Fall's coming!

I'm sitting with my computer-savvy friend Beth next to me on the speaker phone. We've just created this, the start of my first blog. It's a big deal for me. I feel as if I've crossed a bridge to a new world, that something about me has changed, as if I might look different, the way I thought I would look different after I lost my virginity but I probably don't. That night, after it happened, my boyfriend and I were still in his bed when his roommate came home because my boyfriend forgot to put the special yellow bulb in the porch light. I scrambled out of bed and right into the bathroom to put on all the clothes I'd taken off only minutes before. I made a point of not looking at myself in the mirror until I was dressed because I was looking forward to seeing how I looked as a Real Woman, finally, in that really nice red wool suit I'd borrowed without asking from my mother's closet after she'd told me I could absolutely not wear it. I put on my white cotton underpants, my white cotton Maidenform bra with the cups like cones, my full slip, my girdle, my stockings, the two pieces of the suit, and my black patent leather heels and then I was ready to see myself as this new person who looked exactly the same. I had expected my face to change so that my cheekbones would protrude or I'd have black circles under my eyes. It was a great disappointment.

I like to think that as summer turns to fall, we should stay up as long as possible and test our body's ability to consume forbidden foods to the max. It's the time to begin writing intense emails and blogs only after 11 PM, and to worry about the emotional effects of holding back our deepest feelings and of letting them out. It's a time to flip a coin about every major decision, a time to make an appointment for anything we've ever dreamed of making an appointment for, and to cancel it within the 24 hours we're allowed to do so without punishment. It's a time to get on any bus and ride it to the end of the line and then call a good friend to ask to come pick u up because u are lost. It is the time to run out of gasoline on any of the 4 bay area bridges at any rush hour.

As shadows deepen on the walls of my rental house, I realize how long I've been working on this blog and how already I've forgotten the name of it. For a moment I was wondering what to do about it, and if I should call Beth to ask her if she remembered what it was, but then I looked at the top of this page and saw, "So what's wrong with that" and my first thought was, "Why did I give it that name?" but I'd probably think that no matter what the name, and then there was relief.

There will be more, and soon.