hope she’s being authentic w/ me and leave it at that. whether or not i’m being naive.

becca is struggling w/ questions that i was struggling w/ last year at roughly this time. can you be friends w/ someone after you break up w/ them? i think it’s difficult, more difficult than people lead you to believe, just like everything relating to sex and relationships. when you invest a lot in something, even if only lasts 3 weeks, darling, you can’t expect to just snap out of it and be ready to move on. people are emotional: they brood, they dwell, they deal w/ self-doubt and put themselves thru agonizing self-examination (yuck).

my advice is don’t be hard on yrself and don’t expect too much.

jackie a. sent me a sweet email, altho she mentioned that she’s not auditioning after all for the play. this leaves us in a bind: so far hers was the only name of the signup sheet. is our cast going to be all bryn mawr girls?

and here, incidentally, is her take on the above issue:

we’re not together anymore, but sometimes i feel that we’ve taken out the in-love-ness and the sex and left behind the rest of the relationship, including much of the dependence on each other and almost all of the dysfunctionality. we still fight, we still have the same old problems as before, either in the same form or slightly altered since we’re no longer romantically attached. and it’s not good for me, nor is it good for her, and sometimes i feel like i absolutely must distance myself to some significant degree from her, but i never do, nor does she. and things never change.

granted, that seems like it refers to much more intense relationship but some of the themes are pretty universal. sometimes it’s just hard to be friends after. History is hard to forget.

gaaaaa stress! too much, too much. i just need to make it to this weekend.

and what do you mean stop blushing? sheesh ….

(course, i’m linking it to, ain’t it? i guess i’m just a narcissist too.)

also check out the minister today; he’s in fine form.

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full recovery. well, almost full. my voice seems to have been switched w/ that of some guy: i’ve been speaking in his range all day. sarcasm becomes difficult when you lack the subtle intonations. i hope wherever he is (whoever he is) he’s using my inflections for all they’re worth. also singing loudly, spontaneously, in public, which i only wish i could do. the best i can do is croak.

mentally better too, you’ll be i’m sure gratified to hear. but we’re losing patience w/ rick, our landlord, and his refusal to give us back hot water. he turned it off b/c of a leak in the basement (three floors below us). the situation is getting dire. our dishes have piled intimidatingly high b/c rebecca insists we have to wash w/ hot water; we none of us have showered, and while i can at least tie my hair back and cover it w/ scarves, the boys perpetually look like someone has just shouted “boo!”

about to go see the birds for film class. i’m trying not to think about the huge quantities of work i have to do for this week. i’m accomplishing it task by task, looking forward only to the next hour. if i can keep this up thru friday, i will not only remain sane, but will be very proud of myself.

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okay okay i know i’ve blogged a lot today; this is the last one, i promise.

three things happened late-ish that each individually Made my Day.

1) khadijah and i held a private audition for one of her friends. the auditionee was very nervous; i don’t think she’s acted much before and it’s scary material. she didn’t quite understand the monologue so we kept trying to explain it to her in different ways, trying to get her to loosen up and deliver the speech more naturally. finally she got it — and she started to cry. simultaneously, khadijah and i jumped up asking “are you okay?” “yeah,” she said. “it’s just i thought this was about a girl telling a story. i didn’t realize it was about her being hurt by her friends”

she was affected, seriously affected. and it was just an audition. wow.

2) meeting of The Brink, SuWu’s literary brain child. suzanne was nice to me and she’s just the kind of person that, if she’s nice to you, it translates as a beneficient: “yes, you are worthwhile. now go and do good.” i was inspired, man.

3) got an email from a girl in my SCLP group. she mentioned that she found my poetry and read thru some while procrastinating. “gratitude” she said made her cry. christ, i said. i will love you forever.

becca’s back from florida. the barn, reunited. slight discords overlooked. my own personal melodrama re: having too little drama receded. khadijah and i working well, thinking alike. (course, she also mentioned that she found and read this so khadijah, if you want to say a few words yourself here on that subject or any other, leave a thought).

g’nite folkles. i’m too fucking lucky. i don’t deserve it, man. someday …

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king of pain is playing now in kohlberg, where i’ve been for two and a half hours now, alternatively reading my polisci book on Chadra and looking for distractions. i went to say hi to ben around 1 and he threw a blanket over my head. i slept for two hours. no bad dreams this time.

i showed the DIS (copenhagen program) representative around before lunch, running into garrett, who was mooning around the study abroad office, and corralling him in accompanying us. he’s looking for a place to escape to next semester. the rep and i gave him lots of DIS info. garrett and i aren’t close friends by any means but he’s a good guy and a funny guy and i feel bad for him. he says he’s been depressed here. who knows if scandinavia is the answer? to my mind, tho, it couldn’t hurt. and if he’s going to go somewhere and he doesn’t seem to care too much where, why not keep me company?

