Interior monologue on my way to class tonight:

This is the last time I will ever walk shivering past the History building, the last time to call Michele next to the painted bench, this is the last time I will decide against getting a coffee from the cart to warm my fingers up, this is the last time to go down these steps to go up these steps to go up these other steps, this is the last series of notices on the bulletin board about summer programs I cannot afford to attend, the last time I will enter this classroom to sit through the–

This is the last “class cancelled” sign I will ever see at SFSU, the last time I will stand foolishly in front of the door uncertain whether this might be an elaborate prank or not, this is the last time I will feel a little bit betrayed by a professor, this is the last this is the last this is

Oh, hey. It’s over.

Do you have a copy of Orlando by Virginia Woolf? If so I would love to borrow it before Thursday. I loaned mine to a friend in my class so he could read it over Thanksgiving break and the little bounder skipped the class after the break. So now I have no Orlando for my paper.

Please let me know if you have one or know of where a copy can be found in e-form online. (Gutenberg doesn’t have it.) I will come to you to get it.

I’ve started a list of things that are on loan to other people, because I am getting tired of waking up one morning and thinking, for example, “Hey, what happened to my copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves?”

I know I loaned that to one of you, possibly Sean or Dianna, but I cannot remember who. I don’t need it back but I like to know where things are, so please let me know if you have my copy and I will jot you down on the list. And if you are extra-quick in telling me you have it, I will put a little happy stamp next to your name.

Showdown with the dragon last night: midterms handed back in Syntax. As the prof handed me my test, I saw it: D. It flashed across my eyes like lightning, the kind of lightning that comes out before the rain starts, hisses past your ear, strikes your little fluffy rat-dog a square blow to the snout, bounces up to knock over your favorite elm tree, rushes through your bedroom window and burns up your wedding album, breaks all the dishes in the kitchen, smashes back outside the heirloom stained glass window, thumps you soundly between the eyes with a fist full of sparklers and hisses “You will never graduate! EVER!” before fizzling out in a disappointing anticlimax just like your future. D is for Death knell for any hope of passing this class and graduating at the end of the semester.

But B, which, as I suddenly saw, was the grade I actually got, is for my Big ridiculous panic attack over nothing, my Brilliant syntactical brain, and my Bastard professor’s messy handwriting which prompted the other B, this Blog entry.

Don’t return those graduation gifts yet, kids. I’m still on track.

I recently made a new friend; a not inconsiderable feat considering that I do not believe in friends, or, indeed, other people. Almost immediately I began to use this friend as a verbal punching bag, calling him girl names, insulting his literary taste and skills, making fun of his font choices and so forth, because it turns out that it is surprisingly satisfying to be part of a relationship based entirely on abuse, provided you pick the right role. “I’m king of the world!” I would shout, arms spread wide, from my perch atop his flattened dignity.

Recently this friend, let’s call him Paula, staged a sad last-ditch effort to be free of me and my flattenizing. He stopped responding to my emails, my phone calls, my text messages, my voicemails and my comments on his site, and when I showed up at his house disguised as an old beggar woman selling lovely red apples he wouldn’t even open the door.

For a while I shrugged it off, but the fact is I am starting to miss the little rodent, though I could not tell you why. I miss having someone to verbally spar with who I’m not afraid of, or dating, or afraid of dating. I liked how he maintained his chewy emotional center even though he knew he was in danger of being cast as a supporting lead in a Sandra Bullock movie. I liked how he would invent gossip for me about top Company X executives taking regular business trips to Thailand for inappropriate sex adventures, which I believed, oh, I believed. I liked watching the innocent school children he teaches slowly grind him into hamburger as the semester progressed.

But that’s all in the past now. And why? What for? Is it just my fate to be eventually dumped by all new friends, even as Czech Mark eventually dumped us all in favor of his much-cooler-than-us fiancee, or as Ellie dumped us for her much-cooler-than-us new baby? Or is there some other reason, something I cannot put my finger on but which might have to do with my constant firehose of verbal abuse and his nougatty emotional goop? I guess we’ll never know. But Paula, if you’re out there, and I hope you are, just know that I will always treasure our four long months of friendship. You silly, silly girl.

The nation of me.

Idly googling an old boyfriend, I was surprised to actually find him. Even more surprising was that in a picture of four very different-looking people I had absolutely no idea which one he was (although I think he’s the one in the hat). Is it time to stop googling a guy if you can’t even recognize him anymore? I submit that it is not, and will continue to stalk stalk stalk ’til the nursing home staff takes my laptop away.

Despite my outside stalks, the Lad and I remain together, turtleless but happy. I suppose it’s for the best. Couples who use pets as surrogate children are creepy at best, so how many friends would we lose if our “baby” was an enshelled reptile? At least having a dog or a cat semi-prepares you for the madness of child-rearing, in that you have to talk to it and touch it regularly. I can just picture the Lad and I strapping our eventual child’s crib to its eventual back and watching it crawl around. “Look, it can carry its whole house around with it!” we’ll say, probably not using the pronoun ‘it,’ while our forgotten turtle sulks in its glass box. Also, outsiders care how you treat your dog/cat/baby, while you can pretty much microwave your turtle and get away with it.

In other news, we are planning a January trip to London, another thing you can do when you have a turtle but not so easily when you have a baby. We’ll be sleeping on Dan’s floor, who I guess I can no longer refer to as a monk in any sense at all although I am secretly hoping the apartment will be decorated only with a cross and will feature Dan smacking his own head with a Bible while frantically chanting. Because I am insensitive.

Don’t get mad, get Craigslist.