Yesterday, I met my friend Charles at Hampshire around noon, and to kill time beforehand I decided to walk around downtown NoHo in the pouring rain. My friends and I had batted around some ideas about going downtown together on Friday night, but I wake up early and I always feel weird about knocking on people's doors, even though I know Emily wakes up at 5:30 every morning and nothing short of a strong electric shock will wake Paulina up before noon on a weekend. I still feel weird about it. So I went downtown and let the rain pour all over me (because I don't own an umbrella). It was actually really enjoyable. Sometimes rain is really aggressive and unpleasant to walk in (like the rain I got caught in on Thursday, when I was wearing ballet flats and a pretty dress and had to run across campus while a malicious God poured buckets of water all over me), but this was more like showering with all my clothes on. I went to the Garlic Festival, not out of any desire for garlic but because I heard jazz and it was free, so I listened to jazz and had a hot dog in the pouring rain until I began to experience mild discomfort, so then I got some hot apple cider and went to sit in Thornes. I was very contented, sitting there with my cider and a book--until the cup spilled and all the cider emptied out onto the floor. I was so upset I wanted to cry. Apple cider is such a beautiful thing, and rather than pound it all down I was trying to savor it. That's a moral, kids. Eat and drink everything as fast as possible. It's safer that way.
When I got to Hampshire, Charles was barefoot. I really shouldn't have been surprised, but I still asked him, "Why aren't you wearing any shoes?"
"It's Hampshire," he said, then we both added mentally, you dumbass.
It was nice seeing Charles again, even though it was mildly awkward. I did expect that; my friend Maddy and I met two years ago at Unirondack but she has family in Buffalo, so whenever she's in town we meet up, and it's nice, but also just a little bit weird. I think of Charles as a fairly taciturn guy, and while we're pretty good buddies, we've mostly bonded while doing activities rather than just talking and talking. I think our friendship is unique in that way. I usually make friends in the following ways:
- By being so extremely weird that other weirdos are just drawn to me (most of my con friends and lots of camp friends)
- Proximity, as in, "We're going to have to deal with each other for the next eight years so we might as well be friendly" (lots of my high school friends, including dance friends)
- By being gay (Eirie, Caleb, and Alia are the ones that stand out for that one)
- By having really intense conversations about really serious things (every close friend I've ever had)
- Talking to them via Facebook (Jonathan, Libby, and most recently, Alice)
But Charles and I got to be friends when he hung out illegally in my cabin and kicked my ass in Capuera at camp, so when we were in a situation where we had nothing to do but talk, it was a little weird. We walked in the woods and investigated a ruined car (he wasn't wearing shoes for any of this, by the way) and I picked some apples, and he showed me around the campus and told me how stuff works at Hampshire. It's nice, I guess, and the special gazebos for smoking pot are quaint, but I wouldn't want to go there. Maybe I'll take a class there, though. The no-grade system is starting to look pretty good, too. I love Physiology of Behavior so much, but I'm currently doing terribly in it.
When I got back home, my house went to Six Flags, and I went on a roller coaster and actually enjoyed it! We got back around 9 because people wanted to go to the party at Cushing, and I went to study with Josie, Zaineb, and Paulina. For "study," read "talk and watch A Bit of Fry and Laurie and do no work whatsoever." It was nice, though. A day of fun, and then today I just worked all day. Distributing tasks like a boss.
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