Since my computer is still in “busted” status, I’ve taken the liberty of hijacking my roommate’s computer while she’s away visiting her aunt in Abilene. Hey, what can a girl do.

Last night the boyfriend and I went to our friend Shelly’s for her housewarming party. “Friend” is a strong word, I suppose; she’s really more of an acquaintance. Anyways, as soon as we stepped inside the house, I felt really uncomfortable - that sort of feeling you get when you’re at a place where everyone knows everyone else, except for you. I suppose this is really racist and un-progressive, but I’ll admit it - I was also hyper-conscious of the fact that everyone there was white. I’m not sure why. I’m a banana girl. I have mostly white friends and I live in Lawrence, a town that’s not exactly a beacon of racial diversity. Shelly herself was there, and she’s also Vietnamese. Maybe it’s because we (the boyfriend and I) were clearly different somehow, and I didn’t know how, so I had to attribute it to the most obvious thing - race.

For whatever reason, though, I felt awkward and tense the whole time (the boyfriend admitted afterwards that he felt the same way, though he at least recognized some people). The good thing is, though, that we ran into another couple who also looked kind of awkward and uncomfortable. We talked to them for most of the time, so it wasn’t all bad. Still - it just struck me how hard it is to start relationships with people. It didn’t seem like it was always this way.

There were twenty-six people that went on the alternative spring break to New Mexico. The last night, all of us gathered around the fireplace of the main cabin, just as we did every night. We drank hot chocolate and said our benedictions - recapping all the funny shit that had happened that day. Then the laughter died down, and we got serious. We swore until we were blue that we would keep New Mexico, Ghost Ranch, the connection between all of us alive and strong. Well…out of all of these people, I’ve kept into contact with two of them - one being my boyfriend, and the other one just by virtue of the fact that he lives in the same building as my boyfriend. I guess it was really easy to think at the time that a bond existed, when twenty-five other people were telling you, each other, and themselves that it did.

The only thing that’s really survived from the trip, for me, was the feeling of silence - the way the air held so still out in the desert - no sound, nothing for miles. Even the redness of the sand, which struck me at the time as the most vivid natural thing I’d seen - even that is fading. What about the stars that night we slept on top of the mesa? They were dying, already dead when I saw them. If I can’t even remember nature, which changes over long periods of time, how am I expected to remember people, who are constantly on the move?

I hardly ever feel like leaving the house anymore, in case I happen to meet someone and have to go through the whole rigmarole of introductions again. How do people get to the point at which they forget about appearances, and start to talk for real? I must have known at some point, since I’ve done it, but I don’t know how to do it anymore. It’s so difficult. Better to stay at home and take care of my own problems, before I deal with other people’s baggage, anyways.