First Snow, Old Friends, Happiness

Winter in my new home is as legendary as they claim. It's not even November yet, and it is already snowing. When I went to the Square in the early afternoon, I was lazy and didn't wear my winter shoes. Instead, I ventured out in slippers, and paid dearly for my laziness.

By the time I finished doing errands, fat snowflakes were falling from the sky and it was icy cold. My poor feet were frozen by the time I got home.

But let me start from the beginning. Yesterday, after civ pro, I met up with long-lost friend D, who is doing his English PhD in the same university and who is one of my oldest friends from college. Those of you who know me from college know that I have a near mythical idealization and adoration of D, and this, well, hasn't changed. D is as suave and witty as ever, a perfect combination of gentility, intellect, and playfulness. I always feel slightly inadequate when I'm with him, but part of the goodness of D is that he makes you believe that he doesn't notices this, or doesn't care.

We went to a little coffeeshop in the Square where we talked for a long time, me about law school and him about his graduate program and his marriage to L, a picture-perfect romance which is part of the reason why I idolize and adore D. We then went to his apartment about 10 minutes from campus to play Scrabble.

D's apartment is very nice, large, airy, clean, tastefully decorated, with shelves full of books and New Yorkers strewn on the table, freshly cut flowers in the vase in the kitchen, a slightly sweet, homey smell ... exactly what you would expect from a very happily married man with a loving, intellgeint wife with a prestigious job, doing what he loves to do, at peace with himself and with life. On the shelves are also some wedding photos of D and L, laughing under the sun in a West Coast vineyard. I could not go to the wedding, partly because I have work, but also partly because I wanted the romance to stay a myth to me, as perfect and as incomprehensibly happy as a story. I do not want to get close to it, for fear of bringing it down to life.

Am I making sense? I do not want to see the mechanics of D and L constructing the realities of their romance brick by brick; I rather believe that it is a fairy-tale-like, otherworldly thing that is just there, because I take comfort in knowing and believing that such things exist in real life. I desperately want D to be perfectly happy so that I know perfect happiness is possible, even if I am not good enough to attain it. But perhaps I will be, one day.

After parting with D I walked home, read some crim law, drank a glass of wine, and tried to defeat my insomnia by playing literati. I woke up suitably early this morning, read for a bit, went shopping, and then tried to do some writing in the afternoon.

At 7:30 my friend J was having a potluck party, and she invited people from our section to go. I brought some food that Boyfriend had gotten from Costco, and also brought a bottle of sake. About half my section turned up, many with their SO or spouse. One with his baby. People mingled and eat and talked. It was a very good atmosphere. A group of us who like games played taboo, and many others watch. Taboo is a very fun game because people really draw the most random connections. And, of course, there are the obligatory law school connections. Some people in our section are very very good. A very good time was had by all.

I wondered whether I should bring Boyfriend, who is here from N-town today, and who hasn't met anyone from our section yet. He solved my probelm by saying that he didn't feel like going. So I went without him and stayed 'til about now.

j's apartment has been cleaned up and everything looks very nice -- shiny wood floors, pretty curtains, nice, brand new furniture. This is the second apartment I have seen in two days, and the two vaguely echo each other. J's husband, N, is a tall, very handsome and gregarious Indian man who complements J very well. Like D, J displays her wedding photo, and they are, once again, idyllic scenes, this time by the ocean, in a sunny West Coast city. I love these photos of happiness. I love looking at them. When people are un-self-consciously happy it always moves me.