Clipping Words Out of the Radio

Cleaning out songs that have stuck around because a friend used to like them. Trying to read three books, four textbooks, two newspapers. Requesting magazine subscriptions. Planning a set of chemistry-themed calling cards. Avoiding math and science. Hating being told that's conformity. Turning everything into collage materials. Thinking ahead. Re-scheduling. Being alone.

I used to picture my friendships as smooth red strings connecting other hearts to mine. The better the friend, the thicker the string. Romance had the circumference of a fist.

I accept I will not have very many friends here.

Learning more and more about less and less and less
On the edge of your seat in some dark movie
Can you memorize the scenes?
They'll be different next week
- Cat Power, "Love & Communication"

This Song Is Everywhere

She says she'll be going out with a friend today, a friend with a girl's name. Here's the song on the radio in the car. The volume goes up.

Her phone rings. It's her friend. The volume goes down.

I know who it really is. It's the same friend, the very same person she was with, drunk in the woods, the night before. Maybe if his voice were deeper I would be able to hear him. Maybe it's lost in the bass. She says she can't meet him at nine, she'll have to be home. She sounds so harmless on the phone. I can hear that little layer of winking that means what they were up to twelve hours ago.

She's creepy and calculating talking to me. She says she failed the test and my ex-boyfriend was smoking pot. Maybe she did, and she doesn't care. Maybe he was, and it would be a waste of my time to care. She says there's no reason to live free of that terrific tangle of drugs and sex. She's so caught up that she's not responding to questions. Maybe she would be jealous of me if she believed I exist. I'm picturing her twitching on the floor with her sweatshirt unzipped. Every one of her ribs would show.

Her phone call's over. I'm the only one wearing a seat belt. The volume goes back up. We're going to crash and I'm going to leave her.

When we were young, I respected her and we pushed each other around the basement on rolling chairs until we fell over.

I said he doesn't look a thing like Jesus
He doesn't look a thing like Jesus
But more than you'll ever know
- The Killers, "When You Were Young"

Pretty Boys? I've Heard Rumors

When the chimes ring,
That's wind through her coat
The leaf scuffles,
And when the train calls
That's people going
Where you want to go

It's happened again. A creepy, immature boy who is nowhere near cool enough to be a theatre kid is after me.

On the way in, my phone's dead. I was too tired Friday night to turn it off before I went to bed.

"There's always mine," mumbles stunted, friendless, and ferociously ugly boy who was in my medieval history class last year. He raised his hand constantly and lisped passages of the book from memory. A girl abandons her suave novelist fiancé to marry his character. Maybe no other boys tried out.

My phone comes to life afterwards just long enough to give me hope. I lick the battery and quickly ask three friends.

"He-uh-y, you can use mine." Not quick enough. His phone's been in his jeans pocket. It's hot and clammy, the way I know his hands would be.

I call, give it back, thank him.

"He-uh-y, you said my name."

A mistake, I'm thinking. "Wh-uh-t's your name?"

I'm out the door as quick as possible. "S-uh-ee you next rehersal."

Foul-Weather Friends

So tell me how on earth that happened!


How did we think the boy with an opinion on everything didn't care about us? Why did we pull that trick in the spring in and the autumn? It was warm during the summer! What are we up to and why and how and where is it going?

I have the faintest idea I've always had the foggiest notion. This is about my third time rewriting this post. Have I got it right yet? It was sexy and tender. Do you know what I mean? Can you imagine it at least? I'm not asking because I want to know, I'm asking because I want to find out. You dig me? Really?

I know how it used to feel: immature. It still has its nubile moments. We're young. What we haven't figured out by now doesn't matter to us yet. That's so sweet.

How are we such friends? Especially through all that and after everything? Tell me how we managed it.

I think you have to be young and hopeful to do that.

My dear, you've been used
I'm breaking the news
Well, love nearly beat us
I'm thinking like you
Well, I'm thinking of you
Well, love follows near us
Can love really steer us?
Oh, can't it be true?
Oh, can it be true?
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Dudley"