I've been spying on people again, which suggests a resensitization to my environment...perhaps because spring is here, and I've been escaping my head occasionally to notice the warm sunlight and brightly colored pansies and aggressively cheerful birds. I've been compulsively writing in my little notebook (a birthday gift from my friend Martin) about other people in cafe's, in stores, and so on. There was a strange wommon in a cafe yesterday who was very demanding about her ice cream sundaes. She rather bitchily insisted on more and more whipped cream until she was finally satistfied (while I impatiently waited in line behind her). She seemed to be in her mid-30's, but her hair (a pageboy with bangs) or her outfit (white sneakers, high-waisted baggy jeans, red turtleneck, and long leather jacket) may have prematurely aged her. I imagined that she had ordered the sundaes for her whiny spoiled monsters of children, but to my surprise she was joined by an absolutely beautiful young man who looked like Jared Leto playing Jordan Catalano of the TV show My So-Called Life, but with dark brown hair which dripped down the nape of his neck to brush his shoulders. He appeared to be in his early 20's. They sat down and dug into their sundaes. Instead of reading papers about cardiac enzymes, I tried to decipher snippets of their conversation to figure out their relationship. They spoke as equals, although they didn't appear to know each other extremely well. They knew many people in common, and kept mentioning what Nicole or Brad or James did the other day. The wommon used "like" frequently, which made her seem much younger than her appearance suggested. I'm not sure if it was a date, or a friendly meeting at a cafe. I eventually lost interest in their excruciating boring conversation (there's only so much I can take of "Well, Nicole got really wasted the other night, and she called Brad, and then they...") and moved on to spy on a scruffy cute guy, then proceeded to miserably fail at an attempt to hit on him. Heh.

I look back at my writing during my anatomy class, when I was overwhelmed by the sight and smell and feel of cadavers and their innards, and am struck by its almost hallucinatory (is that a word?) quality, the visceral punch of the images. When I was reading Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson, his images reminded me of the images in my writing during that time...I wish I could get that quality back. My writing has been too cerebral as of late. Not enough poetry there.

As I've been trying to figure out what the hell to do with my life and how to find myself and all that jazz, I remembered Conan O'Brien's commencement speech to the Harvard Class of 2000. It's amazing. As good a job as Hillary Clinton did with her speech at my Yale commencement, Conan's kicks the ass of hers. I remember being so profoundly moved when I first read it. While my interest in his talk show has waned in the last few years (especially since he now makes a shitty gay joke almost every time I happen to catch him, although he is very friendly and sweet to his gay guests), I still think he's a wonderful person. I still remember him at a Master's Tea at Yale, when he spoke for two hours and had all of us laughing hysterically, tears streaming down our cheeks, the entire time. He was so incredibly nice. He offered to stay longer "because [he] had nothing better to do" but the Master ultimately had to interrupt him and end the tea.

Dave Eggers at another Master's Tea, on the other hand? Complete asshole. Although perhaps he can be forgiven since he had gotten almost no sleep the night before (or so he claimed). I was all trembling with excitement about meeting him and sharing how much I loved reading his book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius during my semester abroad in Paris (its quintessential early 90's American-ness helped me with homesickness), but he blew me off and had no interest in hearing what I had to say. He did draw a little picture of a hammer in my journal, though, with the phrase "This hammer has seen it all." Which I kind of liked. Although I preferred the little baby chick he drew in another girl's book. I don't recall what phrase he included with that drawing.