i do feel better than i did. wired, actually, buzzing. it’s a false high — and “high” is definitely overstating. at least i’m not sluggish. there are two prose magazines, both new, on campus this semester. one is independently run, one is a child of the established Creative Writing Institution, small craft warnings. i’m going to a meeting of the first tonite and the second wednesday. i’m still bitter about small craft warnings, i may as well admit it; i have a rather nonadmirable propensity to keep grudges like stuffed animals. i have a whole colorful collection.

well, maybe not so many as i once did.

i had dylan’s “most of the time” in my head all morning. no one writes simple, forlorn songs like bob. anyone know what album it’s from? ross and i couldn’t recall.

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lying in bed last nite, after somewhat regaining perspective, locking my door and writing in my real notebook, it occurred to me that maybe what was upsetting me, in addition to the rain and swirling graycold that has been our weather for the past five days, was the general lack of drama in my life. ross’s drama probably drew my attention to my own lack thereof. in the past, solutions to this lay in glass, either little bowls or bottles, both of which are found now in philly. also i have the comfort of what ben and becca (the OTHER ben and becca) think of me — old perspectives, maybe, but warm, complex ones.

i dreamt i lived in the basement of a building full of arabs. i was helping, a relief worker, i guess — i kept having to explain to people about muslim customs and religious practices. when i left the compound finally, exhausted, police surrounded me and tried to put me under arrest. i kept arguing that i wasn’t who they thought i was but they wouldn’t be swayed.

the only other salient detail was that i had a crummy little bathroom and the girl across the hall had the a black-and-white marble palace. bathrooms always appear in my dreams. they’re my most common motif.

what the hell do they mean?

i have to escort a danish representative around campus. i have to feel better. my mouth still burns from the chai. it helps on all counts.

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i feel very reactive, like i’m not taking much initiative myself, a little like i’m drifting. it’s not a depressive feeling exactly, but it’s not too cheerful either. …

the sclp meeting was pretty productive. once more everyone dressed alike (solid, noncontroversial colors). everyone super-nice and super-friendly. meeting over, i trudge home. barnmates elsewhere.

talked to phillyben earlier. turns out he was “jamal” and “jeffords.” sign of how far we’ve drifted: once i would have known that immediately. prank phone calls, for god’s sake. who else would it be? he’s doing fine. i like talking to him, i get to be obscene and vulgar and loud. it’s cathartic. he’s reserved my next week’s movie.

pennbecca and i have tentative plans for dinner thursday. maybe i’ll just go to the city and stay there for awhile. actually that sounds really appealing.

shit i recognize this. this is the everything-feels-like-a-cumbersome-wooden-object feeling, either blocking yr path or lodged between your spine and your skin. this is the moving-slowed-thinking-tapered-off feeling. but why … ?

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i got up this morning for another meeting w/ the for colored girls … folks. khadijah swiped me into sharples and i realized awhile after the meeting started that i was sitting at a table w/ 7 other people, no one other of whom was white, and it was very likely the first time in my life that had ever happened. but because i knew all of them it didn’t feel like as big a deal as some part of my mind thought it should. interesting, though. andy wong, who’s producing, made fun of me for eating a bagel w/ cream cheese. “that’s brunch,” i protested. everyone around me was eating sausages, bacon, eggs, grits.

after i chatted w/ our stage manager, a sweet freshman who thought i was a senior and chided me for not having a coat. “i’ll bring you a scarf,” she said decidely. she lives in the room directly above the one where i lived last year. ellen’s room. she was really unhappy here — i wonder how she’s doing at barnard.

afterwards, i went over to ben and rob’s rooms b/c ben and i had parted kind of rudely (i felt). the door of the dorm was locked so i went over to rob’s windows and called his name. hoarsely, but i do at least have some voice to speak of now. he opened up the window. climb thru, he said. i considered: there’s a trench b/w the grass and the building and the window’s about eightfeet off the ground. but what the hell. he took a picture of me w/ his digital camera as i grinned from the sill.

back at the barn, ross’s guest had left (“who knew that Kid A is such a good makeout album?”) and joel returned. i’m writing my review of don’t say a word (my title: “don’t waste your time”), which marc jolly and i saw last nite after ross’s dinner party. i spent most of yesterday listless and whispering and rereading the princess bride. theoretically it’s dip of the month tonite but we’d have to be fools to go. i’m only just beginning to seriously recover.