Friends (Not the TV show)

Forcing myself out of my apartment is a good thing. After dinner with a friend on Friday night, my neighbor called to tell me she had just ordered a bunch of fast food and that I should come over. I joined a group of girls sitting around a table heaped with hamburgers, fries, cheese sticks and chicken tenders. A little dog and a cat ran around her apartment attacking each other. The dog would hump the cat and bite down on the cat’s head and the cat would retaliate with its claws or a surprise attack from above. A hideously violent film played in the background, but instead of turning it off we all just continued eating, going “Ewwwww!” every time someone was sawed in half.

My neighbor, who is Korean-American, studied literature at Harvard. When I heard that, I got so excited, but she said she refuses to even look at a book for another 6 months. Hmmmm. Maybe I don’t want to go to Harvard if I’m going to want to avoid books afterward. She said that even though she went to Harvard, her last employers would have gladly traded her for a blond, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, mediocre teacher. This isn’t just supposition. She actually heard her co-teachers say they wanted to replace her with a blond teacher.


In addition to severe cramps, I have a pain in my neck that won’t go away, which I think happened as a result of uncomfortable sleep, or me doing backward somersaults on my bed. Despite these ailments, I still managed to have a good time yesterday and today with my new friends, Jihoo, who is Korean, and Nomthi, who is Zulu South African.

Nomthi is very insightful. She has a deep stare that sees past surfaces. Chilling at her place last night, she said to me, “You’re a very loving person. I get the feeling that you love people a lot, and you are very sensitive.” Yes, this is true, but I don’t think she sensed my jealousy over her huge apartment with multiple rooms and a balcony until I told her how raving jealous I was.

She stared at me knowingly and said, “You’re different. Very gentle, especially in a relationship, you’re a very soft person.” Soft is an accurate descriptor, both physically and emotionally, although my body can be toned with some more nature hikes, like I did this morning, and saying no to fast food binges with my neighbor. Hmmmmm. This is going to require discipline.