now what?

Here I am, back in the coffeeshop, like nothing ever changed. Except lots of things have changed. My exam Friday was absolute shit. I was so unprepared and the exam was so unnecessarilly complicated, I wanted to laugh all the way through. Laugh or cry, whatever. For four hours. I left campus in a complete daze and passed through several stages of grief before I recovered... if I've recovered. I was stunned with a gaping mouth and a puzzled frown, then I was delirious, singing and laughing in the car, then I was angry. Really, really angry and I called SK and told her I was feeling brutal. Feeling brutal, in my mind, is like what I imagine Cam Coor felt like in high-school. Cam Coor was this strikingly sexy redneck who had a fluffy trucker moustache in the tenth grade and who carried himself like the kind of guy who *should've* been wearing a fluffy trucker moustache: a middle age, hardened trucker guy. I was hanging out in McDonald's one night with what passed for my friends and Cam came in, looking super-sexy with his crew-cut and his moustache and his tight, worn out old jeans. He came and stood at our table, joking with the boys, explaining that he was just dying to fight somebody. His plan was to go "cruise Benson" (a nearby town where everyone drove around in circles staring at each other on the weekends), get "shitfaced" and "find some motherfucker's ass to kick."

I never understood that feeling although, as I crossed the Fremont Bridge Friday after my exam and fantasized about smashing my head through a plate glass window, I imagined (as I said) that this is similar to how Cam felt that night he went out to kick some ass in Benson. I didn't kick any ass, though. I went home and saw that SK had lovingly placed some marigolds in pots on my front steps and left me a card. Sweet SK. The flowers and the cards didn't touch my mood, but once I talked to SK I started feeling much better. She offered to come out to dinner with me and my school friends and I was thrilled. The dinner was creepy and weird and sweet and fun at the same time and I won't bore you with anymore details. Just know that SK and I went on to have a very lovely weekend taking walks, planting things in my "garden" (which is just a big mound of organic mulch in my landlord's yard) and getting reaquainted after what feels like a million years.

Now it's Monday. My first Monday of the summer. No school, no birdlady, no SK (she's at work)... Now what? What can I do with myself? I have a bag full of books to consider reading. I've had so many things nagging at me, pulling me while I studied or worked for birdlady or wrote papers. Now that I'm free, I'm beside myself. I don't know how to handle it.

For now, I will take books outside and enjoy the sun before it gets too hot. Then I'll come back and in and see what happens.