Love of the Common Zan

sarahb:

We held hands… both hands. We wanted to get a black belt in something cool. We referred to Barbra Streisand as just “Barbra.” We met a cute ten year old with kidney stones. We hated Elizabeth from Colorado. We were jealous of Sarah’s eating disorder. We were worried we’d miss our middle school teachers once we got to high school. We ate lunch alone in our trailer so not to sweat off our makeup. We wrote a letter to Hanson’s parents. We got stoned and watched Purple Rain. We spent an hour together at Starbucks, doing nothing and feeling perfect. We grunted silently and smiled. We gave our first blowjob in a park and a kid saw it. We went home and read Edna St. Vincent Millay. We literally loved him. We reached somewhat of a climax. We sent ourselves an email with the subject “tears.” We wanted to be happy, swim with dolphins, and prove everyone wrong. We reached out and grabbed his bass. We regretted nothing. We are CRINGE.

A trip to New York isn’t complete until you’ve read your high school pre-sex sex fantasies in front of a room full of strangers.

I’ve been back in New York for two days (of a short visit) and I have a thousand thoughts about it, but the four thoughts I’m thinking right now are:

1. It feels like everyone here is so rich or pretending to be
2. I’m glad to finally be in sync with everyone’s posts about the weather again
3. I keep wondering if it felt this strange for Patti coming back to New York to visit while she was living in Detroit/I wonder if she thought everyone seemed rich too
4. Reading The Awl makes more sense here than it does in Ohio