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About an hour ago, I would have posted an entirely different diary entry. Just goes to show, you wait a little while and your perception changes.

I'm typing like I play the piano right now, my hands dancing back and forth, treating the space and shift keys like a basso continuo, using all ten fingers as opposed to the usual four or six. I just saw a fantastic pianist play a free concert downstairs, and it makes me want to run down, find a set of ivories and practice until next week.

While I sat down, I noticed someone very familiar sitting in the front row. Same straight blond hair, same chin- yup, it was Antipholus, from Comedy of Errors.

I ran over to give him a hug before the concert began, and he seemed startled and somewhat unenthusiastic about seeing me, despite our apparent friendship during the play and the fact that I haven't seen him in months. He didn't even stand up to return my hug. I hate to sound childish, but it hurt my feelings a little.

It just shored up my secret conviction that he saw me as a child and had been tolerating me during the play. The fact that he was sitting next to a girl we both knew who was a year younger only confused me and made me realize it must have had something to do with me, and not my age.

And all during the concert, I was back to being the Katie I despise- insecure, worried, wondering how many people are merely tolerating her, wondering how long before they show their true colors.

(By the way, one thing to add to yesterday's Why? list: Why does the sight of a man with shaggy hair in a baseball cap and brown bomber jacket still send jolts of anxiety down my spine? Charlie Brown left a year ago.)

The concert, obviously, was wonderful. He played a forgettable Debussy, some great ragtime, one song by Liszt that details Dante's circles of Hell, and I always gasped for breath the instant he stopped playing, never realizing I'd been holding it. I can't even find the capacity to be jealous, because he is just so far beyond anything I could ever achieve. He seemed to whisper and murmur to his fingers as he played, his face contorting with the music (and contrary to popular belief, most pianists are very stoic simply because they know people are watching their faces), sometimes his lips breathing out rhythms, always silent. It just underscores my conviction that I will someday marry a musician.

After the concert, I walked out without attempting to say goodbye to Antipholus, and headed to the library for various reasons. Upon returning I found that Antipholus and the freshman girl had bumped into Louie, who was just leaving a rehearsal for Sartre's No Exit, and the three of them were talking.

I would have walked by with a smile, but Louie called me over to give me a hug (love that man) and Antipholus reached for me. And gave me the kind of embrace I used to love about him, the hard-armed kind, cheek to mine. He told me I'd taken him by surprise earlier, but he hadn't wanted to start talking if the concert was about to begin, and where had I gone afterward, anyway? He even kept going to stand behind me when the wind blew against our backs, because he had a long coat on, he said. It's those little instinctive gentlemanly things that I adore.

So much for original impressions. I'm too quick to assume people don't like me, I guess.

See, it's always that way. Every time I find a friend that I perceive to be "cooler" than me in some way, be it more talented, more intelligent, more beautiful, more charismatic, or significantly older, I'm always surprised if they want to talk to me. It's like I don't think I deserve their friendship. And I wonder when they're going to be bored with me and wonder what made them try in the first place. I keep wondering if their smile is thinner than it looks, waiting for them to catch on to my flaws, wondering if they already have.

Self-destructive thing, this wondering.

I never made any new year's resolutions. So here goes.

I resolve to be someone's friend until they tell me not to. I used to love fearlessly and trust that everyone liked me until proven otherwise, and I can do it again. It's worth the uncertainty until I find my footing again, and can remember the things in me that other people apparently see.

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