life is a sort of tug of war. behind the surface of words and genialities, a constant tension of wills, even between people who have long known each other.
i was trying to figure out what was bothering her. she talked about one thing, then another, with no apparent connection. she stopped to study a leaf before tearing it off. she was obviously distressed, and being very artistic about it. i regarded her outbursts with a skeptical grin.
she sat there, her eyes darkly shuttered by long lashes, her lips puckered in the melancholy light. we sipped mochas-- the liquor of existential woe.
in the end i think i said more about myself than i found out about her. my detachment betrayed a kind of envy, the same envy when i read sylvia plath. certain people are on a higher plane. there is a luxury even in the way they feel and express pain, a luxury i can't seem to afford. i sneer at self-absorption, yet somehow these self-absorbed people come out more justified than i am in the end.