2002-11-14 - 12:45 a.m.

“Why haven’t I been writing?”

This is a question I’ve been asking myself for weeks. And I’m not talking about just in my diary here, which I haven’t touched for months, but why haven’t I been writing *anything* for weeks? Since my vacation, which was primarily filled by me plugging away at one of my three book ideas, I’ve barely put pen to paper long enough to write down a name or note let along a book, chapter, or even sentence. Meanwhile, story characters run though their plots in my head again and again, waving their arms at me like a ten-year-old trying to show her parents her swan dive for the twenty-seventh time today. “Look what I can do!” they yell at me, and I tell them, “Yes, yes, I’m looking,” I tell them and turn back to whatever conversation or TV program or random spot on the wall that happens to have my attention at the moment. All the while I stress with the torment of being a writer who isn’t writing and doesn’t know why.

Today, as these things often do, the answer came to me at work. The reason why I haven’t been writing should come as no surprise to anyone who’s read this diary at all, or who has known me for more than, say, twenty minutes. Yet no one, including myself, has managed to guess it until now.

That reason, of course, as should have been obvious, since it seems to be the catalyst for every single thing I do--or don’t do for that matter--is a girl.

That girl’s name is Ariel, and I met her a couple of months ago in the pit in Harvard Square, where I’d been going every weekend to listen to That Band. She and at least one of her friends found their way to the pit, and she and my friend Jason quickly took a liking to each other. It didn’t take long after that before they were together and Ariel was assimilated into our little group of friends.

To give the really short version, about a month ago, things ended between her and Jason for reasons I won’t bother going into, because they’re not really my business anyway. Because she actually lives about an hour out of the city, she’s only around on the weekends. And when the Friday after they’d split up came by, we were, once again, in the pit, listening to That Band. As I usually do, while I dance, my eyes scanned around the crowd, pausing on the various attractive young ladies in the crowd, and I kept noticing that all night my eyes kept finding their way to Ariel, when they never had before. It seems my Girl Who’s Dating My Friend filters were gone, because I was suddenly noticing, as I put it when it happened,”Wait a minute, Ariel is HOT!” I was amazed that I had failed to notice this before, but suddenly I couldn’t help but notice.

Another thing I was starting to notice was, while she and Jason were together, and the whole crowd was hanging out together, she and I seemed to talk more than she and Jason. It occurred to me that, just maybe, I might have a crush on Ariel. So as we moved around the floor of the pit, I would catch myself scanning my way back to Ariel, and occasionally, when I got there, would find her smiling right back, with that look. I don’t know if she realizes what that look does to me, when she looks into my eyes (which she always does when she talks to me, and I *love* that), and a wide smile slowly grows across her lips, one flirtatious eyebrow lifts just a bit, and the tip of her tongue finds its way between her teeth on one side of her mouth, but it just kills me every time.

One frustrating thing with this whole situation is that I don’t think our friends, most of whom know by now that I have some sort of interest in Ariel, realize the connection I feel there. When I talk with her, she seems to understand me in ways that no one else who I talk to these days really does. It seems everyone else either puts words into my mouth, or interrupts me, or tries to get me to do things that I’m not totally comfortable with, or doesn’t understand my aversion to loud voices and people who suddenly thrust themselves into my personal space. But when I’m talking with Ariel, I never feel that way. Not only does she seem to understand everything I say, and I feel like I understand everything she tells me, she can recall and convey the message of entire conversations we’ve had with one look from across a dance floor. I haven’t felt this connected to anyone in a very long time. And as I said, most of my friends don’t seem to get it. They’ll cheer me on and give me suggestions just like any other person I might happen to be pursuing but to me, this isn’t just like any other person. This is more important somehow.

This weekend was to be an important one. I honestly prepared myself, psyching myself up, all week. Because I knew that if I don’t act soon, I’ll be trapped in Friendship Purgatory for the rest of my life. I don’t mean that I found myself preparing things to say to her or to do to impress her or something like that, I just mean that I knew I had to start actively pursuing her, or eventually, my time would run out, and she’d end up as just another person I would spend years wishing I’d done things differently with. The band was playing their first indoor show since last winter, a CD release party at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Inman Square. I knew how to get there, and even without lots of friends around, could have made it easily, because I live in the area, but if you don’t live in the area, and you don’t happen to be in a large group of people who happen to know how to find it, it’s not the easiest thing in the world. So after most of us got there, and Ariel called to let me know she and her friends from school were on the bus to get there, there was no way I wasn’t going to go out and wait at the bus stop to make sure it stopped at the right spot so they would know where to go.

As I stood across the street at the bus stop, looking through the windshield for everyone, to make sure it was the right bus, I felt amazing as soon as I saw Ariel, bent down a bit to look for me, smiling back at me as soon as I noticed her. The show ended up being the same thing they’ve all been for me lately, a lot of fun, but full of uncertainty. “Is she flirting with me or just having a good time near me?” is basically the idea of the thoughts constantly running through my mind while we all danced in the small, stifling hot art gallery. She was beautiful, dancing around the smooth wooden floors in her black top(I’m terrible with names of articles of clothing) and maroon skirt, cut above the knees and slit along the side, which I think I heard her say she made herself. I couldn’t take my eyes off her for longer than is necessary to not be painfully obvious about it.

