i had dinner with bob yesterday, at cafe europa. i don't think i was cheered up much, but it felt good to be calmly telling someone that i was awfully unhappy. bob is a comforting listener. and he said - blackmailingly but also trying to make me laugh - "if you do something to yourself - have you thought what that would do to nohrnberg? he'll be devastated!" i have never thought about it like that! of course i thought about - how - upset parents and friends and lovers would be - but i think i never really thought about nohrnberg that way - of course killing yourself is frightful awful because of the people who do care for you - but it seems so presumptuous to think your heroes would like you enough in thar same way. i know that's a warped thing to think but my first thought of what the nohrnbergs would think was - we knew it, that girl was always so irresponsible and temperamental, how ungrateful for her to kill herself! bob says he knew i was suicidal but he didn't think i was crazy too. but he thought it's because nohrnberg has a diagnostic mind and i've got into enough scrapes over the years to have to have him bail me out and have him tell me what's wrong with me, so that i always think - that - they don't like me half as much as they do bob. oh dear. now this is turning into a nohrnberg favouritism competition! no it shouldn't be, and i'm not jealous. i'm just - wishing - i was gooder than i am. in the moral-responsible sense of good. the way bob is. it is like - one of those stories: one sister who is good and perfect, like mary, and the other who tries to be good too, but always gets into scrapes, like laura. and you know they do like you both but you're always worried that your mentors are going to be like ma and not pa ingalls.
the phone rang suddenly and i was almost sure that it was one of those coincidences, when i am thinking about minyin and wishing i could talk to her and sure enough she calls from melbourne, but when i answered christine was on the other end, calling from nova. she'd just turned in her thesis to the history department on monday, on anti-mormonism in america, and is fancy free cos she's hardly got any exams and they include take-homes. *growl* i want a take-home too, bloody hell. we chat about this and that and what it really got around to was that, she'd called because her mater asked if they could adopt me for graduation day! it is awfully good of her! and the jensens are some of the most fun people to hang out with, and i haven't met her stepsister before and would like to. i do wish i could go with them, but english's diploma ceremony is going to be late - at 2.15, and i'm pretty sure history has theirs at noon or something, so unless its a breakfast do i doubt they can wait around for that long for me for lunch. and dinner is out of the question too, because bob and i are going to professor nohrnberg's for dinner. yes! have i mentioned that yet? darling darling mrs nohrnberg suggested it, i could kiss her she's been terribly nice and supportive about all the messes i've got into over the years, although i've really only met her twice - once when i ran into them at the charlottesville airport, and once at the renaissance area gathering at their place, where we talked vaguely about brown. i would like to bring her something but i don't know her well. she reads perfectly in both english and french though, and i wonder if a book would be a good idea. maybe a penelope fitzgerald, although i wish i could bring something for the home instead of a book. i had some of those pretty ms joaquim orchid embroidered doilies last term, but i gave them all away, and i also realise i've given away all my glazed dishes - and also the scarves! this is dreadful. and i'd made her an origami lily once, so that wouldn't do, even if i could get lots of paper to make some. and i can't make a dessert, because i'm all out of almonds and wood-ear and dates! i shall ask bob what we should do.