Open-ended

Last night was Liz’s birthday and a big group of international students went bowling to celebrate. It seems as if I’ve been around other people almost constantly but I’ve been lonely all along. I sat on the long bench at the bowling alley, next to Isla. I was wearing this white sweater with eyelets in it, and when she sat down next to me, her hair touched me through the sweater and my body lit up all of a sudden. It’s almost as if it was reminded that once upon a time I used to touch and be touched. But for the past month I’ve been surviving on the dregs of involuntary human contact; a brush in the stairwell, a bump on the metro. I think of three more months without kissing, making love or even having my hair played with and they seem to stretch out infinitely before me, bleak and cold.

Today I saw a student production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. The actors looked so young, trying to look so old. I love the hyperbolic drama. I am twenty years old and somehow these kids that may only be a year or two, or maybe only a few months younger than me, looked like tender green peas. They smoked cigarettes, which I’m sure were herbal or, and exhaled huge exaggerated plumes of smoke. I’d watch them peter out into the air, a few of the thicker wisps would linger and whip themselves up, and fall lazily, avoiding their inevitable taper. For some reason it reminded me of the snow that hit Sunderland the day after I arrived. I would stand outside, trying to rationalize its behavior. But it wasn’t rational at all. The snow was not falling but flying in every direction: up, down, sideways. I’m sure I annoyed the hell out of everyone with how many times I exclaimed in wonder.

Half an hour or so into the play, I started to feel the effects of the diet pill and latte I downed before the show started. I know, I know. What the hell am I doing taking diet pills? Why am I also consuming large quantities of the faux sugary substance named aspartame? Yes, this is the same person who refuses to take birth control pills because she believes such hormones are unnatural. Yes, this is also the same person who buys non-hydrogenated peanut butter and only drinks organic milk. It is possible I have a subconscious cancerous death wish but I’m more inclined to believe that it’s all a matter of vanity. I should feel guilty but it hasn’t caught up with me yet. So anyway, I started getting that caffeine buzz feeling but it kept flapping around my body as if it had tiny wings and it would get caught in the strangest places like the glands in my neck or the undersides of my arms. I couldn’t stop fidgeting, rubbing my eyes and massaging my temples. My worst paranoid delusions center around me dying from a brain aneurism so I tend to worry when my pulse starts doing crazy things. But then it dislodged itself from wherever it was stuck and decided to make peace with my body. My scalp began to tingle and I felt just like I do right before a tab of Ecstasy really takes hold of me. This is the point at which I decide I am a philosopher and everything around me must be moralized. So I’m watching the scene in the play where Martha and Nick are having a raunchy dance together. It’s an old fashioned dance but they’re doing it with the same vigor that I’m sure they would if they were grinding on each other at some club today. And then the act of dancing makes complete sense to me. Dancing is an acceptable expression of the need, the desire to fuck. When else do we allow our bodies to go into total abandon and move only in the ways that feel best to us? While I rarely do anything without casting a critical eye on myself I am somehow able to dance as if no one is watching just about every time. Last Saturday at Independent when I heard a song I knew I’d throw my head back and move my hips and sing at the top of my lungs. Only the best kind of exhaustion comes after a night of dancing.