December 2, 1998.

The beginning of a new month, and all the attendant webpage housekeeping. Tied up a bunch of loose ends with a finished web project - hopefully, I'll have a site for this diary by tomorrow. Was supposed to get the Boy's old geocities addy on Saturday, but events conspired against us. Ditto yesterday, when the Boy kept missing Go buses.

Tuesday's without the Boy make me cranky. Ditto Thursdays and weekends. Well, I'm just a cranky bitch and no mistake. But I do like to wake up happy, and nothing makes me happier than a visit from the Boy on the night previous.

Saw a baby on the bus and it made me quite depressed. When I do the math in my head, there's no way I can have a baby before the age of 30, if I want to have any sort of teaching career. I'm already taking next year off. Plus 2 years teacher's college, plus 5 or so years to get on a firm financial footing...that's the big 3-0 right there, sistah. This all assumes that I'll be hitching up to the Boy - if not, then I have to factor in new relationship time.

And goddam it! I want to have a baby. My mother was very pregnant with me at this time in her life. She'd already been married for 3 years, too. Maybe it's a genetic thing, then...we just want to be settled down & domestic at this age.

Maybe I'm just tired.

But I'm not sure if I can wait 8 years for a baby, even though anything less would be unfair to the child. Sigh. I wish the Boy's sister would start breeding soon...maybe sublimation would get me through these treacherous 20's.

Very interesting development in the social world today. Wilson pulled me aside after class, a very rare event. We've always gotten along very well in the past, even though she reminds me rather strongly of myself in many ways. Her current boyfriend is very much like Alexi, plus the English major thing, plus the slack thing, plus the sloppiness thing...it all adds up.

(If you haven't guessed by now, I'm the kind of person who makes busywork for herself by finding a reflection in the personalities of others. I've actually improved a bit - I used to consider myself a cheap knock-off of my girlfriends. A degraded copy, you see. For instance, I was dismally convinced that Paris liked Ophelia better because she was a drastic improvement on my personality - me without all the ugliness of the soul. He kept denying it, but it's an image I cherished rather perversely. Part of the problem was with Ophelia herself: she's more than a little like a personality chameleon, molding her behavior to your expectations in subtle and marvelous ways. She can do you better than you can. But that's not my problem anymore.)

But the inexplicable coldness of Ophelia extends to her circle, and Wilson is one of that circle. So although we've remained perfectly friendly, I've been content not to push things, just in case they unravel. You can imagine my delight, then, when she took me aside & launched into a discussion of her problems with her roommates - all people I know, and therefore perilously close to gossip. Joy. It felt good to be confided in, you know? It felt good to be trusted.

Ian also asked if he could call me to help his sanity along during crunch time. He's in pretty rough shape these days - insomnia. With a guy that relaxed & genxish, it's very disconcerting to see him all cranky & rundown. I promised any help I could give...although our friendship has never passed beyond a certain well-established point in first year, I adore him. There's something wrong with the universe if Ian is unhappy.

Which brings me to the oddness of it all. Me, a girl who spend the 17th of November burning her arm with a stick of incense, a girl who spent an entire recent weekend in a funeral home, a girl who can't go 18 hours without craving contact with her Boy...and they're turning to me for stability.

Huh.

I'm not going to run myself down here, though. I always make time for the crises of others, despite the personal costs. If you ask me, I'll be there. It's just that so few ask. I don't know if I'm good at comforting, but I'm good at making time for others. If only I could put that on my resume...and leave out the lawnmowing.

According to my information, last night was the Night of the Simultaneous Corresponding Argument. The Boy & I felt rotten for arguing, but now I know it was just a psychic echo from Wilson & her roommate. We were fated to argue about arguing, you see. Which makes me feel amused, if not entirely easy. My curse is that I find too many things funny, even while arguing. My flippancy drives the Boy crazy - he can't understand why I don't take things as seriously as he does. But here's the thing - just because it doesn't make me upset doesn't mean that I don't care.

"Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand."

- homer simpson

Erm. Something like that, only in reverse. That's my other problem; too many situations in life remind me of The Simpsons. Amusing, but not ultimately of practical value.

I guess the big news is that the Boy's first love is getting married in the spring. (And by that, I'm picking up a poetic phrase of a friend which means "mother.") He seems to be taking it pretty well, although he feels it necessary to move out of the house. This has spawned a long conversational thread about moving out. I'm a bit off-put, because he's primarily excited about the opportunities for career, creativity & cat. No mention of me. It makes me quarrelsome - especially because I was concerned with the possibilities of a private space much more than anything else last fall. I carried around this growing egg of excitement during the month of August. I wrote about it extensively. I couldn't think about anything else after a point. But it occurred to me last night (after about a half hour of sulking) that I'd never articulated this to the Boy. I never told him exactly why I was so happy to get out...old-fashioned me, won't tell her Boy about her plans. That whole prudishness thing. Can't articulate certain things.

But when you carry around ideas for that long, it's easy to forget that you haven't told anyone about them. Hence the crankiness with the Boy's me-less enthusiasm.

Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I.