You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands

Seth was away at Beach Week on June 3, so we celebrated our two-year anniversary on Monday, June 7. Last year, we went to Pho; this year it was A&J's, for a $10 meal of dumplings, tripe, bean curd, and wontons. He asked me what we should do after lunch, and I suggested going back to my house. "To do what?" he said.

"Hang out, have conversations,” I said. “We've been managing fine so far."

"Do you mean today, or for the past two years?"

Both are generally true, as I replied - I can't conceive of the sheer volume of conversation hours the two of us have logged. Our dates have been mostly walking around/sitting in various Bethesda locales, punctuated with media appreciation and restaurant meals. It's remarkable how much we've found to say about ourselves, our friends, books, and music (with incidental other things like world affairs and religion). For example, on our anniversary celebration day, we: played a record of T.S. Eliot reading "Prufrock" and made fun of his British accent/Midwestern drawl fusion; became disproportionately excited over "Bizarre Love Triangle" while playing New Order in the car; and were self-consciously sentimental.


Other things that we've done on dates more recently (because the chronology is superfluous): walked to The Other Side of Town, where there are actual homeless people and a fenced-in dirt lot next to a dingy CVS, and lay on the couch in his basement after his parents were asleep, watching "Who's Line is it Anyway?" For once, in the countless times we've done that, we didn't have to worry about a legally enforced midnight curfew - because I am no longer 17, and neither is he! We also played Scrabble, visited Bethesda ES playground, and read poetry out loud. I was pleased to report those things to my boss, when he asked how I spent my day off (last Thursday). He looked a little appalled and said, "Ah, freewheeling youth."


On Thursday, June 10, I saw Seth, as well as Hank and Tara, for Harry Potter. Neither of the boys has read the books, and Seth hadn't even seen the first two movies; Tara and I provided whispered plot summaries. Afterwards, we sat for a while in the picnic chairs chained outside Potbelly's, while Hank rooted through Tara's purse. (He also abandoned it in a wheelchair-access elevator across the street, but Seth made him retrieve it.) On Wednesday, June 16, Nick S., Tara, Natalie G., and I met for dinner, and afterwards Seth came and Natalie left – and we went to my place to watch Duck Soup. It was our first exposure to a Marx Brothers movie (for everyone but Seth), and it was really surprisingly funny. We chased it with soft porn that we found on channel 350, playing with my TV's new sybaritic features.

[Part 2] The following night, I made impromptu arrangements with Eric and Tara; we finally saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I loved more than I can justify. I identified with it like crazy, mostly concerning Seth + me. Near tears afterwards, I babbled to my nonplussed companions about redemptive worthwhileness, the cleanness of any pain that we would choose to do over ("I would love you over..."). I imagined being forewarned, approx. two years ago, of everything that would happen with the two of us - would I choose it anyway? The absence of regret, in the face of preordained crumminess, seems like a powerful restorer of value. For their part, Tara and Eric mocked me, and I nursed my grand & isolated moodiness until Eric put on a TMBG CD.


We took a dodgy, circuitous route back to Tara's, then changed our minds and veered further into the District/poorly lit wooded streets/other semi-local highways - all to prolong singing along to TMBG songs, and otherwise to enjoy each other's company. Eventually, we entered Bethesda Naval Hospital grounds (Eric, as a brat, has access) so that he could use the ATM there (??). Tara and I whined, so he left us in the car with the music on; after a brief exchange, we concluded that we were essentially obligated to steal his car. Haltingly, at maybe 3 mph, I drove in a wide semi-loop across the parking lot. Then I attempted to cruise up to the ATM vestibule, but Eric met me halfway and directed my attention to the six or seven police/security cars stalled to our right. We did get off military property without legal incident, but not before driving up to the roof of a parking garage and lying on the hood of Eric's car, stargazing and overlooking a huge sweep of Bethesda forest/military infrastructure.


On Monday, May 24, I started work at SAIC - a multinational tech corporation mainly involved in defense contracting. As Sandi (I think?) pointed out, Tara (at Anteon) and I are rival contributors to the military-industrial complex. Well, marginally: I help edit a 20-page color newsletter called Spectrum. I think it's remarkable that I'm being paid $13/hr to rewrite and copy edit articles. I've never been good at anything lucrative before. Also, they've given me my own office - larger than my dorm room last semester - and mostly they leave me alone to slip into blissful, self-sustaining misanthropy. The other interns seem to be friendly with one another; I pass them in the hall talking about the party scene at their respective colleges, or their career goals, or whatever. I glide by as a social nonentity. Though I love my friends, being absolutely unattached has its place (in my psyche?) too - at least, as long as I can go back and forth at will (grin).


