Home.
<<2003-03-17 - 3:04 a.m.>>

We had Chloë and Nikki over for dinner, and I made pasta with tomato sauce and opened a bottle of wine and we all sat around the dining room table like real live adults. Then we went out for ice cream.

And it appears that Megan is really here with Chris, not with us. Which is kind of too bad. I like Megan a great deal and I've been seeing less and less of her. It's not that I dislike Chris at all, it's just that despite our many superficial similarities, we don't seem to click, and they have a hard time keeping their hands off each other, so spending time with the two of them together is rather difficult. In any case, she came over for dinner but a couple of hours later Chloë walked her down to 10th and Broadway to meet Chris and some of his friends.

The themes of the day go round in circles. I felt like I was on and off the phone with John all day. His run-in with Chloë didn't help matters. He was apparently extremely worried that I hadn't called right when I got in, and so he was trying to find my parents' cell phone numbers (or something, I was pretty much half asleep while he was trying to explain) and in the service of this he decided to call Chloë's mother. Chloë answered the phone. John asked to speak with her mother. Chloë apparently didn't recognize his voice and passed him along to her mother, who, blissfully unaware of any issues, said "Oh, you can ask Chloë these questions!" and handed off the phone.

Awkwardness. John said "I'll talk to you later." Chloë, who says that she was caught by surprise, said "No, you won't." John said "Fine then, I won't talk to you." Click.

Awkwardness. This creates a less than ideal atmosphere in which to discuss my feelings for John with Chloë, which I will definitely need to do if I'm planning on getting Involved. Oh dear.

And she seems quite upset about it; he called while she was over, with unpleasant news that time for talks with Iraq is rapidly ticking away, and she leaned her chin on her hands and looked at me and said, "Tell him I'm sorry." I did. His response: "Whatever."

She called him again, later. Said "I'm sorry" again before he hung up. She said, oddly, that she wanted to finish things so that they would be open. I did not comment on the paradox. I told her I've been mising her, which I have.

And Nikki was going to stay over, but decided, while I was on the phone with John for the fourth or fifth time of the day that she wanted to go home, and I felt guilty, like it was something I'd done, something I hadn't done, something wrong, and she said, as the elevator door closed, that she was having "Chloë issues." Everyone seems to be having Chloë issues lately. Of course, it could have been just to throw me a reason. I'll need to sit down with her and discuss it.

I am looking forward to the summer. John says we'll go dancing, swingdancing in Lincoln Center, "in a 'Stepping Out With My Baby' kind of way," and John says we'll indulge each other, and there will be dinner at my house with Chloë and Nikki and maybe Julia will come and stay, and it will be my life, a life all of my very own.

John is waking up early tomorrow morning (this morning) to come and make us breakfast. Kara says she refused to be charmed. I, of course, am thoroughly charmed.

Who wouldn't be?

Why does he treat me this way? Volunteering to take Kara and Miriam and Rowen on a walking tour of Harlem. Making us breakfast. He told me if I wake up in the middle of the night with a bad dream, he wants me to call him.

Dear God.

Also, I have officially moved past the point where it's a little bit fun to be chosen by John over Chloë ("It's not that I chose you, it's just that I like you better.") and into the period where it's a tremendous pain in the ass. They can't be in the same room. At this point Chloë wants to make up and John doesn't. He doesn't want to see her. It makes the whole thing very difficult. I can't see myself sitting down and explaining to her that he makes me feel special, he makes me feel safe and secure, he makes me feel things that no one ever has before. I couldn't say that to her.

The schoolfolk like the homefolk. Vice versa is as of yet uncertain. I wish Chloë hadn't volunteered to walk Megan down to meet Chris; it made me feel like she wanted to get away from me.

Maybe I get insecure again when I come home (a novel thought, surely).

Must sit down and talk to Nikki. Must sit down and talk to Chloë. Must, must, must sit down and talk to John. Must make everything turn out right.

<< - >>