|
The week, so far, has been good. Weird, but good. My exam on Tuesday
was less painful than I expected it to be, although I left out a piece
of the first problem, and flailed utterly for about half of the fourth
problem. Other than that, though, I'm pretty sure I did okay. I'll
get the results tonight, which is about the only thing keeping me from
going home instead of to Foothill. I feel incredibly apathetic about
going to class now that it's almost over. Four more days -- my final
is next Wednesday.
After class on Tuesday I had coffee with Marith. After class last
night I went to Marith's and played Heaven&Earth on her computer. Trip
was there, and Chrisber showed up. We all talked some. It was
strangely nostalgic. This time last year... well. This time last year
things had started to get strange.
Going back further, though, something like sixteen months ago, and the
five of us were inseparable. Chrisber, Marith, Earl, Trip, me. The
fearsome fivesome. Not that we had planned it or anything, but it just
happened that we did everything together. Marith and Earl lived a few
blocks away from the apartment complex that Chrisber & Trip & I all
live in, though, so it wasn't quite as closeknit as it could have
been. A good thing, all in all. I think we'd have imploded much
sooner if they'd been living in our complex.
Well, I would have. I implode easily when I don't have distance.
They did move, eventually. Sometime last August they moved into our
complex, but by that point everything had gotten hopelessly strange,
even if most of us didn't realise it yet. When I think back to the
time we were a fivesome it's winter of 95 through early summer of 96.
The Squids arrived sometime in June, and around then I started getting
busy, and then in July things started getting strange.
Strange isn't bad, by the way. Strange has ended up being very good,
at least for me. But it was definitely a change, definitely something
unexpected, and definitely _odd_, the way our intertwined friendships
altered themselves in only a few months. Harder than I make it sound.
I think, though, that we're mostly through the worst of it. I really
hope we are.
Does any of this give you the right feel? Last night I almost felt
like I was back in February of 1996, sitting in Marith's apartment,
talking to people who know me very well indeed. It was nice. It could
have been scary, if the sense of going back had been too strong, but it
wasn't. It felt much more like moving forward. A different Cera, some
different relationships, but the same friends.
It's hard, to talk about things that seem obvious to me. I know very
few people reading this have the context. That's okay. I guess you'll
get it if you keep reading and I keep writing.
My biggest flaw as a writer is putting in too much detail. I'm trying
to train myself out of it when I write fiction. It's easy to assume
things here, though, since I tend to feel like I'm writing for
myself.
I wonder if I should concentrate on my audience more? Would that make
this a 'better' journal?
|