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<<2005-06-06 - 5:45 p.m.>>

I had my first physics class today. I left Ken in bed (mine, for the first time in awhile). Left an apple on the bedside table, reset the alarm, got on the subway and nodded up to CCNY where I got lost, was misdirected by a security guard, and endured a physics class taught by a rambling Russian-accented professor that made me want to poke my eyes out with sticks. I am supposed to know trigonometry.

My life continues to elude me. I won the "who can get out of going to the Tonies" held in my living room between my parents and me yesterday while Chloë giggled. Instead: Central Park with Ken. Bethesda. (We wait for the Asian brides and their parasols and their wedding photographers, but none come, because we are expecting them. He made me promise to rent a rowboat before the end of the summer.) The Alice in Wonderland statue (I sit, watch the sun set over the Conservatory while he calls his sister back. He inserts little comments about what I am doing. She just rolled her eyes. His sister knows who I am. I didn't know that.) Belvedere. (The skyline of lights emerging in the darkening evening, the Great Lawn bright green under the lamps.) And down Columbus. We think about going to Small's. End up seeing a documentary about ten-year-olds ballroom dancing instead. The theater is a respite from the heat and is populated by four couples. Afterwards, we go for a drink and the seedlings of the talk I've been dreading for months now: Monogamy? Eating a spinach omelet and drinking a very strong mojito, and shining with the heat, and in very unfamiliar territory, and stumbling with the strictures of the intellectualizing veil, I say things I immediately think are wrong. Eventually the conversation must be shut off. What better way than the approaching anniversary of Charlene's suicide? He got more upset than I have ever seen him. And returned only when he showed me that he has, in his phone, a record of every text message I have ever sent him.

This conversation was frightening. I felt my eyes big. I was glad when it was over.

Now it is raining. Hopefully this will break the heat. Summer rain in New York is something I like. Low thunder and emphatic lightning and the raindrops hitting the pavement hard.

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