Author and Columnist
Yesterday, I ended up lounging on the front lawn of Dutchess with a shirtless Todd, Idania in strawberry pants, a very black (thus overheated) Zoey, and Ian (the ex of Kei). Zoey's friend Astrid (I'd give her a pseudonym, but that would ruin the story!) was with us briefly.
Of all the things my memory washed away, this was excluded. I remember this keenly. After Todd died, this is where I returned to find him in my mindscape. I recall the sunlit warmth on my skin, their smiling faces. I will cop to the fact that what I best remember was the feeling of this, how tactile it was. I have pictures of Todd and remain social media friends with Zoey -- he is a New Orleans politician now -- so it is a simple thing to recall their faces. Ian, too, no matter how unimportant he is to your life, appears in a photograph you took in a bookstore.
Idania (whose name you spelled Idonia in the last entry) and Astrid are a tenuous vapor: hair, smiles, and little more.
I searched social media for Idania, finding two possibilities. I wrote to the likeliest one, but she did not respond. I can't see how I could blame her. Who would find value in brushing away this grave dirt with a stranger?
I commented to Zoey that anyone named Astrid must either be Swedish or very interesting. [...] Well, it helped that she was wearing fishnet stockings and sandals.
I miss the daring fashion of college students. That said, I would like to get you to understand that you are, at most, a large and should try for mediums when possible. You lose considerable weight in your mid-twenties, but you are also encouraged to put on the weight by someone who sees midnight diners as the best place to socialize. I estimate that I weigh fifteen pounds less than you do and thirty less than you do at your most.
None of these iterations should be wearing clothing as large as you do. I can do nothing for the shininess of it. Experiment. I regret letting some of your garish garments go, but they might have lingered longer if they were made to fit on your frame and not a mountain of a sumo wrestler.
It was gorgeous outside and I could have skipped the rest of my day and lay in the grass until dusk. However, I have responsibilities and need money if I am to continue to have a comfortable lifestyle.
Sitting now with perhaps more money than responsibilities, I wish you had skipped the rest of the day to be with all of them. As I've noted, your time with Todd will be harshly abbreviated in a few months. Today would have changed nothing of that; maybe a hundred days on that lawn would have stayed his hand long enough, but who is to say this one didn't at least spare him a week? Still, it would have been something that you would have been able to bring me rather than a bit more time processing books in the library (much as you do enjoy that job and your supervisor).
I am so in love with the season. It swims through my veins and makes me want to be kissed. Little bits of everyone illuminate to beauty. Not enough, however.
I do not think you would struggle to be kissed if you would give up on wanting to be kissed by the wrong woman.
However, she did not give Artemis my info. After Idania jumped on top of me in the parking lot by way of greeting, she informed me that she felt awkward doing so, that I should just do it myself next time I see Artemis.
This Artemis situation perplexes me on revisiting. It is another off-road in your life that wasn't taken, albeit an obscure one. I cannot recollect a mote of her, and Idania not passing along your information is regrettable. I wonder at the full honesty of her reason, but it's not for me to contradict now.
We walked and chatted gregariously for about thirty feet, until she informed me that we had almost passed her class and said she hoped to see me soon. I felt very James Dean cool about the whole thing.
You would be much cooler if you gave her any contact information, buddy.
I think I issued some comforting gesture and told her that she should then give me a call some time in the future and I would try to make her feel better. I really would like her to be a closer friend, she seems like a very pleasant and sweet person.
You mean that she persists in being attractive. I'm not going to criticize you for that.
I imagine she would have been a good friend to have. I have no clue what became of her, but I am surprised to see another mention of her after the date.
Somehow the conversation turned to how she and I think much of the other, but we have never hung out outside of school. We ended up flirting a little. Mostly I flirted actually, though she said she didn't mind at all, as I was not some creepy cyber-jerk, I was Xen.
Who the hell is this Jenn?
However, it wasn't as though I was actually expressing interest in her. She is very cute, but I cannot foresee any way or reason for us to ever be more than friends.
Why? What is wrong with her?
What is wrong with you?
On Wednesday, I chose to go to my usually soporific psych class rather than a concert in Kingston where my favorite female musician (other than Sarah and Elza, of course) Jill Sobule was playing.
You do not excel at being a college student, my friend. I exceedingly wish you had done the right thing, which would not have been attending a class. Think how much better this entry would have been!
Last night, after I got out of work (making up for too much grass-lounging that day), I visited Venessa. She is certainly one of my best friends, though she was gone for several months.
Venessa was a fantastic woman. I believe you met her at the Haunted Mansion, but she occupied that nebulous space where the two of you seemed destined to interact because you knew so many of the same pictures.
I shall take the first-person responsibility in this story, though it happened nearer to you.
Over a decade ago, I had plans to see her in Beacon. I lived in Amenia then, at a boarding school that took advantage of me. It would have been an hour's drive. My mental health was not well in check then, and I could not force myself out of my apartment no matter what I tried.
I don't know how long she waited for me that day, though any delay would have been too long. By the time I was able to convince myself to go, she had said that there was no reason. I have not seen her since, and I regret that rudeness whenever I see her name. However, the die is cast.
Her basic feeling on the Kate subject is that she is trying to make herself a victim. That she wants to push away people who care about her; that she wants to be used, abused, and thrown away by people who don't care about her.
Venessa is a smart cookie, though she knows only how you tell the story and desires to tell you what you want to hear. She had no interest in consulting with Kate, nor should she.
That I should stay away from Kate, because she is playing games with me, pulling and pushing. Using me as a chess piece in the game of destructive self discovery.
So, you'll listen to Venessa but not to me when I say the same thing?
Rude is what you are.
When I saw "As You Like It" at PDS, I met a lass, Nancy
Oh, Nancy. I have not been looking forward to her introduction.
This regret doesn't have anything - or much - to do with Nancy. She wasn't what you were looking for at the time, but she was exactly what she was: a sixteen-year-old girl with whom you didn't have the history that made Eileen a prospect. However, Nancy wanted you, and you wanted to be desired.
It was a weakness on your part. Nancy is blameless as I see it.
Recently, she confessed that she had feelings for me. I informed her in the least hypocritical way possible, that she is under age and has very overprotective parents. I welcomed her to look me up when she gets to college, but I couldn't fathom anything right now.
She had a crush. That's reasonable. You tried to warn her away, so that is some due diligence.
If she had waited until college, she would have had no interest in you.
I feel almost bad that this sprite has taken to me, and almost worse that girls I cannot have or do not want desire me more than those I might want.
I feel bad about it wholly because I know that you make out with her at least once.
Knowing that she had a crush on you, you should not have indulged her. You should not have seen her in person, knowing that you did not feel as she did and would not.
The world's way is that the ones you want won't want you, and the ones who desire your company you will not want.
I have told her in the past, and I mean it, that she is not the type of girl that is going to have guys swarming around her in high school but would be knee deep in frothy young males once she reached for a higher education.
I think she might be a lesbian now. I tried connecting with her on social media a few times, but she did not permit this. From the little I could glean, all I can say is that she was alive in 2014 and enjoyed swing dancing at some point.
It is not a ton of information with which to extrapolate.