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The beach is sunny. My skin is lobstery. Sunscreen doesn't work worth a damn.

I'm thinking the thoughts I always run up against every time I see my young cousin. She's so much like me- the me I was when I was 15. Her self-deprecating humor is sometimes only half humor. She puts herself down at all opportunities. She's cute (she's on the right), and funny, and smart (third in her class), and seems completely incapable of recognizing any of this within herself (the one picture I think perfectly expresses her insecurity).

We always talk for long periods of time when we get together. She tells me about her crushes and school and friends and I tell her about college. Some people would probably call me a big loser for hanging with my fifteen-year-old cousin, but they've never met her. She's fun to be around. Besides, I am kind of a loser. In the fun, adorable way... right?

Why is it that we self-haters love to put ourselves down? We dance around it. We say little things intending to be funny, sometimes not, seeing how far we can go, how far people will let us go... and how much of it we believe. And we hate seeing the same symptoms in each other. We get mad at each other for not realizing the good things in ourselves- we recognize the wonderful things in each other. The only place we cannot find beauty is in our own mirrors.

I've kind of given up on the self-flagellation- at least in public. Because, as Sara put it just last Friday, "Katie, if you ever call yourself the fat chick again I will kick your ass."

Heee. :) I love good friends.

But at the same time, I can't help acknowledging all the things I am not. I mean, I know I'm nice and smart and pretty and occasionally witty. But there are times I feel so hopelessly inadequate- my tongue is useless and I couldn't say something funny or even apropos to save my life. I feel awkward and out of control and find myself babbling relentlessly, trying to shy away from the puzzled and sometimes mocking looks. I don't know enough about things. I've not experienced enough of life. I can't be bold and careless, I can't be clever and hold a roomful of people in the palm of my hand.

I can't be good enough for The Boy.

And it does not help that he was so sweet to me on Friday, opening doors and letting me walk in front, always quietly sweetly perfect, always being the boy that Sara couldn't help but fall for once she knew she already had his heart.

I will never be like Sara, and it kills me.

And I get mad at my cousin for thinking the same things about herself.

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