I’ve been trying to be a Serious Grad Student who is Very Disciplined about school and it’s not really working out for me, ’cause this girl can only take so many days of solitary sitting in front of the ’puter typing and erasing and retyping the same lame sentences into a final paper over and over again. Happily, yesterday evening I put my books in my locker at school and hopped the train to Williamsburg with a bottle of Saint Emilion to visit Schmio’s new place. Said place has: windows that look onto a tree with little green sprouting leaves; windows that look onto a centennial rose bush and a neighbor’s roof; a tin ceiling in the kitchen; more than one cute hipster boy neighbor; a pink wall; an orange wall; the cutest wooden furniture in the world, including a red-and-white flea-market kitchen table with a round-bottomed flour and sugar bin drawer. Said place is: railroadey; on a street with a big purple girl’s head painted on one wall; in boxes and unpacked suitcases, already Schmio. At one point the scene was me and Schmio and Maud, with a still-life of half a saucisson, two small bags of fancy chocolate, three wine glasses, and half an Evian bottle serving as an ashtray. Then it was time to go to dinner.

It is nice to have friends, and it is nice to laugh long and loud.