Thursday 18 October

Sunny this time, but still cold, we decided to leave in the early afternoon, once we had laundered, dished, swept, straightened, thrown out some soup, signed the guest book, carried wood, etc. like good little boys and girls. We also had time to walk around the island and to go for a brief paddle down the river, with Ben in the stern, and the headwind on the return threatening to freeze my fingers off. The visit was short, but it didn't feel overly so, especially since the weather made it hard to do much outside. I am determined to get a larger group up there over winter break.

The ride home started off uncertainly, but once Ben got some air in the tires he cheered up and we listened to "Crooked Rain", his eclectic "Parisian" mix, Jill Sobule, Ellington, the New Deal, Joni. I read the end of "Sotweed" and much of "Celia, a Slave." The only major stop was at "The Meat Store of the North," where Ben had the staff in a flurry looking for a souvenir and Ester and I got sammiches. When it got too dark to read we played the rhyming words game, then "Famous People" (Scooby-doo, Gilda), then "the cliff game" aka "breakfast lunch dinner" aka "housebox" aka character assassination. It was determined that Ester would rather marry Ani DiFranco than anyone in the world. Ben snapped at me a few times for teasing Ester or being a culture snob, which maybe I deserve, I don't know, but it sort of seems like he's just being protective and unreasonable, or even self-righteous and in any case I wish he would chill out a bit. It's not a major issue, but it makes me feel uncertain about myself or his opinion of me. Not that I doubt our friendship or anything. I'll say something to him about it, although of course he'll already have read this. Whatever.

He mentioned in his journal that he and Ester have been calling each other "Darling" and "Honey" a lot, which is very true now that I think about it, but I didn't even really notice it that much. As he says, it isn't annoying at all. I liked being with them for so much time. They're such a wonderful couple; it didn't make me unhappy or anything, just a little nostalgic maybe. On Wednesday night, all in our underwear, we discussed "our biggest problems." They correctly addressed theirs - difficulty with stress and unwillingness to dance - and we talked about my situation some more. They argued that I should stop what Jess called "the kicking" with Liza for various practical and moral reasons, some more valid than others; we talked about the nature of guilt and whose behalf I should consider first on making decisions. But nobody asked me (as I think nobody has yet) what I want to do. Perhaps it seemed apparent, since I was playing devils-advocate, but I had been growing more and more skeptical about continuing kicking it. As I told Ester about a month ago, I don't really want to be in a relationship this semester, with the exception of the one I'm in. The reason that I was thinking of continuing it, I realized, was more for Liza's sake than my own: it's what she wants, or at least claims to, despite the cost.

We pulled into Seven Bridges once more at around nine, and as Ben watched the Yanks with his Padre, I made arrangements with DeDe for some jazz-at-noonage the next day, complained to Ester about Celia (the topic is interesting, but the writing is preposterously speculative and dry, and Melton - is that a he or a she? - insists on including every possible historical detail even if it has nothing to do with the narrative), and met the marathoner. Later we went out again, sneaking through Ben's mom's dark house to a small room with two computers and a beat junkies CD. A stream of e-mails brought good news - Avalanches on the way; Kokrabi Lobi, of all people, coming to Swarthmore; two e-mails from Alyssa, more on which later. Ester and Ben updated, but I was too tired and overcome by cat-dander. I slept in a real bed back at Igor's, one I didn't want to wake up from.