spring fest

I am so utterly exhausted from having so much fun today. The noontime weather actually resembled spring. You can determine the season by the combination of clothing, as Melkis and I both decided: long jeans and flip flops. It is a sweet feeling to be mentally in tune with your roommates.

Spring Fest was wonderful. The girls and I sat on the sidewalk next to a row of six year old girls. The only difference between us and them was that we are (a bit) taller. The cotton candy, oldies music, kiddie rides, sun, paint, bunnies, magic, ugly pigs, little kids, art and balloon hats definitely made us feel about ten years younger. I think one of the things I love most about events like Spring Fest is being able to walk in the streets. When you're a kid you run into the streets without thinking, but you learn that there are rules that need to be followed and dangers to avoid. It's nice to re-experience a time when you felt like there were no barriers and you could wander anywhere. And to know that so many other people appreciate the same thing. I particularly enjoyed the tall men in ties and suits riding on the tiny red train next to short kids in overalls.

And it is always fun to watch Andrea wonder at the pure genius of her huge Italian sausage (no, that's not a metaphor and/or euphemism).

Sushi for Andrea's 20th birthday was also wonderful (wonderful is the word of the day). The eel + avocado combination is heaven. After feeling a bit out of my element for the last couple of weeks, the good people and good food made me feel cozy and comfortable. I love seeing people react to things they're seeing for the first time, like Henry trying to look inside a Chinese lantern by stooping underneath it and Jen clicking away with her camera after catching a glimpse of the extremely long Porter Square escalator. I love that T-station. Besides its escalators, the quirky art and arc tunnels make it quite memorable.

Henry also gave Andrea the best birthday card I have seen in my whole life. It was a wall-sized cardboard image of a half-naked Abercrombie & Fitch model, which Henry apparently took while they were clearing the store. After admiring the attractive model's external qualities, Amy pointed out the bookshelves in the background. Andrea: "And he READS!" The perfect man is currently residing in Andrea and Jen's room.

I'm supposed to be writing a paper on Jean Toomer's Cane right now. Of all the modernist literature we've read this semester, this book is the most beautiful. But I'm so drained that I would like to just admire rather than analyze the language:

"Face flowed into her eyes. Flowed in soft cream foam and plaintive ripples, in such a way that whenever your glance may momentarily have rested, it immediately thereafter wavered in the direction of her eyes. The soft suggestion of down slightly darkened, like a shadow of a bird's wing might, the creamy brown color of her upper lip. Why, after noticing it, you sought her eyes, I cannot tell you. Her nose was aquiline, Semitic. If you have heard a Jewish cantor sing, if he has touched you and made your own sorrow seem trivial when compared with his, you will know my feeling when I follow the curves of her profile, like mobile rivers, to their common delta. They were strange eyes. In this, that they sought nothing--that is, nothing that was obvious and tangible and that one could see, and they gave the impression that nothing was denied."

That is so amazingly better than "She was really pretty." Now I will return to writing about why.