I broke my personal record for days alive yesterday. Yeah me. I feel great today. This morning I swear my hair looked shinier and more lustrous and there’s the slightest glow to my skin. I’m just saying. I’m out and about for the first time this semester and you couldn’t slap the grin off my face.

The commons dining hall was a rolling buzz of conversations endemic to university life. At the next table, the topic is how many people can someone be in love with at once. A girl named Ariana, is at the center of the discussion. She’s a film-study major and I think it’s the topic of a documentary she’s working on.

Ariana has choppy purple hair with bangs about an-eighth of an inch long. Today, (34° and rainy) she’s wearing a short-short skirt, thermal tights that look like sheer leggings and about four tank tops. “You should pick one person and give them your everything.” Ariana argued.
“Monogamy used to mean one person for life,” another girl states, “then it became one person at a time.” I hide a smile and try to look like I’m not eavesdropping. It’s hard to explain how much I adore these overheard conversations.

Soon it’s time to head for class and we're up, gathering our bookbags and putting in our AirPods. When you’re making your way across campus, the goal is to be fast, fierce and bouncy. I love Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers.” It’s Eden on so many levels. People try to shame Miley but the woman goes hard, she slaps - all the things - and “Flowers” is one of those songs that get you there.

Earlier in the week I was pretty sick and Peter was pampering me. One night, as Peter was taking away my tea tray, I took a selfie to send to my mom - as proof of life.
He looked at it from the side, “Ooo, no,” he frowned, “too slutty.” He put his hand out for my phone, “May I help?”
“Can you hear yourself talking?” I asked. My mouth was incredibly dry from the steroid meds. The entire world seemed an unnecessary irritation.
He gently tied my robe, straightened me and my pillows and took a new version. “Better?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, a little more crossly than I meant to, “you’re always right.”
“It’s the world we live in. Get used to it,” he muttered.
When I tried to pick up my iPad and go back to work, he gently took it away, “Stop,” he whispered, “It’s 12am, you’re done for the night.”
I groaned, relieved really, then he took a small eucalyptus stick and dabbed it on my temples. “Gaa!” I said, “That’s cold!”
Who knew grown up, Californian men were so into homeopathy? After a moment though, it felt amazing.

The next morning, a cat appeared in our suite! It was a solid gray kitten with deep, brown eyes. At first, we stared at it like it was an alien (where’d that come from?) until Leong came in from the cold and said, “Cat.” Then it was welcomed.
About the time Sunny ID'd it as a British-shorthair, there was a tiny knock on our door and a little girl asked, “Have you seen..,” only to squeak “Cirrus!” when she saw her kitty. I’m telling you now, **** the rules, we would’ve kept that kitten.

bye Google. All Google’s been doing this semester is feeding me into CAPTCHA traps, Argh!
How, in 2023, can Internet searches be getting harder? One of my roommates, Anna, is helping me test alternative search engines.
Anna’s a wiry, freckled, 5’4” farm-girl from Oregon, with wavy, shoulder length, dark-brown beach-hair. In our first semester, Anna was a firecracker tossed into my life. She’d bang on my door at 2am (I didn’t even KNOW this crazy farmgirl) with her problems, klutziness and bad boyfriend stories, but she won me over with her vulpine-braininess, her impertinent straightforward secrets and laughter - all delivered in her exotic, western twang.
“Ok,” Anna suggests, getting way into my personal space to see my screen, “try - headache after ***.”
“Sure, GET me on odd shopping lists,” I snark.
“Black mole on armpit,” she countered or “intimate dryness.”
“Big help!” I laughed.

Gigi Hadid wore pearls, a t-shirt and jeans to Paris fashion week. So, our (Lisa, Leeza and my) theme for this New Year’s Eve is “Jeans and pearls.” To be accurate, Gigi’s distressed, slouchy bottom, boyfriend jeans were embroidered with pearls - the pearls weren’t worn as a necklace - but Lisa and I think anything involving embroidery is a trailer-park trend - so we’ll be wearing strings of pearls. If Karen (Lisa and Leeza’s mom) lets us, that is.

