Tom Jones was fun, although sometimes a weird dynamic when I noticed that Matt, Joel, and I, each with a woman on either side of us, formed this noticeably louder male faction, verging on dominating the conversation between the three of us. Noticably quiet - Nori (according to Alyssa, always quiet in a large group including nobody she's sexually interested in), and Alyssa, who I realized had been specifically wanting to spend time alone, and hence was perhaps frustrated when dinner on Tuesday turned into a larger thing. Matt chatted up the waitress and got her to make a substitution of meat for juice, despite the explicit policy against it. Somebody, I'm pretty sure, said something about "vampire blood." It couldn't have been the waitress, and I don't think it was Nori. Maybe Michelle? I ate a jobo (cheeseburger) but didn't have time to order the carrot cake that Nori and I had agreed to share (or rather, she backed out when they decided there wasn't enough time left) so I just got a milkshake to take home.

Al and I curled up here sideways on the bed, which is the way we have most of our serious talks it seems, and she started talking. Couple or not couple thoughts, she said, which is such a clever and evil phrase. I didn't know how to react or what to say except that I didn't know what she was talking about. Which was true, and she clearly didn't either, but we tried to make sense of it and I think got somewhere. I can't help really feeling though that it's all circumstantial stuff - that time mangles emotions so that we equate temporal or spatial distance with emotional distance. And there's obviously this thing of fluctuation, and the breakdown of our society's one-for-one ideal. That's all stuff I'm ready to deal with. But at some point logic doesn't work, you can't reason with it, and I am powerless. I start to cry and ask her for a favor. And when the Kings of Convenience come on to break the tension, even the song titles begin resonate, and i hope i'm not "winning a battle, losing a war."

So that was an unpleasant preamble for Thursday, which became one of hideous lows before turning around a bit with a breath of fresh air that became my equally draining but exhilarating weekend. My alarm once again failed to go off (the snooze button sticking again?) and so I missed Philosophy - but made French and Syntax, and that was all fine. Ready for a lazy afternoon, sans radio, just e-mailness, and one engagement - a trip to campus to snag Susan Roth. You see, Stefanie and Elizabeth (and maybe Brigid, but who knows) called an emergency meeting of "Local High School Outreach" (a community service program they had invented specifically for this situation) as a way to catch my target Susan unawares. It did seem strange that they were so enthusiastic about plotting this (a spate of twenty or so e-mails from Zabby making sure it would happen at the right time), but I figured it was trustworthy, since they had reasonable and previously tested allegiances to me, and presumably good reasons for wanting to get Susan out (doesn't everybody? I don't know who would want her to stay in the game). But after ridiculous rigamarole of stuffing me away in the IC bathroom (best part of overheard dialogue while they were shuffling around outside: "we should probably have something to talk about at the meeting, shouldn't we" -eliz), when I looked up and saw this deliciously menacing voice "there's a few ways we can go about this…" it was Chas, of course, it was a goddamn setup. Immediately, almost, I was sick of the whole thing. I was ready to be out of it. I slithered out and sat in the corner for a while, and I think I probably had a decent shot of making a break and sliding away on my butt past the gals "barricade" and getting away, but I didn't really care enough. After a few minutes I just stood up and surrended, to preserve my pride or whatever, but I don't know, it just seemed like the best thing to do. Of course then the girls were fawning, pleased with themselves and trying earnestly to console me at the same time. As I told Charles right away - I didn't have a problem with him. And when I thought about for a minute, I couldn't blame the girls either - they had been playing the game perfectly, and it was a well-laid plot and I would have wanted to do the same thing in their position. So if I was going to be upset about this it would have to be at myself. I could have done that, I guess, gotten mad at myself for walking into this so blindly, being trusting. But somehow, despite Zab's accurate assertion that we were alike in our "game above the person," it had become about the people for me - spending some real time with Elizabeth that I never had much before. So I think that's partly why I had lost my edge - the meaning of the game had shifted for me. Also, rather than throw myself back in as an undead conspirator, just trying to get other folks out (they claimed that they were still in the game, playing to win "Best Conspiracy" - which for me is not even remotely the point; it's a singly-focused game and I had lost) I decided I'd just drop the whole thing. Maybe a question of moral high ground, as Stef suggested, but it all gets so complex, and it's not about assuming a "moral" position, because that is immediately transparent as a self-consciously altruistic gesture. The other part of it is that I felt good being betrayed by them, because it was clearly the sort of thing that you only do to your friends. And it's good to have them for friends. Much of this I related to Stef, rather more cogently I think, as I walked with her back to the lodge to change, then back across campus again to Tarble for some dinner.

But what hit me right after that, as I walked back home alone, was a real despondency and uncertainty. It came only partly from residual annoyance at the game - the stress it had caused me, the unsatisfactory nature of my removal from it - and at my betrayers; but that was more the perfectness of the betrayal as a metaphor: it seems to be the story of my life, to place too much faith in what I can expect from people, and end up being hurt when they let me down. In the context of the game, of course, this is completely mitigated by the circumstances; it's the way things are supposed to happen. Perhaps we enjoy and revel in the viciousness and inhumanity of interactions in the game only as a contrast to how we presume real life interactions take place, almost as a way of assuring ourselves that this kind of thing can only happen in a game. But, clearly, it resonates. A related, more specific note, is the growing sadness I've been feeling about Brigid, watching this friendship threaten to sour in similar ways to others before it (Denise, Amy, Katie, Julian) as we drift apart and she doesn't seem willing to put in the effort any more (and as always I question whether it was just me from the start.) And then this wretchedness with Alyssa, which I still can't comprehend. So that all swamped me, and the weather was perfect for melancholy. But, luckily, it had a time limit. A phone call or two from Ben, and I was on my way again. True Blue Ben, along with new friends (Amy! Kate! Superfurries!) and there was no time to be morose anymore. The best cure for sadness is to do stuff.

even though I'm not her minder
even thought she doesn't want me around…