slow day....

Now Playing: "The Phantom of the Opera" soundtrack by Andrew Lloyd-Weber. Track 14, "Learn to be Lonely".

This morning I ate breakfast in my room: the Ls' doughy bread and orange spice tea. I wrote in my journal and wrote e-mails, studied archaeology, and studied RBL. Just as I was looking over the midterm exam from RBL, Tara knocked on my door and asked me if I wanted to go to lunch with her. We went downstairs to collect Alisha, and as the three of us were walking out the door, we bumped into Jenny, who joined us. After lunch, I spent the afternoon studying: first RBL, for an hour, then archaeology, for an hour. Then I slept for an hour-and-a-half, and then studied MBW for half-an-hour. At five-thirty, I walked downstairs to meetMatt, Sam, Asher, Daniel, Tara, Rachel, and Jenny to drive over to Bartlesville for supper at the house of the Ds, Jenny’s friends and members of the church the Ks go to, I think.

We finally left. I led for awhile because Jenny gave me directions, and Matt didn’t have directions, but once we were on the highway for the forty-five minute drive, Matt zoomed ahead. He tried to get me to race, by pulling alongside close, then zipping ahead, but I just plugged along steadily, despite the hoots and laughter of Jenny and Asher, who tried to goad me into racing. Jenny finally decided that we should go around the car, and everyone should list the characteristics of their ideal spouse. *cough*

We finally found the Ds' house: a little brown house, comfortable and plain. The Ds are an older couple—their children are grown, but they’re still working. Mr. D is tall and rather heavyset, with crew-cut grey hair and thick-rimmed glasses. He’s from Boston and his accent confused me occasionally. Mrs. D is shorter, slender, with blond hair and a pretty face. Everything about her was youthfully elegant. She’s from Mississippi, and spoke with a slight drawl. They welcomed us warmly. They have a huge dog, a Great Dane named Elsa. She’s cream-colored, and her head comes above my waist. When everyone went outside onto the back porch, Elsa galloped around like a horse, being very friendly and very excited. She could easily have bowled Tara or me over, so Mrs. D banished her indoors. The dog obediently stood in the laundry room, kept back only by a plastic baby gate leaning against the laundry room doorway. She could easily have knocked it over or leaped over it, but she just stood there, tail wagging slowly, watching us disappointedly.

Outside, Mr. D set up the grill and cooked the meat, while Asher, Tara, Mrs. D, Rachel, and Jenny played croquet on the lawn. Daniel, Sam, Matt, and I watched. Jenny and Mrs. D teased each other constantly: both were pretty competitive. Jenny only laughed at everyone, and won. I spotted a robin nesting in the little pear tree behind the back porch, and I pointed her out to Tara and Rachel. You could just see the robin’s black-and-white flecked head poking above the edge of the sturdy little nest, which was wedged carefully between two thick branches. I lay in the grass and listened to the hum of conversation. The sky above was aquamarine, vibrating behind the shimmer of smoke from the grill. Above the wooden privacy fence, I could see another row of houses behind the Ds’, and then nothing but an open meadow—harsh golden-brown grass, rippling young green on the trees, leaves catching saffron light like water on their palms as the sun set. When the meat had finished grilling, we gathered on the back porch, and Mr. D prayed, thanking God for “this day, which is a manifestation of You”, and for the food.

Everyone gathered around two tables on the back porch, and we ate our smoky meal with good fellowship. The conversation finally settled on movies, specifically thriller/horror movies. Mrs. D laughed about a time when she had just watched a horror movie with an incredibly spooky main character. Her husband had dressed up as the main character, lurking in the dark hallway, and had nearly frightened her to hysterics. “It was pretty funny,” he laughed as she told the story. “It’s funny now, but it wasn’t then!” she protested. I curled up in my chair, shivering in the cold south wind that was blowing over the porch. When everyone had finished eating, we cleared away the paper plates and cups, and went indoors. Mr. D brewed coffee and tea, while Mrs. D passed around a platter of soft cookies. Elsa eyed the proceedings from behind her baby gate. We stood or sat around the small dining room and kitchen, attracted like moths to the warm light. Matt and Jenny told funny stories about their crazy cats. Veterinarians told Matt's family that one of their cats needed to be put on antidepressants because she would spend all day staring out the window, terrified that she would be attacked. Jenny laughed about her psycho cat: “Yeah, if you’re standing and looking out the door, the cat will leap at you, dig its back claws into your knee, and bite you, to make you let it out,” Jenny laughed.

At about nine-thirty, Jenny said, “Well, sorry guys, but I need to do some studying when I get back. I think it’s time to go.” Mr. and Mrs. D gave us a hearty, friendly farewell. They invited us all to come back, and were deep in conversation with Matt about playing Risk the next time he visited as we walked out the door.

On the way to Tulsa, Jenny said, “I’m going to have to listen to some more peppy music. Do you mind?” “No,” I said, with a little sigh. We’d been listening to Loreena McKennitt on the way there, but I think I was the only one who enjoyed it. Daniel and Tara, sitting in the back seat, kept up a friendly, brother-sister conversation the whole way back to Tulsa, while Jenny surfed the radio, looking for a good station. She found country, and classical (“Ew!” Tara squealed from the back seat), and a Latino rap group (“Ugh!” I groaned from the front seat), and finally a Christian rock station, which she settled on. She sang along to the songs as the dark miles rolled by. I asked her questions about going home and about summer conference—we talked about cooking (she and her brother like to cook together) and catamarans.

I relaxed when I saw the familiar skyscrapers poking unexpectedly above the black hills, star-staircases against the blank sky. Trying to weave my way through the maze of highways, I took the wrong turn. So we ended up driving the “scenic” route through Tulsa, past factories, bars, and pawn shops. The car bumped and thudded over the rutted road. Again, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw lights—this time, the string of white lights that line the eastern boundary of campus along the sidewalk past the fraternity houses and the basketball gym.

Back in Lottie, Tara, Jenny, and I marched down to see Alisha. “Hi, Alisha! I’m going to go check my mail, then meet me in the study lounge, and we’ll study,” Jenny said brusquely. “She said she’d be really stressed tonight,” Alisha chuckled as she turned off her laptop to move it down to the study lounge. “How many pages do you have?” Tara asked, looking at the draft of Alisha’s twenty-page paper for her liberalism class. “Fourteen point one,” Alisha said, tallying the pages up on a scrap of paper. She and Tara discussed plans for shopping at resale stores. I finally went upstairs to bed, though the rest of them planned to study for another couple of hours (it was ten-thirty).

In my room, I saw the light flicking on the answering machine. To my delight, I found a message from Violin—it was just a pleasure to hear her voice. Then I checked my e-mail. Dr. T had sent me an e-mail concerning my revision of a poem I'd written for our extra credit assignment. He wrote, “You, my dear, need extra credit for a grade like a hole in the head...:-) but I must admit I did read it and I like it.” It made me smile. I must be such a stinker of a student to have! Always bothering my professors to read drafts and extra credits and such. I showered, read Luke, and went to bed.