Karen has four strings of Tiffany pearls - called Essential, Ziegfeld, Akoya and South Sea Noble. They’re all 16-inch, single strand strings (which we all prefer) and they range in value from $600 (the Akoya) to the expensive (South Sea Noble) string - that she won’t lend anyone. The good news is, if anyone is thinking of buying me a string of pearls, I can’t tell the difference between the cheap string and the expensive string.

Leeza (Lisa’s 13-year-old sister) wants to be included in EVERYTHING this year, which is funny because last year she either attacked us or completely ignored us. This year, Leeza has a thirteen-year-old’s razor-sharp instincts and relentless curiosity.

As we’re Planning New Year’s Eve, Ethan Bortnick’s song, “Engraving” was playing. It’s a crazy song with middle-school, EMO, angsty vibes. One of the lines of the song is “strip for me”. As the song ends, Leeza suddenly asks us, “Have you two ever been to a *******?”
“No”, I answered.
Lisa said, “Once.”
“What?!” I asked.
“Really?” Leeza gasped, “Spill!” She demanded.
“This has random context,” Lisa begins, “I’ve been inside a ******* once in my life.”
Leeza and I tittered nervously. “I’m scared,” Leeza said, as an aside, grinning and rubbing her hands on her knees, clearly more delighted than scared.
“I was attending a middle school, Model UN conference, at Brown University,” Lisa continued, “and they took all the kids to a ******* for their model UN social.”
I gasped and blurted “There’s NO way this happened.”
“Yes,” Lisa insisted, “you can ask my mom.” she said, with a serious look, “And, and obviously, it was rented out for the night, but they didn’t, like, think to take away any of the normal features. There weren’t any strippers, but they didn’t take the poles down and they didn’t turn off the multiple TV screens on all the walls that were playing their normal rotating video content.”
“Wow,” I said, with my hand over my mouth. Meanwhile, Leeza was chortling like a mad woman and rocking back and forth.
“Everyone walked in,” Lisa went on, “and it was just middle schoolers, thirteen years old. There were pictures of the dancers on the poles, and our history teacher came in, and freaked OUT, saying, “Oh, no, No, NO!” Because it was a school event, we had taken school buses there, it was a boondoggle. They turned us all around and hustled us out of there.”
Leeza had stood up and was twirling with glee. Middle schoolers live for chaos.
“Taken out of context,” I said, “It was crazy you went to a ******* in middle school.”
“It was a jump scare, for sure,” Lisa confirmed, “we went from one vibe, a school field trip, to a *******.”

Anyway, for New Year’s, a lot is still up in the air - undecided - but we’re determined that we want to have a blast. We’re young and we want to support bad ***** energy (BBE).
“Oh, I have a BBE song!” Lisa squeals, “Mafiosa!” (by Nathy Peluso) She names it as it begins playing.

The songs in Spanish and when it ended, I’d looked up the lyrics because my 2 years of Spanish weren’t good enough. I tell Leeza the lyrics go: “Let the bad men fear me, when I arrive in my car - they speed off.”
“Yes!” Lisa Laughs, “We don’t drive - but, YES!”
“Emotionally,” I say, laughing too. “But verse two asks the great question, “What the frack is wrong with men when it comes to women?”
“It’s,” Lisa started, looking up and searching for words, “SUCH a timeless question.”
“Why’d you pick that song?” Leeza asked.
Lisa chuckled,” Because you don’t get more BBE than a female Mafiosa killer.”

Update: Karen agreed that as long as Charles is with us (and really, when isn’t he with us?), we can borrow the three inexpensive pearl strings (worth about 5k). So, I’ll be wearing the Akoya pearls, an Anna Molinari white, basic, cotton-shirt, washed denim cropped jeans with white bridal flats and Lisa and Leeza will wear their own, white tops, jeans, flats and pearls and we’ll be on-theme.

Happy New Year’s Everyone!

We've all had turns throwing words off board:
a certain few drift some two shifts of blue
before swiftly sinking out of their own accord.
Others yet lift themselves in further pursuit
of barren waterways yet to be oared.
But a tiny handful have yet to continue
their ongoing flight to the edges of the world...
And still most words end up sunken--
as nothing more but lost conversations.

Excuse me, have you seen my people?
They don’t all look like me or talk like me,
But when you see them you’ll know.
Because you know me.

