Ask Clarissa

I don’t have but a minute or two. The coffee shop is hopping tonight. The manager has brought in live music and everyone’s loose and lively ‘cause we’re all back from spring break and no one’s going crazy with overload yet.

I finished the book Abigail gave me to read. As I Lay Dying. My first by William Faulkner. It’s a strange book. I am not used to fifteen different people telling me a story. Fifteen dysfunctional people. I really can’t see what Abigail sees in it, unless she likes spending time with people who make her sad life look normal.

Lauren, who’s read the book, thinks Abigail probably relates to it because the characters spend their sorry time in the pages struggling to bury their dead mother. Lauren had to remind me Abigail lost her mother when she was just a kid and then had to live with a grumpy father for the next fifty years. Yeah, well, that sucks, but what did Abigail really expect me to get out of a book like this? My mother isn’t dead. She and I went shopping together for swimsuits a couple weeks ago.

I’m not saying the guy isn’t a great writer. He writes really good depressing stuff. Abigail will want to chat about it this weekend. She’ll end up thinking I have no patience for anything more complex than once-upon-a-time crap. I so can appreciate something a little deeper than Dr. Seuss. But she’s right. I don’t have the patience for slow motion. If I am going to go deep I want to jump off the cliff at full speed, not hack my way down a mine shaft with a Barbie-size pick ax.

Oh, and hey, btw, I had a pretty good time hanging out with Lauren and Raul and Cole last week in Palo Alto. Get this. I think Cole is falling for me. Well, not really. But kind of. We'll just have to see. He kept looking at me.

Lauren has been instructed by her father to take the relationship slow with Raul. Like, don’t rush into anything, baby girl. I can read that man like a book. He’s desperately afraid of losing her to another man.

And here Lauren’s spent the better part of her life thinking her dad wishes she was a boy. . .