An Abundance of Thoughts about an Abundance of Katherines: Chapter Eight

[Frank Leigh Grace]

            Hahaha.  “Authors never included the whole story; they just got to the point.”  It’s true.  They have to.  The whole story would take forever to tell, and would be full with pointless information that doesn’t help further the story.  The problem is, you can always tell when a character likes another character, because the author emphasizes certain hints the characters give. In real life it isn’t that simple; everyone gives those “hints” mixed with the exact opposite signals, and depending on your perspective and your attitude, you can make completely different (and completely incorrect) conclusions about the other person.  Predicting characters is so much easier than predicting real people, because the author guides what you see and doesn’t mention the stuff that ends up not mattering.

            Dingleberries.  Lovely.

            I am a fan of the swear jar.  And the way Lindsey deals with it.  I’ve gotten a little better with swearing.  I didn’t do it much at all until college…during fall and spring semesters I swore nonstop; for the summer session I pretty much only swore when I was really upset.

            “Lindsey’s, sigh, boyfriend.”  Well, YEAH.  Just LOOK at the guy.  I mean, I shouldn’t judge him this way if he were a real person, but with characters you usually CAN judge them, because they aren’t really human, and as I said the author points out the important characteristics, which in this case label TOC as a total jerkface.

            God, Colin’s addicted to feeling unique.  Doesn’t he know he’ll be unique no matter what?  “Unique” doesn’t have to be “better” to be “good.”

            Anndddd back to K-19.

 

The Beginning (of the End)

 

            You call kissing EIGHTEEN GIRLS in your short life “frequently faltering?”  You’ve GOT to be kidding me.  EIGHTEEN GIRLS.  Soon to be NINETEEN GIRLS.  I’m NINETEEN and I’m kissed a grand total of ONE BOY.  EVER.  AND HE DIDN’T EVEN STICK AROUND LONG ENOUGH TO TEACH ME TO DO THIS WHOLE KISSING THING CORRECTLY.  GODDAMMIT DAVID.  THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE STORY.

            So.  Rejection Minimization Theorem.  Okay, maybe David is just plain weird, but he was NOT happy about me kissing him that one time.  Granted, it wasn’t making out; it was just a quick peck on the lips.  But still.  If Colin’s right, there’s got to be something MAJORLY wrong with me, in that David didn’t want to kiss me after the first time.  I mean, we know that I’m a god-awful kisser, but it was my FIRST KISS.  I mean, are people really expected to naturally be excellent kissers?  I was under the impression that we had to be taught.

            So uh, Colin’s RMT just makes my self-esteem drop even lower.  Sigh.

            But yeah, “there is nothing logical about kissing.” True.  Whose idea was it to mash their face against another person’s face and more or less try to put their mouth inside the other person’s mouth?  And why is having another person’s tongue inside my mouth not HALF as weird as I would think it would be?  And why does David, a complete germaphobe, appear to be perfectly fine with swapping saliva with another human being?

            Um.  “Because he always waited so incredibly long to kiss a girl, he rarely faced rejection.”  WHAT?!?  THIS BOY HAS KISSED EIGHTEEN, SOON TO BE NINETEEN GIRLS.  I DON’T UNDERSTAND.  UNLESS THIS BOY CONSIDERS “SO INCREDIBLY LONG” TO BE LIKE TEN SECONDS, THIS DOESN’T MAKE A LICK OF SENSE.

            Coffee is delicious if you do it right.  David prefers lattes. Particularly hazelnut lattes.  I agree that they are quite tasty.  I drink tea black, now, but I haven’t quite got there with coffee.  “They like their coffee like they like their ex-boyfriends:  bitter.”  Ouchhh.

            Holding hands with Justin was always really sweaty.  It was kind of awkward but I think we just both decided not to care, and we held hands anyway.

            “All the ones in the movie were really hot, for instance.”  “So are all the ones I know.”  *Exhale sharply, swift glance*  That reminds me of a David story.  This was, mmm, probably the second week of us doing homework together, and we were working on our math homework in Qdoba. He said, “I’m going to kill myself,” during a frustrating problem, so I said, “don’t do that!”  He explained, of course, that he wasn’t serious, and I said, “Good.  I’d miss you.”  And grinned at him while likely blushing a bit.  He turned and stared at me for about a second, his big brown eyes wide, trying to figure out if I meant what he thought I meant, and then he turned back to his math, letting out a little awkward laugh.  God, is that boy adorable.

            “Well, I’m a fair kisser.”  That reminds me of how David and I had our first kiss.  I was in his room finishing my homework (yeah, I know, I’m so effing boring, no wonder he didn’t want to date me), and I’d just told him I liked him, and a couple times he would just kind of…sit next to me with his face about a foot from my face and stare at me, blinking.  And I was like, oh my God, if you’re going to kiss me, then just KISS ME, don’t just sit there blinking at me…but I didn’t say that.  I just kind of laughed awkwardly saying I didn’t really know what was going on and returned to my homework.  But then I revised that, because I DID know what was going on.  So David asked me, so what’s going on, then?  And I turned to him and said, “I think you’re about to kiss me.”  And then he did.  I’m cutting out the rest of the awkwardness, because I’m super awkward so there was tons of awkward leading up to and during that kiss.  But I still liked it, because David.  What he thought, well, I guess we’d have to ask him.  But we know I’m a terrible kisser and that the only reason he was willing to kiss me was that it was like four in the morning.