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Mmmy. How long has it been since I wrote something in here? Well, not that long, I suppose.

Before this becomes dull, let me tell you my interesting stories of today.

The boyfriend-of-a-friend, without any ulterior motive, heard me wryly say that no one ever called me, and said, "No boys call you?"

"No."

"Why? You're very pretty."

It was one of those ohmygod moments. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and say, "You have NO idea what that just did for my self-esteem."

Why can't guys do that more often? Not to impress a girl, not to flatter someone, just say the truth when it occurs to you. Because we bordering-on-normal girls just don't hear that. I got called ugly enough times in my life to begin to think maybe I wasn't just being hard on myself. To hear someone call me pretty is apocalyptic as far as my ego is concerned.

That's going to linger with me for a while, I think.

Interesting event number two:

One of my friends from my night philosophy class lost both her little sister and her legs from the shins down in a car accident with a drunk driver two years ago. She still has scars from burns and skin grafts all over one of her arms. She's completely open about how she has prosthetic legs, and why she's in a wheelchair, and the accident, and everything. She's 16, and an honors program freshman in college. That should tell you much. But it doesn't even mention her great sense of humor. Usually she's laughing harder than anyone.

Then today our philosophy professor was trying to liken an event from Plato (I think it concerned irony or some such) and he was telling an event from his college days where he and three friends were out driving and everyone except the driver, who was on a learner's permit, was completely hammered. They get pulled over for rolling through a stopsign, and the officer commands the guy with the permit to stop driving, and not realizing the guy in the shotgun seat is completely wrecked, he tells him to drive. And since the cop is watching, they do as they're asked, and my teacher was praying the entire painstaking drive home.

It was a pretty funny story, and I was grinning. I think half of the class's laughter was just from shock of this forty-something teacher so openly confessing a college pecadillo this early in the year, when some students are still making their decisions about how they feel about him.

Then I hear someone murmuring, "It's not funny." I glance over, and my friend's eyes are filling with tears, and she's saying louder, defensively, "It's not funny."

Never thought of it that way. What must race through her mind when she hears drunk jokes? Particularly drunk driving jokes? I whispered to her that sometimes laughter is a shock reaction, and how they just couldn't understand, and it would only make them feel really bad for laughing if she mentioned it. She looked so angry, I worried she was mad at me for telling her. But no: "Sometimes I want to go back and kill that guy. I really do."

Very sobering thought. It was so different and awkward, seeing her less than cheerful, un-hyper, abruptly serious.

And I wonder what her life is like, from day to day. I wonder whether she gets chills when she's in a car. I wonder whether she'll ever be able to drive, and if she is, whether she'll ever want to. I wonder why her father is so silent whenever I walk with her to where he picks her up.

I think she's eventually going to make me a better person. If any of her personality rubs off, she definitely will.

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