ok. that was fun, except i wished i'd been at a coffee shop in the sun somewhere with a tape recorder, so it could have been more like a conversation and less like me asking questions and him answering (in the most charming accented voice) and then silence while i typed furiously. it's frustrating when you get a chance to talk to someone who's actually really interesting and has a lot to say about things beyond their own work - but you're technically working and thus don't get to have the conversation you want.

i say that like i interview people all the time, which certainly isn't the case, but i hung up the phone, all flustered and feeling a little dorky, and thought, rats. and then i thought what i wrote above about coffee shops and sunshine.

ah well. back to real life. real life which is, i gotta say, pretty damn good. last night i had this strange mood fit at the pretty girls make graves show where i had to go sit in the dark by myself for a little bit, very near tears. it was during the opening act (friends of ours) and i'd been coughing a lot so it wasn't a big deal and no one noticed, but i had gotten myself so worked into a weird moody state where i felt detached from everyone but J, but then when everyone else is around he is in social mode, not snuggle-molly mode, so i felt stranded in ways that i could blame no one but myself for. it had to do with other things as well, a strain among friends that i can't quite put my finger on, but it was overwhelming and strange and difficult.

and then, slowly, i tucked it away. i went to stand with J, shoulder to shoulder, and i had a couple of moments where insecurity and bitterness flared up, but ... i don't know. i was quiet, and not that social, but i watched people and sort of centered myself within that alone in the crowd feeling, and when J and P and i went upstairs a little later, i found my feet again. and i talked to girl-J, who i'm a little worried about, and found that all i need to take myself away from the circular stairs of insecurity is to worry about someone else instead.

rambling, yes, sure, but things were lining up, and in the car on the way home i told J how girl-J and i had been talking about how things don't feel the same when you do them yourself as when you see someone else doing them, and he and i got on a talk about jealousy and envy about people doing things you want to do, how a person deals with that, if it's worse or better to be so aware of it that you feel guilty about it, and, well. well. sometimes i get so tied up about something internally that i feel like there's no way to talk about it with other people - or that it's the kind of thing people don't want to talk about it.

but instead i find that this boy i love understands what i'm getting at and will talk to me about envy and self-awareness (and how we both think we're a different kind of self-aware than most people) and the need to feel special and so much more that i begin to stretch, to relax, to remember how to talk it out. and so tucked into the pockets where his words fit is the glowing joy of always learning something more about him and, by extension, about myself.

i will cup my hand and let this feeling, this comfort and ease, sit loosely but deeply, where we can both breathe.