I am not sure why I just said �dig�; I�m not even sure why I bother writing, now that she�s back. I know that it�s only a matter of time before I freeze up again, so it�s all kind of pointless. I should be working on my book instead of scribbling in my journal like some kind of seventy year old dowager who records the plants she�s watered and the cats she�s fed and the mailman she�s said hello to for the last twenty years. I also don�t know why I am so hard on people who keep journals.
Well, I am not hard on Nina.
I wish she had let me kiss her hello. I wish there wasn�t a twenty-four year old runt on my porch. I wish he didn�t make me feel like Mr. Dad. I wish that that wasn�t why Nina chose him.
I don�t usually think of myself as old; I was born in �76 and I don�t remember playing Pong or using records too much. These things are reassuring because they are things old people remember�they are discussed on vH1 and I thank myself for being born five or ten years later than everyone else.
As far as I know, Nina�s never been too paranoid about this kind of thing. She likes to act younger, yes, but that�s because she feels younger, unlike me. I feel like I have to stay as carefree as possible or else I will sprout a big armchair and fifty-eight different bills and three more TV remotes, like Norm. My friends are all over the country, and we all strive to be not like Norm, who has been destined for middle management since the ink on his birth certificate dried, and he has fulfilled his purpose admirably. He processes data for a company that hires livestock inspectors. Writes papers about distinguishing sheep rot from regular old rot and the like. No one really talks to him anymore.
Mary�s in a band, playing her bass neurotically and writing long emails from places like Tulsa and Chesapeake. She cut her hair last I heard from her, people say it�s ugly last I heard from the rest of the band. They think she looks too much like a lesbian and that their band isn't like that. I usually laugh at these sorts of things, and then I hang up the phone. And then I sit and stare at a pile of blank paper for a while.
Another friend, Lawrence, is doing precisely what he has threatened to do ever since he discovered Phish: he is living in a redwood, emptying his shit bucket on loggers, et cetera. He writes and says that he is fine, but could maybe do with some more money. I was puzzled for a while, but then remembered that he's getting his pot airmailed from British Columbia, and it's expensive. He says that once he is down, I will be the first person he visits, and I write back and tell him that he's sweet. I don't tell him that I don't sell weed anymore, because I would like to actually see him.
I don't know where Jordan went. I heard that he was in Peru, but I don't think he would stay there long, as he is a fan of both hamburgers and bluegrass.
I also don't know what happened to Moonbeam, but I suspect that she's finally shot her parents for naming her Moonbeam. I like to imagine her living a pleasant new life in Turkey as Laurie Hall, who freelances for the Sun-Times and drives an SUV.
Sometimes I think about high school Nina, and how she was acting then. It was only seven or eight years ago for her; sometimes she still strikes me as a giddy senior at prom. I would have been in my third year of school then, eating beans on toast and writing term papers. It was Classic College Living, I guess. I majored in Musical Composition and English, playing classical guitar and writing papers on Jonathon Swift. I wrote a symphony based on Bleach and made my obligatory half-hearted autobiographical screenplay (based, ironically, of course, on Teen Wolf). I worked, and worked on not working on being cool. It was when I first met Lawrence.
It seemed appropriate that the first time I went to a Phish concert some dude would offer me pot. The dude was Lawrence, and he wore corduroy pants that I don't think even my dad would have worn, and horn-rimmed glasses that were too big for him. He kept pushing them up his nose, and he asked me if I went to UMass. I said yes, warily, and he said that that was great, because he just started and he wanted someone to help him find a roommate. I said that mine was just leaving, and gave him my phone number.
That night, I told my non-rent-paying, Jethro-Tull-liking roommate that the board kicked him out. He stole all my pots and pans and then left, huffily.
Lawrence moved in the next day, bearing a parrot and a lot of fresh fruit, turning the tiny dorm room into a miniature paradise. He said the name of the parrot was Beaky, "because it doesn't shut the fuck up."
He looked at me and laughed, and I tried to feed Beaky a bit of bread crust, and Beaky clawed off what felt like half of my finger. This time we both laughed, and I dreamed, secretly for the next two years, or slowly and painfully killing Beaky. Lawrence�s girlfriend taught it how to sing, horribly, and my dreams extended to include her violent death as well.
Meanwhile, I guess Nina was taking Advanced Placement Italian and skipping gym class to get food somewhere. There wasn't a huge difference between us, personality-and-development wise, but it will always strike me as unnatural that I am older. Maybe it's just that I can't admit to the idea that she will live and love longer?