in the nightgown of the sullen moon.

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13 february 1997

6:45 p.m.

Dear diary, It was a day of simple pleasures. I got to campus early, and decided to indulge in the rare pleasure of breakfast. For some strange reason, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was calling my name, so (after figuring out the conveyor-belt toaster) I made myself one. I hadn't eaten one for months, and the simple smell of peanut butter made me smile. I remembered when I was a kid, I ate PB&Js every single day. And I do mean: Every. Single. Day. Not only that, but I was very picky. I had to have chunky peanut butter ("Texture! I want texture!"), and I would not eat grape jelly. I was very serious about my sandwiches. My ears ring just thinking of the tantrums I've thrown. The specific image that hit me, munching away in an uncommonly empty cafeteria, was of crouching in the back seat of my mom's car during the drive to school. The smell of a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich, fuzzy purple seats, warm floor vents on cold rainy mornings and pop radio. Damn. It was a Near Womb Experience. I'll have to keep PB&Js in mind the next time I feel the world is crashing down. As a spiritual sedative they're pretty effective, and considerably cheaper than most of my other solace foods. I passed a guy playing a `ukulele on the steps, and hovered a bit to listen. He started playing "Moloka`i Slide," your typical upbeat Hawaiian song, bobbing his head with a wide, simple grin. I don't think anyone else sitting near him knew who he was, but they were smiling too. There I was... standing at the top of the steps on a stunning clear day, looking out over the tree-plugged campus at Wa`ahila Ridge, listening to music echoing through Campus Center, and tand for a moment I couldn't believe I lived in this place. I can go weeks grumbling about the buses rumbling past my building, whining about the price of gas or scowling at the sorority sluts that cut in line at the ATM. Catch me at the wrong time, you'd think I had a cruel, tortured life. (Well, you'd think I thought I had a tortured life, but you'd also think I should get over myself.) But in all honesty, I know I'm insanely lucky. Not luckier than other people so much as lucky to be "stuck" someplace where -- if I just step back once in a while and crank my eyes open as wide as they'll go -- I can easily and wholly be happy. Maybe it's the phase of the moon. It seems as if everything I see lately is heavy with significance. In no time I'll be bitching about traffic again. Hawaiian, as usual, was great. We got our chapter test back, and I had one of only three As in the class. The kumu (teacher) came this close to asking us to step forward, but I'm glad she didn't. Since we all gave eachother our phone numbers at the start of the semester (a practice that still doesn't sit well with me), I'd probably get drowned in calls the day before the next test. Or perhaps I flatter myself. Honestly I don't think I'm all that good at the language. I won't be for a while. But I'm loving it so much, I think it counts for something in the grand scheme of things. I sure feel like I'm doing pretty well. We didn't get our last paper back, but I'm optomistic about it. I still make lots of mistakes, but I make a conscious effort to do complex things. So, although I get lots of red marks, I still get a good grade and a happy face. In Hawaiian, "Happy Valentine's Day" is "Hau`oli la o Lono i ke aweawe aloha." Instead of St. Valentine, we've got Lono, the god of love and mercy. What are my plans? I'll let you know as soon as Derek tells me. (Over the last few days, he's learned quite vividly that I don't take to surprises very well...) I really love this new computer. It's almost obscene how much of a thrill I'm getting just out of turning the damn thing on. I mean, the startup chord has double the pomposity of my old Mac's. I half want to hook it up to my stereo just to hear it in surround sound. I even stayed up way too late last night playing with it (so perhaps sleep deprivation has a little to do with my hyperaware state). I really must get a real CD-ROM. All I can do with the drive right now is play with the motorized door. Which is a little fun, I suppose, but still... I downloaded Internet Explorer for the Mac out of some perverse curiosity, and am dumbstruck at how downright ugly it is. Or rather, how ugly it makes web pages look. It also doesn't like <DD> tags, making any basic, indented text look ghastly. I deeply resent that I'll have to work around Microsoft's idiosyncracies eventually. While I've been meandering a lot, though, I've been finding it hard to get back up to speed. In downloading my entire site onto this hard drive, everything got mangled a bit. I'm reluctant to tinker with anything else 'cause it'd mean cleaning up all the weird line breaks first. More intimidating, though, is tackling e-mail. Though I've made a lot of friends -- and a few very special ones -- online, I've historically been awful at writing back and keeping in touch. When my frooter died, it took literally months of unanswered mail with it (my anti-Eudora, Pentium-hugging boss is still gloating). I was already growing embarassed -- or afraid -- to write to some friends after that kind of slacking, so being offline for a couple of weeks was the last thing I needed in that regard. And the longer I hide from it, the more awkward it gets to try and suddenly thrust myself back into some people's lives. I know it's ridiculous. I'm stupid that way. Forget the boy who cried wolf... I'm the girl who cried, "I was just about to write to you..." Sigh. On a positive note, I finally appointed Kymm as Deputy Ringmaster of Open Pages -- seeing as how she had been pretty much watching over things for me anyway. Two loads of laundry are sulking at me. I sure as hell ain't gonna spend tomorrow night with them, so...