5PM on a Friday afternoon, sunny hot and humid on the last day of May, and I'm sitting outside here at the Emory Starbucks, imbibing caffeine in a frozen form and writing on the back of this scientific journal article. It's one of several that Anthony printed out for me to read for next week, so that I can have a better handle on all the different cell culture techniques I'll be learning once the lab is finally certified and fully operational, which should be (I'm told) fairly soon. These particular pages happen to be the References section of an Oregon publication entitled "The Production of Transgenic Nonhuman Primates." I think Anthony wrote a good portion of it himself; not many other people in the United States know enough to write sixty-some pages on the subject. So I'm looking forward to reading it, eventually, despite my apparent callous attitude towards it here, scribbling frantically on the back, resting my coffee cup on a corner, dabbing at the cocentric rings that inevitably form.

Lots of cars going by; rush hour in Atlanta on a sunny Friday afternoon starts early, and this is the thick of it now, people streaming out of the city. All the nine-to-fivers, who left today at 4:30 (I remember that blissful half hour of paid skipping, back from my office job, a whole thirty minutes of filing that I wasn't doing, and with the boss' permission, no less!), their windows open, radios on—free, finally, free! I'm sitting here waiting it out, the traffic, that is… I'm in no hurry, really. After work I made my way down here via student health services— following four days of exasperation with the SHS phone system, I gave in and trekked up those three flights of stairs, cell phone in hand, to inform them that the "all operators are with other patients" message had gotten kind of old, and could someone just please fax my immunization records to employee health? They were not amused. But I did actually get to a live person who promised to fax what I wanted, so I really don't care.

Stopped in the DUC for my weekly check of my P.O. box (still no mail), then upstairs to the computers to read my email, which is still being spammed by the fine folks of the Howard County Public School System. Are they oblivious to the fact that they've got an address-book attacking virus on the loose, I wonder? I mean, I don't mind; I even sent them a note or two about it, but now, having verified that my Mac is, as usual, impervious to the virus, I just sit back and wait to see what will come next. "An Excite Game" from a 9th grade social studies teacher at Hammond High School? Information on British bed and breakfasts from the Centennial High guidance secretary? An invitation to check out "sexy Japanese chicks" from my old It's Academic coach? I keep waiting for a note from someone I'd really enjoy flaming back, like a "You May Be A Winner!!!" email from Ms. Moulds, my 11th grade English teacher (may she burn in hell ), but so far no luck. Ah well. It's still pretty funny.

Not so funny, though, was the email from my parents, which was (even more than usual) full of concern-bordering-on-paranoia regarding my living in Atlanta for the summer. They're worried about me being on campus, worried about trips to the bookstore, wondering whether I'm remembering to lock the car and whether someone might break into the condo and murder me in my sleep while Jim is off in France or Italy or Alaska for a month. My mother's convinced I'm going to get carjacked; my father councils that carrying Mace would be a smart idea.

And how, I wonder, am I supposed to respond to this?
I won't.

I'll ignore it, or something… dignifying these sorts of things with a response only leads to more expectations of caution, I think. In my parents' ideal world, I'd wear a utility belt around, preferably one containing (1) cell phone, (2) sunscreen, (3) wallet with two forms of ID, two phone cards, insurance cards, and every phone number of anyone related to me, (4) keys, (5) back-up copies of keys, (6) first aid kit, and now (7), Mace or pepper spray. I mean, these are the people that sent me off to live away from home with two rolls of duct tape, WD-40, four kitchen sponges, six different bags for laundry, and three separate bottles of sunscreen..

But really, I'm perfectly safe here, and certainly not in any mortal danger on campus… if I'm going to get killed somehow in Atlanta, it'll be commuting on I-85, not walking around on the quad at noon on a Wednesday. (Somehow, I doubt they'd be reassured by that comment.)

That said, I'm really looking forward to when Jim leaves for France next Tuesday. Not that I don't enjoy the company, but I really feel a need for more late-night privacy than I have here at the moment, and there's no good way to say that to him, honestly. He's always here in my room right during the time when I'd like to have my computer to myself, alone, writing or catching up with people on IM or generally getting things done. Around 9PM to 1AM is my prime block of time for concentrating, accomplishing stuff, the only time when I can really sit down and type for more than a few minutes.

