The Paradox
<<2003-06-02 - 10:26 a.m.>>

We sat at my kitchen table last night, just like we always used to: kitchen table, tea, us, long conversation. But the volume of stuff I didn't know was kind of disturbing. That she's not really with Chris. That she has that roommates-as-family thing going with her suitemates. She talks so casually about boys now, so casually about sex now, so casually assuming her own maturity. And it's not that I doubt her maturity—she does indeed seem quite mature and responsible about her relationships all of a sudden—it's just that I don't share it. It's out of my experience, and difficult to relate to. And strangely (because aren't high school best-friend types supposed to talk about sex all the time?) we just didn't talk about the boys and love and sex and relationships bit that much But what with Nikki's newfound...something (whatever it is that losing your virginity while drunk on a bar bathroom floor to the forty-year-old fuck-buddy of a friend of yours, who may have herpes and isn't wearing a condom connotes) and my sudden discovery of inclinations toward having an actual sex drive, it seems to be relevant more often. The point is, here we are, and you (I, rather) have to wonder: do we know each other? Did we ever?

There is, as I said, just so much she doesn't tell. She said she wants someone to ask. But it's more than that: it's that I didn't know to ask. I guess now I do.

This is my life, I guess, and it has its issues and its stabilities and its glories, just like anyone else's life. It just is, in that funny way I just found out about, that strange this-is-my-life feeling. So this summer I'll get to know my closest friends.

So strange, things exactly the same and not the same at all.

And why do I keep wanting a cigarette? Even when I oh-so-briefly actually smoked, I never wanted a cigarette. Now, perversely, I do.

And today I must navigate the dilemma of spending the day with Chloë and also somehow managing to stop by one of Eleanor's folkdance group's street performances while simultaneously not bringing Eleanor and Chloë into contact with each other. Because that would be far too awkward. They managed it well enough at my family's holiday party, but I wouldn't like to test it again.

These are my more day-to-day challenges. Oh, and getting work. I should call that guy off Craig's List.

And off I go.

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