November 26, 2002
Campus Cool
My dreams were thick as mire last night. I am always on a quest in my dreams, nevermind the fact that I never finish it.
Art 187 is the only thing that stands between me and a gorgeous day, me and a five day vacation for Thanksgiving. I am grateful for a hiatus from this campus. Sometimes, I think I am going a little mad because of it.
I realized that I miss the goth kids. You don't see anyone with blue hair and a black trenchcoat and numerous piercings on their face and likely elsewhere. The goth kids, though generally rather mopey and pretentious, are nice folk. I miss them.
I realized that I miss the skanky girl. And I mean the traditionally skanky girl, who isn't trying to hide it, who's flashing it everywhere for everyone. You don't see girls in short shorts with black roots showing through bleach blonde hair. Those girls may have been annoying, but they could make you laugh.
No, Miami warrants a very limited crowd, one of which I am not a member, nor do I possess any desire to be so. I don't dress like them. I don't talk like them. I don't think or act or dream like them.
Mike smiled and told me that I wasn't anything like them, that he looks around and they've all got the same jacket on, the same hairstyle, the same laugh. And I'm standing in the midst of them with a red sweater hanging past my knees and a waist length brown thrift coat, and my hair's a mess and half under a brown knit hat, and my face is bright and without make-up.
And we're sitting in Starbucks, he drinking a carmel flavored coffee and me with a peppermint mocha, and I see the boys walk in with their just-so tattered jeans and their sweaters and their leather jackets and their hemp necklaces and their bleached hair tips and their faces too tan and bearing false smiles.
I look at him. His cargo pants with the pockets half empty, his traditional navy blue t-shirt. His square jaw, his pale face, his black hair smoothed down and then up. His gym shoes.
A man. Outside of what they think of him.
I look between the two, relishing the differences, and reach over and squeeze his hand.
"I'm so glad you're normal."
He smiles, and squeezes back.
astera at 10:27 a.m.