But for Jim, this is recreation time, and conversations with him go on for an hour, at first enjoyable and then interminable, interesting but endless, every story or concept leading to another, until I want to say please, please, let me be, go away without being offended, but leave me alone, let me alone… If he's not talking with me, then I've let him on the computer, where I get to listen to him cursing the novice card players on Yahoo! Games, those fools ("fools!" he cries, accusingly) who don't understand that you must pass a low heart to foil your neighbor's plan of shooting the moon, that you can't let someone just float out an eight of hearts after taking the queen of spades on the previous trick, and that —unless you want my cousin hitting the table and asking me why, why, "what kind of moron, what sort of fucking moron…?" you do not ever, EVER pass the Ace King Queen of hearts to an advanced player at the beginning of the hand. (Or the Ace King Queen of spades, for that matter.) Playing with novices drives him crazy, because it's hard to win as a decent intermediate player sandwiched between an expert and two novices, all the moves just cancel out. And Yahoo! is full of beginners and sharks, and so he keeps losing, and the more he loses, the more he's determined to play… this downward spiral of addiction that began the moment I hooked my laptop into his phone line and got a dial-up into the Emory modem pool. So eventually, every night, I must remind my dear cousin that, unlike him, I actually work in the mornings, and therefore must at least attempt to get to bed by 2 or so.

I feel guilty for this resenting of his presence, for this kicking him out of my room… I mean, here's a guy who's offered me half his condo for the summer, where I'm living more comfortably than I have in a year, no worries about family or parking or laundry, making noise late at night or having to walk down long dorm hallway to use the bathroom… it's great, I love living here, I really do. And why should I feel this guilty? He's enjoying it to, having me here; someone to run a few errands, talk to when he gets home from work, someone to watch his condo while he's gone all month, free use of a computer with internet connection all day… why do I feel so guilty, telling him I need to sleep, when I do, I really do…

Perhaps it's because the first thing I do after shutting my door is not to brush my teeth or change clothes, but to get back online and cut further into my already-shortened sleep time, discussing narrative structure with Jake, bad movies with Dan, Comcast techies with my brother or David Sedaris' nervous tics with Jen. Looking up speaking dates for Michael Chabon. Deciding which bands of the dueling free summer concert series I'd most like to go to (so far, They Might Be Giants, Cake, and Better Than Ezra are all certainties), which films I want to see at the Atlanta Film Festival. All things that I enjoy doing, would normally be doing, should feel no guilt about doing… this is my life, my computer, my time, my internet connection… and Jim's phone line. Damn. There it is again. I feel bad, no matter how I approach it.

My hand hurts from all this writing. I'm using a crappy pen, hardly a pen at all, which I appear to have picked up from the Marriott while Mom and Dad were down in Atlanta helping me move. I guess the cheap black ink Bic goes with the writing on the backs of unrelated pieces of paper, but how can people write with these things? It's so painful…

I take a break for the sake of my cramped fingers and watch the cars and people passing by. The beginning of this past school year I kept seeing people I knew from Maryland in the gait or profile or face of people here in Atlanta, total strangers, who I knew could not be whoever I thought they were, but I'd still have to get closer to tell, just to be sure, edge around a bit… there… "no, stupid, that's not Arti Thumar. How could it be Arti, anyway? She's miles away." Sometimes whoever I was watching would notice, and the moment would become incredibly awkward for both parties, the person unsure if they'd just caught me staring at them, and I instantly attempting to be deeply absorbed in something else… "Don't mind me, I'm just.. um,, just wandering over here, uh,… looking at a flyer tacked to this bulliten board—goodness me, what an interesting advertisement this is….such a subtle use of Times New Roman font!"

Now, though, everywhere I go I am expecting to see people from Emory, the people who belong here (or did), who filled these spaces during the school year. Is that Scott walking up ahead of me across the bridge to the science buildings, carrying an ice bucket? (No, dummy. Scott's going to grad. school in St. Louis. He's not here.)

Was that Jenn, across on the other side of the quad as I was walking to the village this afternoon?

An elevator closes in the DUC and it just might be Christina I glimps as the doors shut, and was that guy going up the stairs Tom from my biology class, or am I going insane?

I'm going insane. (And every black Passat on Clifton Road just might be Jake.)

(But it's not, they're not, none of them are who I think they are because—simple concept here, Laura THEY'RE NOT ON CAMPUS ANY MORE.)

Idiot.

Not that that stops me from —hey! A red Carrolla!
"Steve?" It could be Steve; he's in Atlanta for the summer.

It is not Steve. It's never Steve. I'm alone here, aside from the few professors I know and never see, my bosses and co-workers in Human Genetics, and the fine employees here at Starbucks, who know my drinks, at least, if not my name. And then my favorite cousin Jim, who I am so unfair to, in thought if not in deed…

In deed. In…deed. Indeed. Weird how that came about, as a word.
Weirder, I was thinking this morning, is the etymology of the phrase "now then." Don't you agree? I mean, "now" is clear enough, I suppose. But the "then," along with the "now"… no matter how I look at it, it's nonsensical. And yet we all know what we mean, when we say it… don't we? I guess so. The water in my shower this morning lost its nice hot temperature before I got any farther on that line of thought.

To be continued…
(I wrote more at Starbucks, but haven't had a chance to type it up yet.)