That reminds me (of my failed attempt to have a roommate): Arielle, please help me to do what you did for my birthday, by June 21. Arielle made me a mix CD of my most overplayed songs from last year, as well as some of her own favorites. I really love that CD, and I think it would be fun to compile some for-proselytizing top picks. But, I'm almost done: On Wednesday, May 26, I returned to RM for the Spring Choral Concert. As an alum, I was called onstage to participate in the finale, "The Heavens Are Telling," which was bittersweetly fun. Afterwards, I met up with Seth - still in his Madrigals tux and newly recognized with a departmental prize for musical theater - and we drove to Montgomery College and made out. I justified this impropriety by saying it was "kitschy" (because everything we talk about nowadays leads back to Unbearable Lightness). He said, skeptically, "Well, maybe by the actual definition."

No change, I can change,
I can change, I can change....

And songs are never quite the answer

First, happy two years of whatever the hell we're doing to Seth (grin)! He gave me a belated birthday present last week: a Nathanael West paperback, purchased in February, that I'd refused to accept until he added an inscription. This apparently took five months. In his long-awaited message, he cited our two-year-old "sinusoidal but ultimately wicked-cool relationship," which just about sums it up. I do care about him tremendously, and what we've done to each other has been at times dysfunctional but probably worthwhile. In other news, I haven't been in the mood to post lately, but I have maintained a list of things I've been doing. I'll now edit/condense judiciously: After I got home on April 30, I spent a week sulking (my customary response to lifestyle changes), and granted access only to my immediate family and Seth.


On Friday, May 8, I had my momentous first encounter with other friends, to see Mean Girls and sleep over at Tara's. GPaul, Michael, Joe, Sarah, Liliya, Tara, and I met at Potbelly's for a pre-Regal meal, authentically reliving High School in Rockville. Mean Girls was awfully good; I liked it better than Kill Bill, as I confessed with appropriate shame afterwards. We exited through a subterranean passage that culminates mysteriously across the street, in a small unmarked building facing the theater. Then we went back to Tara's to play Trivial Pursuit, which was interminable, and to concoct Unknown Beverages, which was sort of entertaining/awful. I kept trying (weakly) to quip my way out of the game: "I am a conscientious objector to Trivial Pursuit," "Does anyone else want to secede from this activity?," etc. Finally, exasperated, I said, "Let's play something exciting! Strip alcohol!"


Incidentally, I think I played something close to that last weekend. We did drink, and we played strip Spin the Bottle (where removing an article of clothing was an alternative to kissing, to accommodate monogamy). I'd never played Spin the Bottle before, and I'm vaguely regretful that I had my first experience with that iconic childhood activity under such shady circumstances. On Wednesday, May 12, I spent time with Anne, Liliya, Natalie G., Tara, and Nick S. in Bethesda. We wandered purposelessly for a while, and were escorted out of the park near Bethesda Library by a police officer. Apparently it closes after sunset, which is unfortunate because night is really the only appropriate time for playgrounds, if you're 19 or 20. When the police officer arrived, Tara had just finished teaching us how to make our own bus passes from discarded transfers/expired passes. Also, I had begun the sentence, "Speaking of small illegalities, Nick, you shouldn't..." [I was going to say shoplift from Wawa.]


After most people left to attend to their sane sleeping habits, Tara, Nick, and I purchased emergency Diet Red Bulls and watched The Exorcist on his laptop. The movie made me sort of want to attend Georgetown, which was probably not the intended effect. On Tuesday, May 18, I finally met up with my RM '03 crew: M/alex/Mike (as host), Jen, Ranwa, Sarah, Andrew, & more. We ate homemade pizza and watched Jurassic Park without nearly enough irony. In high school, we were Good Kids - but we expressed an abstract intent to get drunk together. It probably won't happen, for lack of safe drinking circumstances, but I think we should commit to finding a forest or a quarry or something (maybe a gorge? I'm picturing a natural depression littered with beer bottles from those who came before. On a related note, why is it that we don't have a local Makeout Point?). [Part 2 is on its way!]