By Beauty Damned

Call Me!

So I'm trying to figure out how to slow down time. It's passing too, too quickly. Right now I feel like I'm in a car going a hundred miles an hour and life happens to be the pine trees lining the road, flashing by in my peripheral vision, before I can blink my eyes I'm in a completely different place and time. Whoa!

I went to my Kaplan class today and took another four hour SAT practice test. I felt slightly more confident about the math this time around, but I took more time on each section to make sure I wasn't making mistakes, so I was slow on finishing. I probably did better than last time, but it also took longer. I know I did well on my essay. I scored highest possible last time and I feel like my essay was just as strong this time around. That's where I feel most confident. The rest is just all about a lot of study and practice.

So the first group of kids ever took the new 2005 SATs today. I was reading about it and I feel a great sense of relief that I waited until now to take this test. (My test date is May 7) After reading about the old test I realized that it would have been much harder for me than the one I am actually going to take, despite the fact that this one has more math. All those quantitative comparisons and analogies. I could do it, but I have a feeling that this probably is a better test all around than the old. I can't say for sure, but I have a feeling.

So when I got home today and checked the mail, there was a package waiting from a very old friend who I haven't been in touch with for years. She enclosed a long, wonderful letter clueing me in to all the details of her life, her marriage and the birth of her child (who is now 11 months old). She also included a couple of her husband Daryl's cds of him and his band. They sound good. It was such a nice surprise to hear from her. Celeste was one of my closest friends and really, the first girlfriend that I had when I moved to Oregon from California as a teenager. I have hundreds of great memories of our times together. But you know, people go separate ways and that's life. But it's always nice when they pop back up once in awhile. I wrote a letter to a mutual friend of ours recently and asked about Celeste, so Jess must have passed on the inquiry. She wrote all about marriage and motherhood. She expresses her thoughts beautifully in writing, so each page was an absolute pleasure to read. There's nothing like old fashioned letter writing. Email could really just never quite live up to the way it feels to get a postmarked, handwritten message in your mailbox from a dear friend. It's one of those precious things that would be a terrible shame to ever do away with completely just because there are faster ways to communicate.

On top of all that, my old friend Angela called me who I've known since I was seven years old (though we met when our families lived in Los Angeles and haven't lived in the same town since we were kids). Every few years, we connect again. Mostly because of her stalwart friendship and fearlessness in making contact. She's a fabulous human being and she's visiting her mother in Connecticut so I may actually get a chance to see her for the first time in about eight years. My favorite memory of Angela and I is when we lived in UCLA student housing on Sawtelle or maybe it was Sepulveda, doesn't matter. We moved from one to the other. Anyway, she and I were playing hide n' seek with some other kids and we hid on the second floor of the complex under a rug that was hanging over the railing which overlooked the courtyard. We were just discovering Madonna at that point in our lives. As we crouched there, sandwiched between the flaps of a dusty area rug, she whispered to me "pssst. What does 'virgin' mean?" Having no idea whatsoever, I responded, "I can't tell you. It's really bad." I don't know why, I'll never forget that. I still have an excellent photo of Angela, her sister Rachel, and I, when we were very small, all lined up in a row with these precious ruffled dresses, socks and girlish shoes on and our fingers stuck in our eyes, ears and mouths, contorting each of our "innocent" little faces into an expression of pure mischief. That picture truly captured the spirit of the three of us...not the most surprising allusion to the future. I'll have to dig it out one of these days.

So after reading Celeste's letter and writing her back an 11 page novel (I had things to tell her! A few years is a long time.) and after trying Angela back at her mom's house, Darcie called me on the phone and we talked for awhile. That's never boring. I topped off my string of "keeping in touch" by calling my parent's house and getting inconceivably lucky enough that my brother actually picked up the phone. No one picks up the phone at my family's house. When I was visiting last time, it would ring and Josh could be sitting two feet away from it, he wouldn't bother to answer unless he was expecting a call. My parents don't answer either half the time. They just let it ring. Makes me crazy sometimes and I start leaving desperate messages on the answering machine. "Is anyone there? Is everyone alive?"

So I got Josh on the phone and we talked for a little while. I'm telling you, something in this universe aligned to my benefit this week and I got a chance to hear from the people who mean the most to me. My sister has been emailing, I went out yesterday with Kathleen. I feel warm and fuzzy with familial love. Maybe next time I call my mother will answer. That would be a miracle. But a girl can hope.