A brown and white striped shirt, and black shoes. Yesterday was a bit stressful. After class I went to the credit union and sat outside next to Audrey Pernell, who was explaining to a young man that it was not important that his signatures on several checks weren't identical. He turned out to be John Fort, a transfer student from Deep Springs college who was at one point romantically involved with Morgan. I introduced myself to him, and he brightened and invented a handshake and admitted that he was not yet an adult and agreed that we should eat dinner. I ran into Bryn in McCabe and invited her to dinner, and printed out recipes from epicurious for carrot cake and enchilada sauces, then I went shopping. I bought close to $100 worth of groceries at the co-op, which surprised me because last I time I only spent forty and I was expecting to spend much more. But I didn't buy non-cream-non-cheese or non-butter or non-milk or tomatilloes or chilis because they didn't have any, so after putting the cake in the oven I strapped on my rollerblades and went to Genuardis, and then to Martindales. I got lost on the way back, skating around the subarban streets with the phrase "je ne suis pas fatigué" repeating itself in my head. When Bénédicte first said that I thought she was saying "je ne suis pathetiqué."

Because of all of this, it was almost five when I started cooking dinner in earnest, while the guests were invited for either six or six-thirty. I made guacamole and prepared the tortillas and chopped vegetables and prepared a sauce. Ester helped a little, but Joel and Rebecca didn't come home until about six. The filling consisted of sauteed spinach, tomato, onion, corn, black beans, and garlic. The sauce was sort of odd; it was non-dairy based, with a lot of non-cheese, and then peppers and chili paste, making it quite spicy. I had a lot of fun cooking, but because I got such a late start I wasn't finished until after seven, which means I missed out on a lot of conversation and the beginning of dinner (since I also had to prepare the frosting for the cake.) Matt Rubin left before I was able to join the group, and John and Bryn gave me some help in the kitchen. The enchiladas were quite tasty, as was the reheated leftover chili and the carrot cake. That's mostly what I have to say about the dinner. The conversation seemed fairly non-descript to me, if not a touch awkward at times. Things improved after dinner, when Annie and Milena and Joel and I retired to my room and talked about music and school. Then it got kind of weird.

At this point I had been shopping and cooking and preparing for dinner all afternoon. The kitchen was a mess, and I asked the others to help me with it, but Rebecca and Ester had gone off to watch a video in Ester's room, and Joel was on the phone for a while. Basically Joel and I cleaned up until Becca and Ester finished their movie, and then they came into the kitchen and stood and talked to us while we continued to clean. They were both somewhat upset about the way that John had been acting during the dinner, and Joel was somewhat upset that he hadn't gone over well (Joel was the only one of us who knew John beforehand.) I was confused, because I had missed out on most of the conversation while John was there. He seemed like a friendly upbeat guy to me, if a little awkward at times and a bit dominating of the dinner table discussion. There was a weirdness in the air.

I sat in Ester's room and talked for a long time, about the future of our country, and the logistics of bombing the Super Bowl, and where I should study abroad, and Dred Scott, and Laura Nyro, and computers. These are the good parts. I read through some old entries in Ben's journal the other day; around March and February of last year. What I write up here is so straightforward and matter-of-fact, it's interesting to me how abstract some other people's journal styles are. I don't feel that this entry is capturing how I felt very well, even though I had some very distinctive feelings. The medium is oppressive. My eyes are tired.

Today I ran into Jocelyn outside McCabe and she reminded me that I had to write a paper. I wrote it. I liked it too, about a humorous little passage from Moby on Linnaeus with some vulgar Latin. Then Inflight Announcement played for the first time. Joel on guitar and then cello, Matt on guitar, me on keyboard, with some of the preprogrammed drum beats. It all sounds okay, but nothing has really coalesced. We don't have songs so much as chord progressions, and they devolve into Godspeed! style atmospherics, which may be par for the course with electric guitar, cello, synthesized vibraphone sounds and synthesized marching snare drum parts. I don't have a sense yet. Keyboards in rock are wack. It takes time. This weekend is unappetizing. I'll find out what to do with it later. Maybe I should read now. Sorry.

I'll stir-fry you in my wok