Well, yes actually, I have lost something! My purpose.
It was here a minute ago with me on the dance floor; and then I seem to have misplaced it…
I guess I could retrace my steps but that sounds quite boring, even painful in places. Do you have any other advice for finding it?

Sorry! Didn’t see you there, I was too concentrated  on trying to figure out the source of my happiness. I’ve heard it comes from within, but I’ve only been taught how to look outwards…
Do you know? The outside can get ever so distracting with all these pressures and changes.

Hiya guys! I think I’ve found my personality, how are you?
Yes well, I was going to ask you actually if you thought I should change it… everybody needs an upgrade these days. Do you have any ideas?

Oh ****! I’ve only just clocked myself in the mirror! How long have I been looking like that much of a misfitted ***?!!

It’s 6:15pm. Peter, Anna, Sophy and I are studying in the common room of our suite.

“We need to get serious,” Peter whispered, but there was no subject in the declaration, so I was left confused and uncommitted, “about getting serious,” he clarified.

“I’m not sure I can get serious about a guy who doesn’t separate whites and darks in the laundry,” I say, gently.

“No,” he said, shaking his head in brief vibration, “we need to get serious about DINNER.”

“Oh!” I said, maybe a little too relieved.

“Ha!” He chortled, “YOU overthink everything!” He said, nodding his head up and down to prove it was true. “And speaking of laundry,” he continued, seeing me start to open my mouth, “the other night YOU asked me if your pastel purple ******* should go with the whites or darks - so I must be an EXPERT!”

I laughed at the idea of his laundry expertise, sailing in from out of the purple like that, it was haywire. “Well,” I said, becoming introspective, “I didn’t know you’d hold onto that question like a grudge,” I said, in quiet, wounded accusation, “from now ON, maybe you should stay as far away from my ******* as possible.”

“What are you two grousing about NOW?” Anna asked, looking up from her computer. “You guys are like an old married couple.”

“True THAT.” Sophie said, like a judge right before knocking her gavel to finalize a ruling.

“We weren’t arguing!” I said, looking around confusedly. I looked at Peter, who was smiling broadly, “Were we?”

“Nope,” he said, wrapping his arm around me in a bearhug, “we were flirting.”

I’m FaceTiming with my Grandmère, we touch-base once a week. I love that face, wrinkled, like wind-weathered driftwood, and she’s a wag.
“Are you familiar with the ECB?” She asks.

I wince at this odd turn in conversation, “Not REALLY,” I say, searching my mental index of useless facts and cross-matching those with her interests, “the European Central Bank?” I reply. “Oui.” she says.

“Let’s see,” I begin in a bored voice, “Inflation – transitory or persistent?” I say, in my best TV news-reader voice. “No,” I chuckle, “Not really, I have REAL, boring-things I’m learning about.”

“You’ll need to - one day,” she says, like a tarot reading oracle.

“I can’t imagine why.” I said.

“I’m writing a few sentences about you!” I interject, to both change the subject and see what she says. She’s the only one in the family who knows I write.

“Oh,” she sighs, “Am I young, immoral and reckless?”

“Yes, you ARE,” I assure her, “you’re the worst.”

“Good," she confides, “I miss those days.”

We got to know each

other well, talking a lot --


about all the boys.

It’s Spring Fling today - an all-day campus concert with some up-and-coming music acts. We’ll be out there, in the rain if we have to, we're determined and somewhat waterproof. We went out earlier, doing a scan for friends to find seats and place stuff to hold our spot.

What, up until now, have been notes of preparation for summer move-out, will become a symphony tomorrow - after my last final - I’ll be a sophomore then, I suppose.

Peter has to check an experiment he’s working on. He hugs me and heads out.
“He’s so hot,” Anna observes, “he makes me think about ***, and you know what - YES!”
“You can have him," I say, he’s too tall - and besides - he’s friending-down, with me.” I admit.
“I like him,” Lisa says, “he doesn’t complain or disapprove of things.”
“He’s the modern man,” Anna says, dreamily.
“And he’s REALLY good at kissing games.” I confide, grinning like a creepy boy, to make them jealous. They all made various noises that piggybacked and incorporated into one coherent gagging sound.