We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves Read Online Free PDF

last bus to Davis, empty-handed.
    I felt guilty because I’d owned the journals less than a day and already lost them.
     I felt happy because just this once, the airlines had used their incompetence for
     good instead of evil and maybe, through no fault of my own beyond an excessive trust
     in everyone’s ability to do their job, I’d never see those notebooks again. I felt
     lucky not to have checked my textbooks.
    Mostly I felt tired. The minute I stepped out of the elevator onto my floor, I could
     hear Joan Osborne’s “One of Us” and the music grew louder the closer I got to my own
     apartment. This surprised me, because I’d thought Todd (my roommate) wasn’t getting
     back until Sunday and I thought Todd was standing alone against the world in not liking
     “One of Us.”
    I hoped he wouldn’t want to talk. Last time he’d gone to visit his father, they’d
     had a long conversation about everything they believed and wanted and were. It had
     all been so glorious that Todd had gone back downstairs after the good-nights to say
     how close to his father he now felt. From the doorway, he’d overheard Dad talking
     to the new wife. “Jeebus,” his dad was saying. “What an eejit. I’ve always wondered
     if he’s really mine.” If Todd had come home early, it was not for anything small.
    I opened the door and Harlow was on my couch. She was wrapped in the crocheted shawl
     Grandma Fredericka had made for me when I had the measles, and she was drinking one
     of my diet sodas. She sprang up to turn the music down. Her dark hair was twisted
     onto her head and had a pencil stuck through it. I could see I gave her quite a start.
    •   •   •
    O NCE, at a parent-teacher conference, my kindergarten teacher had said that I had boundary
     issues. I must learn to keep my hands to myself, she’d said. I remember the mortification
     of being told this. I’d truly had no idea that other people weren’t to be touched;
     in fact, I’d thought quite the opposite. But I was always making mistakes like that.
    So you’ll have to tell me what the normal reaction to coming home and finding someone
     you hardly know in your house would be. I was already tired and wired. My response
     was to gape silently, like a goldfish.
    “You scared me!” Harlow said.
    More dim-witted gaping.
    She waited a moment. “God, I hope you don’t mind?” As if it had only just occurred
     to her I might. Notes of sincerity, contrition. She began talking faster. “Reg kicked
     me out because he thinks I have no money and nowhere to go. He thought I’d walk around
     for a couple of hours and then have to crawl home and beg him to let me back in. He
     pisses the hell out of me.” Sisterhood! “So I came here. I thought you wouldn’t be
     back until tomorrow.” Reason. Composure. “Look, I can see you’re tired.” Compassion.
     “I’ll get right out of your hair.” Commitment.
    She was trying so hard to get a read on me, but there was nothing to read. All I felt
     was exhausted, to the marrow of my heavy bones, to the roots of my stolid hair.
    Well, and maybe curious. Just the tiniest bit. “How did you know where I live?” I
     asked.
    “I got it off your police report.”
    “How did you get in?”
    She pulled the pencil, and her hair dropped silkily to her shoulders. “I gave your
     apartment manager a pretty face and a sad story. I’m afraid he can’t really be trusted.”
     Her tone now was one of great concern.
    •   •   •
    I MUST HAVE gotten angry while I slept, because that’s how I woke up. The phone was ringing and
     it was the airline, saying they had my bag and would deliver it in the afternoon.
     They hoped I’d think of them the next time I flew.
    I went to use the toilet and it overflowed. After several futile attempts to flush,
     I called the apartment manager, embarrassed to have him in my bathroom dealing so
     openly with my piss, but grateful it was nothing more.
    Though he was eager.