you'll have to have this fish in your ear.

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dateline: the battle bridge

31 july 1996 10:39 p.m.

I wonder if anyone will notice if I just spend the night in the library? I'm totally set up. Practically drowning in my huge somethingfuzz-lined sweater (replete with grouchy cat on the front), two cans of orange stuff from the snack kiosk by Keller Hall (out of Pepsi, but no big loss), my whole webspace hidden on this rocking PowerMac... Looming birthdays make me moody. Add to that today's full-moon and my other moon-related bothers, and it's hard for me not to get muddled. Jen called me here a few hours ago. Jason (don't ask me... I don' t know what he does around here) answered, and after we were done talking he said Jen had a good phone-sex voice. "You'd know," I cracked. "Ayup," he said, giving me a look that was maliciously ambiguous. Anyway, I tried to wipe my hands and grabbed the phone. "Heyozimatworkitsjenyah?" my bestest bestest friend said. "Mm?" I said. "Guess what," and I think a breath, then, "sumwunjustgotcannedtoday!" "Mm," I said, giving up on being delicate and just using my finger to unstick the peanut butter from the too-large handful of oily "Ritz Bits" I'd just shoved into my skull. "Yeah," she said, I guess interpreting my terseness as commentary on her hyper-articulation. "This girl called in sick last night but she was out with her boyfriend, and my boss' boss caught her." "Neat," I said. It was at least that. I've never gotten caught skipping work, usually because I skip to stay home. Still, there have been many occasions where professors whose classes I skip see me later that day, usually being noisy or laughing and looking unusually vibrant for someone with a stomach-and-head flu. She wanted to tell me that the new Dead Can Dance album made it into the listening booths (I love those things... I can lose whole afternoons there), and that "Clerks" was now on sale on video. Great. Temptation to spend more money I don't have. She spent the last five minutes telling me about her crush on some longhaired rocker co-worker (sure, she's engaged, but what's a little fun!), and trying to get me to say something, anything self-incriminating about what I think about Derek. I mentioned that I liked the way he smelled the other night, and that seemed to satisfy her a bit. We got into an argument over which is the latter phase in a relationship (aren't definitions fun?). I said people date first, then if things click, they may start seeing eachother. She'd grown up thinking the exact opposite. "Well, you two are something," she said, "because I sure haven't heard from you much lately." And with that she went back to restocking pop, "E" through "J." She was right. We gotta hang out this weekend. I'm not sure what I think about Derek, at least in the context that it seems all my friends are nagging about. I guess its presumed we're dating, but I've never used the word with him. It just sounds awkward. I wonder if he tells his friends he's dating me? Just seeing the word on my screen makes me feel like I'm a ninth-grader. I guess deep inside this soon-to-be-22 year old, there's an uppity and stodgy 50-year-old grandma waiting to get out. I mean, I use the phrase "damn kids" to describe my own age group at least twice a week. Under an hour 'til my month of the year. Why am I nervous?