Genuphobia and Exhibitionistic Roommates 10/22/2001
I got an IM message from Natalie today. She wants me to come and visit her this weekend. Natalie was my roommate at the Carnegie Mellon summer art program I attended two summers ago. I automatically hated her when I first met her. She was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. The first night we were there, we had to go to this orientation. She held open a door for a guy and he asked for her name and where she was dorming. Do you know how many times I held doors open, and I didn't even get a thank you??? Anyway, they became fast friends over the summer. At one point, Nat's boyfriend called her up and asked to speak to Mike, the friend. Mike and Nat's boyfriend, Evan, ended up fighting over Nat over the phone, while Nat sat on the floor drawing and smiling. I remember sitting on the floor, pretending to laugh at the situation, but inside I wanted to cry. I've never had a guy like me, not to mention two, and Nat made like it was nothing. Anyway, besides being beautiful, she's virtually perfect in every way. She's smart, and wonderfully talented in art. She attending Paffa, the art school at University of Pennsylvania.
For the first three weeks, we just sort of put up with each other. I was very quiet, and even more stressed than I am now because I had never been away from home before. Nat met two girls the first day, while it took me much longer. Nat never had trouble with her teachers while I always seemed to be fighting with mine. Nat was very...open. She would randomly announce, "Hey, I farted," and lovely things like that. She was an exhibitionist; when we were alone in our room, she would strip down to her underwear and bra and prance around the room. A few times she didn't even bother with a bra.
My favorite memory of Natalie was when we had to do an interpretive self-portrait. I did one of myself grabbing at my hair and screamimg (I thought it was fitting...) We were in our room one day and Nat had announced she was going to do her slef-portrait. I was doing my summer assignment for AP Biology and kind of just waved her off. I few minutes later, I look up from my book and almost had a heart attack. Nat was sitting with her back to me facing a mirror. Unforunately, because of that mirror, I also had a full frontal view of her. Nat was stark naked, sitting in front of a mirror. Her interpretive self-portrait consisted of her sitting in a nude frontal position. I became a lot less conservative that summer...(I became so used to nudity, from models and from Nat, that when my friend Irene asked me to do a nude porttrait of her, I didn't even flinch).
I'm not quite sure what happened, but by the end of the three weeks, Natalie and I became friends. By the fourth week, she came up to me one day and asked me if I would go with her to CVS to buy a pregnancy test kit. She had slept with her boyfriend before she had left to go to Carnegie and apprently she was late, and was getting very worried. "I have no-one else to ask," she said. At that moment, I stopped envying Nat. Well, for the most part... I remember being in a downstairs restroom at McDonalds, desperately waiting for a blue line to show up. It finally did, and we treated ourselves to ice cream.
After we left Carnegie Mellon, we stayed in touch, on and off. She's still as perfect as always. She absolutely loves her roommate, she has her own apartment, loves her classes, her art work is actually displayed in a Polish museum, etc, etc. After awhile you get used to the perfect-ness, I guess.
Anyway, so I may be visiting Nat this weekend. She wants me to come up to Philly to spend Halloween weekend with her. As crazy as Nat was, I miss her. I think that's why I can be so bitter about Linda. I really wanted me and Linda to have the same kind of relationship, even though it is a bit dysfunctional, as Nat and I have. Anyway....I have so much to say, but I have to study for a chemistry exam. I'm due for a rant about my damn chemistry professor, but I'll save that for another time.
Oh, and my lab partner, Lauren, kicks ass. She's so cool. She invited me to eat pizza with her after we finished our lab. We got done early tonight luckily. She goes home almost every weekend. I invited her to hang out with me and Erin.She was really insistent about going home, and she doesn't have my phone number even if she did decide to go. Ah well...Anyway...back to evil chemistry.
Phobia of the Day: Genuphobia- Fear of knees
Until later
Artist
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