This Was Also Uncalled For.

Instead of doing anything useful between classes, I find myself sending Jen an IM in response to her blog, one that goes something like this:

"..If we can bring everyone to grab a part of the other, like an arm at the socket, everyone holding another's arm at the socket, and if we can get everyone to, instead of ripping this arm from the socket, instead hold to it, tight, and thus strenghthening — Then, um — Like a human ocean moving as one, the undulating, the wave-making —

Ahem.
Or like a showshoe.

A snowshoe.
You wear snowshoes when the snow is deep and porous. The latticework within the snowshoe's oval distributes the wearer's weight over a wider area, in order to keep him or her from falling through the snow. So people, the connections between people, the people you know, become a sort of lattice, and the more people, good peope, they must be good people, who know that they are here to help, the more of these people you know, and that know you, and know your situation and your story and your troubles or whatnot, the wider and stronger the lattice, and the less likely you are to —

Fall through the snow.
Right.

That is a mediocre metaphor.
I know. I'm working on it."

Her blog had been about A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, but it's typical of our conversations that I send this with no introduction — no need for one, really, we've both read the Real World chapter enough times to recognize it with no trouble. Jen's far more accepting of this metaphor than I am, I think — I love Dave Eggers for this confused, run-on attempt, and it appeals to me, it really does. But the part of me that accounts for the 70-some people on my AIM buddy list and the fact that I keep up with all the bio dorks at Emory and various people from high school that I don't even see once a year anymore is constantly at odds with this need to minimize real interaction, to avoid running into anyone (besides Jake, who understands) who might, God forbid, actually notice me. And I'm not sure how I reconcile the two.