Friday: I recite today’s date in my head to meditate upon its meaning. August 1st, 2003 - the last Friday night I’ll spend with my best friend. The thought is an absolute alterity; absence is alien to our affinity. We are just another rendition on each other. As if Lara is really me, but with cuter hair and a better smile. After the initial implications of coming to terms (which I still haven’t done yet) with the inexorable fact that she IS leaving in five days, miraculously there is some vague amount of succor to be found in the emotional ruins. I mean, it’s not as if she is dramatically facing her predestined death, or moving to a different country where communication exists with primitive restrictions, devoid of technological benefits. I can still talk to her everyday, write her, call her. And when it comes down to it, I am so incredibly excited for her.

Vicariously, I’m hoping to share her fabulous and foreign fate, her chance at escaping familiarity regardless of responsibility. There she’ll be surrounded by entire realms of things to discover, mysteries to unearth, a vast space she can grow into, whereas I’m terribly afraid I’ve outgrown my own life. In the morning she’ll have no one to answer to, no voice that militantly hollers “DON’T FORGET TO EMPTY THE DISHWASHER!” before melting into a soft-spoken “Good morning.” And of course she’ll miss that, for sentimental reasons, but I’m positive after a week of crying and remembering she’ll become obsessively enamored with the freedom to stay out past curfew. Maybe this is me speaking, what I would do. Personally, I think my relationship with my family would be ameliorated by a bit of geographical distance. I love my parents, but there are vestigial traces of an “only child” complex that makes me feel like I’m still crawling at times.

I don’t think anyone is perfectly content with stability, with a cessation of disruption. Everyone needs a little diabolical genius to “make things interesting.” But some people lust after it more. I have always been one of them. I would much rather be confronting conflict and resolving it elsewhere than living in a narrow encasement of comfort. I’m such a restless person at times. I’m sure many will attribute this to being in the zenith of my “teenage years” the decade where I predictably pursue adventure while fading into the stereotypical rebel. And of course, I want a taste of independence and a fast red car and a credit car to finance my wild parties and fountains of alcohol. Or something like that. A description apt to be reliably located in a Parenting Today magazine. To clarify the myth, my independence and corpulent wallet would not be used to fund the staple desires of the typical teen, but to support such whims like photography workshops, expanding my library of literature and traveling to Europe. And I’d rather have a fast computer instead of a fast car. What a disappointment of a teenager I’ve turned out to be. All of this is not to deny the fact that I’m still immature in many regards and have not yet mastered the act of keeping house. But moving away will irrefutably help one, or perhaps, coerce one, into learning the secrets of life quickly. At least at a fast enough pace for survival. I regret to confess that I rely on my parents way too much. I need to buckle down and learn how to do laundry. Maybe I should tackle independence after I conquer the washer.

I talked to Andey earlier. Unfortunately his phone card expired mid conversation leaving me inanely babbling to compensate for the silence (before recognizing the faint background sound of a monotonous dial tone). I wish he lived here. He’s one of the few people I can spend more than three hours with and not become fully embittered with misanthropy. Our relationship status is fluctuating, for better I believe. As always I’m confused. He sent me an e-mail saying:

[Before we talked] I was in this “everything's going to be lovely and perfect and we can just follow our hearts” kind of mind frame . . . that discussion was a reality check . . . I think my attitude toward this was just unrealistic and it was difficult but humbling to realize that getting too serious would have hurt us both more than it would help us. Glad to have a friend like you.”

I’m glad to have him as a friend as well, but am I also glad to have a boyfriend? I think too much for being a supposed romantic. The years have left me with an overly cynical and analytical thought process which has a hard time aligning practical doubts with eternal bliss. I’m always afraid to get into a “relationship.” The question is, do I enter into something with hopes that it may work but with sense enough to consider it might not, or do I avoid anything that does not strike me as an instantly perfect and guaranteed? But nothing is like that. There lies the problem, pass something up that could be right, or get entangled in something that could be wrong? All of these musings qualify as me a true woman - analyzing the most intricate details of everything and everyone.

Recently I’ve come to think of relationships as serious weapons of mass destruction, not to be tampered with lightly. I’m afraid of hurting other people. It’s a silly thing to say, but I’ve become so indifferent over the past year that at times I feel immune to emotional pain. The other night I was over at Lara’s and began to quietly cry while looking at some old pictures. Soon enough my tears dried but contagious as sorrow seems to be, they transferred with a greater intensity to Lara instead of magically dissipating. She commented on how it seems like I won’t really miss her because I wasn’t crying anymore. At home my mom asked about my smear of eye makeup. I told her and she replied, “Doesn’t Lara know that the only time you cry is when someone dies - if even that?”

I have to wonder: will I cry when I see her car driving away? Even then at that critical time will I be able to consciously comprehend that she is actually gone, not to be seen for months? No more “Hey, I’m coming over so we can listen to Foreigner and cook for the kids in the kitchen and walk to the park and take naps and watch the Learning Channel and chase wild rabbits into the bamboo in your neighbor’s yard.” Instead of asking “Can you believe what happened at school today,” I will be asking “Will you tell me what happened at school today?” Trying my best to imagine her life instead of living it. And, yes, that’s an amazing, ineffable, concept. But it’s also a wonderful one. When we do see each other (hopefully I can visit her in October) we’ll have a plethora of things to say and share.

Tonight we sat scrapbooking like middle aged women with too many kids and not enough creative memory pages. I laughed to see us faun over the superfluity of special occasion stickers and massive inventory of acid free paper. Inside a store appropriately named “Scrap Happys” - the letters on the sign glowing with neon vibrations - we quietly snipped away at ancient pictures of ancient memories. Around us women wheeled in entire suitcases filled with the necessary scrapping means: Buttons, stickers, die-cuts, patterned refill sheets, glitter, ribbon, zig-zag scissors. It is an odd thing to say, but we were so out of place yet at home at the same time. Right there in that subculture of a scrapbookers, we contentedly worked. Our belongings spanning across the table, as we unwillingly surrender our sanity to four hours worth of soft rock on the speakers and ladies twice our age swapping photo-safe glue sticks.

The irony. The humor. Something others would find as weird or pointless I derive great inner amusement from. The only person who understands how I can sincerely covet a four dollar sheet of stickers while satirically commenting on their purpose is her. All week long I’ve been waiting for it to rain. I’ve needed it to rain, longed to feel at one with the sullen isolationism that comes with inclement weather. While we were “cropping” (as the act of preserving pictures via archival and creative means is called) it began to pour outside. I looked out the window to see small torrents sliding off the roof. Above Elton John drifted down from the speakers. A few of the ladies at another table were passionately debating the success of their daughters’ past dance recital. Inside I felt the chill effusions of rain-related emotion. Sad, but content. I looked over at Lara. With great care she was arranging paper letters to spell out her thoughts. Abruptly the rain stopped and the sky was radiating with the dreary aftermath of the storm. The moment was gone, but for that moment I had forgotten we were facing the future and not just reliving the past.