And then there were none . . .

So it comes to this. Even the daily lunches, which survived the heartbreaks and bitterness and random causticity (I'm so sure that's not a word that I won't even look it up) are now gone. At least for now. Sarah has decided she is so frustrated with Dane, for reasons that she seems sure of but can't explain very clearly, that she will not eat lunch with the two of us anymore. Yesterday I ate lunch with Sarah. Today I'm eating lunch with Dane, and Sarah plans to go to Caleb's apartment to eat. I feel . . . divided . . .

Sarah's been my best friend for as long as it's mattered, but my loyalty at this point, I find, is with Dane. Dane is the one who's still around; Sarah's the one who is continually ditching me for Caleb. And I'm beginning to realize, for the first time in my life, that I don't care. I have turned a corner and somehow found myself back at the age of 7; independent and able to devote my time and energy to things that I actually want to do. I'm not waiting for Sarah to come home anymore, I'm not angry if she cancels on me to hang out with Caleb. And I can't figure out why I ever was.

Caleb and I were chatting last night (via text message) about what kinds of plans to make for Sarah's birthday. Instead of wishing I could exclude him altogether, I told him to go ahead and make special romantic plans for her actual birthday night and I'd work on a bigger, group outing for the following weekend. (Her birthday's on a Wednesday and that weekend is a holiday so it'll only be the next night anyway.) In fact,the only two things I even got irritated at him for (instead of the standard, all-encompassing "He exists") were that I had to identify myself to him and I identified myself by surname and he addressed me by given name (I don't like my given name; I typically go by surname), and then when I finished the conversation with "Dismissed," he responded with "Aye aye, Glenallen," and the actual spelling of my hometown is "Glennallen." This wasn't a big issue; to be frank, I misspelled it a few months ago while addressing a package to my family, so that didn't really get my goat so much, so to speak. But I would really prefer that he be less familiar with me; I don't know him. Lots of people who know me much better are still relegated to calling me by my last name.

Sarah tried to excuse him: "Most people consider it more polite to use someone's first name."
Me: "I consider it more polite to call people by whatever they introduce themselves as."
I think I win that argument. My own mother infinitely prefers not being called by her first name by anyone who is not yet of marriageable age, and while Caleb is indeed of age (more so than I am, in fact, cuz I'm a young'un), I just don't know him well enough for him to be that special. Curious that I've hardly even met my best friend's boyfriend . . .

Ooh, just broke routine again---reading Jumpstart in addition to the normal comic strips. Just saw one of the funnier lines ever (ok, maybe not . . . I didn't laugh out loud, so it can't be that good, I guess): "You look like a fetus!" Alright, sorry; it's not really funny. My roommate said a funny thing last night, though. See, I'm moving out, to a different dorm building (Dane's building, actually), and so my roommate will be getting a new roommate pretty soon, and getting new roommates sucks because you never know how they're going to be. So she said, "Well, that's shitty, because my birthday's on Thursday and if I get a new roommate for my birthday, I'm going to kill someone." I guess now that this, too, is really only hilarious if you know my roommate. She's pretty mild-mannered most of the time; tall-ish, skinny, on the intelligent side of ditzy . . . To be honest, I don't really know her that well. I've been her roommate for quite awhile, but I don't spend much time in my room and we don't really talk that much when I am in. She said the other day that "That's what I love about our relationship; we don't even talk to each other!" We get along fine, if you can even call our interaction enough to warrant the term "getting along." She probably won't notice when I'm moved out.

Actually, most people don't notice most of what I do. I am as completely average as anyone can possibly be. Brown hair, brown eyes, Caucasian, 5'4.5", 137 pounds . . . I am the epitome of an average female. If I were any less noticeable, my nametag would be blank. I used to be an athlete, so now I'm just not fat. I'm not an athlete anymore, so now I'm just not skinny. I had braces in junior high, but I didn't wear my retainer, so my teeth could hardly be called crooked but they're not really straight. I don't have ravaging acne, but I don't have clear skin (ooh, is my age betrayed?). The most noticeable things about me are that I look about 4 years younger than I am (and if you don't know how old I am, why would you notice?) and that my hair is way longer than it should be (but it's always in a little tiny bun to keep it in uniform regulations, so you wouldn't necessarily notice that, either).

Well, here comes Dane. Time for me to be about done. Thought for the day: How many Portuguese potbellies would you have to stack on top of each other to make a pig path to the moon?