brownian motion
February 10, 2001 02:33 PM

In college, I was more-or-less insane. By this, I don't mean "YEEHA!" wild party insane. I mean. Insane. Melodramatic, histrionic. Et cetera. I surrounded myself with angst and emotion.

she won't discipline the children
and now they're running wild in the streets

Freshman year, I met this girl. This amazing girl. Who could bring you to tears just talking about life, and then tear someone's eyes out for touching her stuff the wrong way. We were instantly friends.

and i don't care

We lived together all through what she now calls "undergrad". Every year we had a blow out fight of some sort. The details of those aren't important. And I couldn't do the telling justice without her, anyway.

hope is a letter that never arrives
delivered by the postman of my fear

That slogan sat on our little front-door-whiteboard for months. We defied rules. We took doors off hinges and left them under beds. She was the first person to really understand my birthday. My favorite painting subject. The one who congratulated me on the gracefulness of my weeping on the windowsill. Then handed me a roll of toilet paper (probably stolen from campus), talked about brownian motion, and dragged me out for a class-free afternoon of smoking, sandwich eating, and walking around. That was what we did. We rescued each other.

and the flower in the corner in the room in the window and the sun said it all

Most of my favorite college memories are of driving or sitting somewhere, talking or singing, smoking and drinking coffee. Or those little cappio beverages. I am so annoyed that those things don't exist anymore. I've said that before. I'll probably say it again.

i like the way my hand looked on your head

We grew out of our melodrama a little. Took longer roadtrips. At some point we graduated. Defied the so-called rules of the graduation ceremony, even, by sitting together instead of divided by degrees (BSs on one side, BAs on the other). Were surprised by how excited we were to be this close to Margaret Thatcher. Though we, of course, despised her politics, to have such a powerful woman brush by your elbow...

so it's the middle of the night and we're here
playing dominoes and drinking beer

And now we're basically grownups. Doing what we want to do, and doing well. I am so proud of both of us. That we don't need rescuing anymore. That we can take care of ourselves.

i try to think of something deep to say

Sometimes, still, I wish I could sit on the windowsill and have someone tell me how graceful and tragic I look.

Pass me the toilet paper.