Throughout the rest of the weekend, whenever we were in a group of friends, we would often find ourselves set apart, usually by little more than a couple of feet, but still separate, alone together within the group, if that makes any sense. When I bought my new camera from my friend Stephen, I was sitting in his living room, in the middle of a party, playing around with it when Ariel showed up, and all I could do is wish I had a roll of film in it. Because I didn’t feel like I could have gotten a more perfect shot than the one I got while I was getting myself used to the manual focus and zoom. Through the viewfinder, all I could see was her, laying on the giant pillow on the floor in front of me, talking with someone else, her freckled arms sticking through out of her gray tank top, her left arm bent over to her right, her right arm propping up her head, fingers weaving through her hair. That shot right there would have captured exactly what had felt so good all this time. Her as a beautiful, relaxed center of the otherwise crazy, whirling pool of social interaction that is my current group of friends. Which is not to say anything bad about them, it’s nothing like that, they’re all great people, it’s just that sometimes I need just one. One person to be with, at once part of and separate from the crowd that I’ve come to identify myself with over the past months.

While the band was playing in a park on Saturday afternoon, a quick trip to show Ariel where the closest bathroom was resulted in an hour and a half of idle roaming around together, talking as we slowly found our way into the Starbucks then over to Cafe Avventura, a cheap pizza place that I might be spelling wrong. That hour and a half only ended when we realized the band had stopped playing half an hour ago, and we should probably go get our bags. Then immediately afterwards, again, we were off together, browsing through the Harvard Coop bookstore, her showing me her favorite architecture (she opened one book, flipping through the pages and telling me you could find that style of building all through Boston. The next day I found myself scanning the skyline, picking them out from the otherwise jumbled mix of buildings lining the streets on either side of the Charles River) and pointing out what she liked about certain pictures, and what she didn’t like about others, and that one place, which was supposed to look like a ship or something, was instead just about the largest phallic symbol since the Washington Monument. Then I led her to my favorite places in the store, showing her the place in “Essays” between Bonnie Friedman and Northrop Frye where, hopefully, my book will sit someday, finding a copy of “House of Leaves” so I could show her just how crazy the book looks without even reading a word of it. We roamed and talked, and discussed anything that came to mind, and there was always more to talk about, and I told her my stories about Molly, and how she’s inspired parts of another story I’m working on, and opened myself up more than I really have with someone in person in a while, and the whole time I knew she was still with me, that she knew just what I meant.

And really, that’s what’s most important here to me. We seem to understand each other. I feel freer talking with her because I know I’m not going to have to step back and try to explain myself a different way. I don’t have to alter my mode of speech to make sure she’s going to get it, because I feel like, not only does she get it, she feels it. She doesn’t just follow what I say, she can identify with me, and I can identify with her, and I never feel uncomfortable talking with her. That’s a rare thing. It seems like everyone I talk to, no matter how good a friend of mine they might happen to be, eventually makes me a little uncomfortable with one thing or another they might happen to do, but with Ariel I feel open, loose, comfortable. And when something stresses me out, she seems to immediately understand why, even if I can’t explain it to anyone else.

I really want this to happen. I’m sitting here, in the kitchen at work, knowing she’s going to be in the city in less than an hour, and all I can do is smile and hope that I can force myself to work fast enough that everyone will be able to leave early. Because if we work fast enough, I’ll be able to get out before she has to head back to school. And even if I can’t, the happy, possibly excited tone she had on the phone a few minutes ago when I told her there was actually a chance that I *might* get out early enough to see her today is enough to leave me smiling for the rest of the day.

Now, you might be wondering, if you’re an English teacher or something and wondering what this all has to do with my not writing, and now I’ll explain. Until yesterday, when I sat down and started tapping this out in my laptop or scratching it out in my notebook, I wasn’t writing. And not because of lack of inspiration or time, but for one other very simple reason. Every time I try to think about something I’m trying to write, instead, my thoughts wander back to Ariel. When will I see her next? Will we get any time away? Will my friends accidentally (or accidentally on purpose) let her know how I feel before I’m ready? What should I do next time we’re together? How can I let her know how I feel? Is there any chance she feels the same? And over all of these questions, a sign that any self doubt to be found in those questions is probably unfounded, is a continuing sense of happy anticipation. Every time I find out I’ll be able to grab a couple of unexpected hours with her, I find myself with an irrepressible grin, and an almost childish excitement. If I can feel that while I’m worrying about how she feels, about how she’ll react when she finally knows the truth, then things can’t be too bad. And when I get up tomorrow, I’ll finally feel ready to work on an outline for a story. All I had to do was tell someone how I was feeling. Little did I know that today, one of the characters that were going to be waving their arms the biggest and yelling the loudest was going to be me. Now that I’ve told his story, I think I’m ready to go to the next one. And if not, in two days, I get to see Ariel, and hopefully, all will be well again.