Lake

by Laura Kochman

Yesterday, friends and I went to the lake where we're not supposed to swim, hiked around the edge to the cliffs where we're not supposed to jump off, swam around, floated on our noodles. More new students arrive every day. I had a long lakeside conversation with one of the new folks about why Spring Breakers is so good and The Bling Ring is not, and I was proud of myself for being so articulate. Then I thought, This person is meeting me and I am a fourth-year, and this is the impression I am putting forth. Should I be more couth? Should I pretend that I don't watch trashy TV, that I am not the person at the party who eats all the chips? Should I only speak in verse? Should I not talk about my cat? Obviously, I should always talk about my cat, but also, it's sinking in a little more every day that this is it. Some day, I'm going to remember the days that are happening right now. When B and I were in Kansas City, we spent an evening watching old home movies and looking at old pictures, mostly of his birthdays and Christmases. The clothes/technology looked old to me, as they usually do in old home movies. Then B's brother came over the next day with his very new and tiny child, and as we were taking pictures and making funny faces (okay, that one was mostly me) I started thinking that these exact moments were the kind of thing this tiny human would look at photos of, twenty years later. The clothes I was wearing would look old, and the iPhones so outdated. When I see photos of myself as a kid, I feel so detached from that time, that body, that whole sense of a person. This is just it. Which is such a complex emotion I really can't portray it.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

summertime, and the living is easy and bitten by Laura Kochman

I should probably be honest--I'm not entirely sure if I have seventy-two mosquito bites. I MIGHT have that many, except I'm too afraid to count them. Every other day, I garden, and I come home with at least 10-15 new bites on each leg (and a couple more on each arm. mosquitos do not seem to like my arms? I wish I could make the rest of me somehow like my arms. Or one giant arm). Rest assured, though, I have many mosquito bites. More than you. Today was sleeping in and spooning the cat and cinnamon raisin bagels with cream cheese and driving to the lake and scaring away the snakes and floating on noodles and eating carrots and crackers in the shade. We even talked about fried pickles on the way home, which is not as good as real fried pickles, but better than nothing.

Up next is a couple hours of card games and then barbecue with boyfriend and then board games and watermelon cake.

I'm just going to ignore the creeping anxiety about my DJ set email being ignored. It's not like the radio show isn't tomorrow or anything.