Sad Desk Salad Read Online Free PDF Page B

time to apply to college, Wesleyan was my very first choice. It wasn’t too far from home (I may have been ready to get out of Manning but I still wanted to have access to a home-cooked meal and free laundry), and it had a reputation for being bohemian but also rigorous. But most important, its creative writing department was supposed to be fantastic.
    My mom was ready to hop in our 1994 Volvo and drive me to Middletown immediately when I found out that I got in, but my dad balked. He and my mom had scrimped on luxuries for themselves for years so that I could go to that YMCA camp followed by nerdy enrichment camps when I was in high school. He didn’t want to spend on a private education for something so unstable. “Why don’t you just go to U Conn if you’re hell-bent on becoming a writer?” he pleaded. “I might as well take all our savings out and set fire to them.”
    I don’t know what my mother told him about my so-called writerly potential, but it must have worked—they agreed to enroll me in Wesleyan. I once tried to ask her how she convinced him to let me go but she just smiled and said, “I have my ways.”
    If the point of liberal arts college is to find yourself, then Wesleyan was worth every nickel. I made friends who truly understood me. I found a style that suited me—I ditched the poncho and stuck to short hand-cut jean skirts (to show off my legs, my best feature) and little boys’ T-shirts I bought in bulk at the nearest thrift store. I lost fifteen pounds and got a pixie haircut. I had one semi-serious boyfriend, the aforementioned Adam, who in addition to being a casual filmmaker was also a stoner, and some scattered hookups after we parted that provided fodder for hungover Sunday brunches with the girls.
    I also took as many theory and writing classes as I possibly could. Five years ago I could have told you a whole lot about Julia Kristeva and correctly used the word “simulacrum” in a sentence, but of course I remember none of it now.
    I’ve grown up enough to know that I shouldn’t care what the Internet public thinks about my eighteen-year-old self. Who among us didn’t embarrass herself in some spectacular fashion in her mid- to late teens? But I guess a part of me hasn’t reconciled the unformed, scared little person I was then with the person I am now. And I just want everyone to know my hair is much better than it used to be.
     
    It’s at this point that I see my face in the mirror behind Tina’s head and realize that it’s bright pink. Not just from the embarrassment; I’m two sheets to the wind and about to toss sheet number three. Ariel calls, “Hey, Amber, can we get us another one a these scorpion bowls? A frozen one this time, I don’t want any of that flaming shit.” Amber doesn’t even seem to register that we know her name, despite the fact that she hasn’t told it to us and is not wearing a name tag. I guess she must be used to randoms knowing about her by now.
    Rel changes the subject abruptly, twirling a lock of long dark hair as if it were a cartoon villain’s mustache. “You know who sucks?”
    “Who?” Tina and I say simultaneously.
    “Molly,” Rel replies as Amber sets down another enormous bowl, this one covered in palm trees.
    “Oh come on, she’s harmless,” Tina says. “She came over to my place last week to help me make a gif of Nicole Kidman’s disappearing forehead wrinkles. She couldn’t have been nicer. And besides, have either of you even met her in person yet?”
    Rel and I have to concede that we have not. But we have seen her perky little dimpled face in all her Facebook photos, and Rel knows she wants to punch it. Also, she is so annoying over IM.
    “Whatever, fine,” Rel says. “She acts nice. I’ll give you that. But there’s something conniving about her. I can sense it.”
    “I sort of know what you mean. It’s so obvious she wants our jobs it’s pathetic. It’s very All About Eve, ” I say.
    “Yes! Exactly that.