Let’s pretend Sundays last forever
and spend hours drowsing in the sun.
Let stress slowly fade, like a passing parade
and our cares will seem light as feathers.

I hear clouds still collage on blue canvas,
and deciduous leaves turned bright colors
we’ll picnic, we’ll laugh, and lay in the grass
and this Sunday will outshine all the others.

Fabled America is slipping away,
surely you’ve felt it, like wind knocking
a weather vane in another direction.
At some unnoticed moment
we decided to ignore realities
as a man intent on drowning himself
plows heedlessly through the waves.

Kim (one of my BFF) brightened with inspiration, “Oooo! Send him a **** pic!”
“I’m NOT going to sext a guy out of the BLUE,” I grumbled, indignantly.

Kim turned to her phone, “No, No, of COURSE not.” She said as she texted.

“Come on” she said, as she pulled me off my chair and out the door. We raced over, on foot, to my friend Bili’s house (two houses away). We entered without knocking (as usual) and ran upstairs.

Bili lay on her stomach on her unmade bed, fiddling with her phone, ankles up and crossed but she twisted up to attention when we came in.
“What should we do first?” She said, as if there were a million things to do.

They set upon me and had my regular clothes off in a heartbeat. Like all makeovers, this had a prelapsarian purity - the ritual stripping down to blankness before rebuilding.

They quickly went through about half of Bili’s closet - selecting just the right combination of ****** and classy clothes designed to ******.

They finally settled on a black slip under an ivory peignoir, stockings with garters and black strappy heels.

Kim twisted my hair up into a loose “Gibson Girl.”

“Hold still,” Bili said, as she grasped my chin and expertly blended red, gold and black glittery eyeshadows followed by lip liner and gloss. “This is just a quickie job,” she reminded me.

I stared at this strange version of myself in the vanity.

Kim frowned and looking around, she spread a pink scarf over the desk light to give the room a rosy glow. They went into studio mode - posing me in various ways from coquettish to bored lounging - suggesting expressions and taking endless pictures with my phone.

Finally, they were satisfied and handed me my phone.
“Shall we go through them?” Bili asked

“Naah,” I said, “I’ll go through ‘em and pick one - or two.”

Later, at home, I looked through them - I looked SO different - and I had to admit - **** even. But was that ME? I cringed, what if my mom saw these ******, Kardashian-like photos somewhere?

I never sent them. I thought I’d have to explain it to my girls.
“HA!” They laughed, “We KNEW you’d never use ‘em” Bili said, as Kim shook her head “Nope.”
“It was fun though!” We all agreed.
.
.
.
*NOTE: This is a pre-pandemic story from August 2019. I was 15 - the idea wasn’t to ****** this guy, it was to get his interest so he would ask me out 🙃

We have to write a lot of essays
and I love it - the twisting of words,
the molding of nouns and verbs until
thoughts are clear and paragraphs
sit symmetrical and idealized.

I’ll write a paper, and scowling,
write another version and another
- lavishing them with attention
until every word is perfect.

I miss handing in papers though
- paper is substantial, not virtual
and even if a paper wasn’t well received
at least you took a tree down with you.

Mary, the daughter of some parental friends, is on her high-school-senior college-tour and my mom (on Face Time) told me their plans called for them to be in New Haven over the weekend.

Mom, “Would you mind taking an hour to give her a campus tour?”
I rolled my eyes saying, “I barely know the place myself.”
She waited silently with obvious, parental patience.
“I’ve got a TON of homework,” I pleaded.
“I’d owe you,” she said, encouragingly.
I sighed, struggling with my new and heavy burden, “ALL right,” I groaned.

Mary and I know each other from hospital events we couldn’t avoid (her dad is an emergency surgeon) but we’ve never hit it off.

I take some pride in being able to talk about anything - from football to politics or movies to fashion but Mary’s one and only interest is guys.

Mary’s one of those girls who HAS to have a boyfriend - like there’s a municipal ordinance requiring one - and just about any guy will do. She didn’t even have to particularly like them but they had to be Instagram pretty.

So any time I’d see her (we didn’t go to the same school) she’d have a Tom or Ed or Frank in tow, filling that boyfriend requirement and due to the high boyfriend turnover rate, she’d constantly and embarrassingly flirt with other potential boyfriends right in front of Mr. Now. It was enough to shame my gender.

A typical Mary conversation:
“Are you dating anyone?” She’d ask.
“No,” I’d admit.
“You’re just shy,” she’d say, “You just need to put yourself out there.”
She was positive and encouraging, even in the face of increased competition.
“I used to be shy,” she revealed. Which I doubted very much.

Anyway, once they (her Mom joined us) were certified vaccinated, we got a student volunteer for a real Yale tour. I love the “Harry Potter” look of old campus. (COVID restrictions limit where visitors can go).

I find I already have a sense of “ownership” here and I secretly hope she ends up somewhere else. I waved as they drove off, wishing her a bucket of instagram smiles.

(this one has a limited audience - but what’s new?)

Some of the best advice from my Fro-Co (seniors who volunteer as freshman advisors):

If you’re stuck in your room (due to the pandemic) open the windows.
Exercise every day - outside if you can (pandemic).
YOU, ain’t ALL THAT. Get used to it - maybe you were hot-crap in high school - but not HERE. You got a 1590 SAT and a 34 ACT score?
Congratulations, you’re one of the average students.
Never, ever, EVER miss a class (as a freshmen).
Visualize your morning the night before and GET UP EARLY.
Time management - TIME MANAGEMENT - TIME MANAGEMENT
Complete assignments as soon as you can.
You’re going to have 4 to 6 hours of homework every night - STUDY
Procrastination will **** you - STUDY
Go to events - be social - but leave early. “Popularity” isn’t important here - this isn’t high school.
Don’t expect to meet besties right away.
Don’t go to frat parties alone.
Hookup culture can be toxic.
Don’t date seniors - just don’t.
Never get a razor cut, your ends will split.

The recent lockdown certainly made family the center of everything - from fun to daily irritations. But after a month of being at college - which I know, objectively, isn’t long - those memories seem like echoes from another life.

I love the sudden privacy college has provided - like I’ve personally rediscovered something seemingly new.

I get calls from high school friends who were close as skin a few short weeks ago and there seems to be a disconnect which certainly isn’t because they’ve been “replaced” with new friends.

I’ve always been slow to mesh with new people so I’m trying hard to look engaged in social situations. “Get OUT there and meet people!”, everyone tells us. So I’m working on it - practicing my best fake, friendly smile in mirrors for when deep down inside I want to run.

At least I’ve hit it off with one of my suite-mates, Leong (thank god). She‘s from Macao, China (the “Las Vegas” of Asia) which is about 41 miles from where my family used to live in Shenzhen. When I started talking to her in Cantonese she shrieked with joy - now we can evaluate everyone and everything with delightful discretion.

My classmates are SO smart that classes move really, REALLY FAST.
“Everyone got that?” the professor says, no frantic hands waived “Moving ON!”

If I daydream for 30 seconds - I come back and - “WAIT, huh? - what are we talking about?” It’s not like high school at ALL - it’s actually scary.

So I’m moving on.