September 17 - Sunday

I just got back from Houston a few hours ago. I have a lot of funny/exciting things to show y'all and tell y'all, but first I wanna get something off my mind.

My favorite song is "Uncle Walter" by Ben Folds Five. (I have a new favorite song every two weeks or so.) After the second or third time I listened to that CD during my long drive, it occurred to me that Ben Folds Five reminds me of Steely Dan. They're both sort of jazzy, and they both make me nostalgic about good old days that never happened in my life.

Usually I don't care for pianos, but that piano's cool. Remember the gang from the college I went to in upstate New York and all the good times we used to have? I wonder what they're up to now.

Oh, wait. I didn't go to college in New York. Remember I waited so long to fill out applications? Remember I hated school so much and I just wanted to get out of my neighborhood and make enough money to stay alive? Remember I was gonna get a job at the Dairy Queen behind Dorothy's apartment -- the apartment where she'd let me live until I could get a place of my own? Remember that even then I figured the place of my own would be with some jerk boyfriend?

Remember Joan L. helped me fill out applications at the beginning of the summer, after she paid for me to take my SAT? Remember she took me to New York for that interview at Vassar? (Remember that cute Puerto Rican boy on 5th Ave. who said "I like your shorts" and how exciting I thought that was?) Remember they said they would only pay half my tuition because I'd applied too late and all the other scholarship money was gone? Remember Joan started to say that I could...how did she say I could get the money? But I said no, remember? And then I got the scholarship to UT just in time and Alice and my dad drove me to Austin three days before the semester started?

Remember how I hated living with Joe H. and his family from our church and I used my next scholarship check to get my own apartment, in which I lived for a month before moving in with my boyfriend? And then of course I remember what happened after that. But it was okay, coz I hated school anyway, right?

I should have studied more. I should have gone to a decent high school to begin with. I should have had... I don't know. More self-esteem.

I should have gone to Vassar. I could have paid for it somehow. I know -- I could have been a stripper!

Ha, ha.

I had a really good time in Houston, and I enjoyed most of the trip back to Austin. It's just that sometimes, when I have so much fun and love and attention, my mind forces me to think of bad stuff for a few minutes afterwards. You know -- like time machines, genies, and pacts with the devil.

They're not "regrets". I don't have those.

I just have silly thoughts sometimes on a long drive home.

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