I remembered a few minutes before 11 that I had agreed to cut Andy’s hair
today. Of course, I’d forgotten my clippers. He had bought me a pizza
anyway. We sat out in front of Cuyahoga and ate and discussed things.
Three guys approached us with pens and paper asking, almost shyly, “Uh,
are either of you an only child?” We replied in the negative. “What
about a musical instrument, do you play one?” “Nope,” said Andy. “I
do,” I said. “You do? What’s your name?” I wrote my name down in a
blank next to a line of text on one of the guys’ paper and told the other
one how to spell it. “Born in March?” I nodded and wrote my name
again. “Wow, we’re racking up on you!” As they started to leave, one of
them offhandedly read off, “Forget to put on deodorant this morning?”
“Yeah,” I said, as they looked almost pleased and all three of them
scribbled down my name. “What’s this for?” asked Andy. “An exercise in
getting acquainted.” “Well,” I said, “Then let’s get acquainted. You
all know my name by now. What’s yours?”

When they walked away, I said to Andy, “I may be the only person on
campus who would admit to that.” “I think you’re right, Joanna.”

I had some time till my next class, so I went to the BP, filled up my
tires, and bought some lip balm, O.J., and a lemon-poppy seed muffin.
Then I took all of that, except for the lip balm for me, and a gallon of
water from our well and a box full of pills and tea and honey up to Cris
Hyatt’s room. She tore into the muffin, since it’s the first thing she’d
eaten all day. I made her some tea in the microwave down the hall and
gave her instructions on what pills and drops to take when. Then I went
to the Russian Lit class.

I’m up in the computer lab now, since I have rehearsal at 4. A girl just
came and pulled out the chair at the terminal next to me. “Anyone
sitting here?” she asked. I shook my head in reply, as I was in the
middle of a sentence. After she sat down, and I’d finished my train of
thought, I said, “Someone is now.” “What?” “Someone’s there now.” “Oh,”
she laughed nervously.

Occasionally, people will ask me if I still have “that mouse” and I say
“He died.”