journaling, or, people come and people go but some people stick around forever

4/25/1999 Sunday
Gorgeous out today, breezy and blue and sunny and cool. I made cornbread this afternoon and am going to do something with black beans and tuna and tomato -- my usual mush-style cooking. Jeremy's coming over in an hour or so. I'm meeting Rachel at Suburban [Station] around 7:45, I guess we'll just get coffee or something before she catches a 9:15 train back to NYC. I was getting tea for Mako and me when the phone rang. I thought it would be Nate since I left him a message a while ago but it was Nicole calling from Ohio. I really miss her a lot despite the strangeness of our friendship. She's going to be back in Philly the last week of May to move all her stuff and wants to see me and Anthony. We talked for a bit which was nice, I was touched that she called me. I canceled my plans to meet Nirav today. I just really needed a day to do nothing, to read and drink tea with Mako and go for short little walks and be lazy and self-indulgent. The prospect of doing touristy things with someone I hardly know wasn't all that appealing. So I called him last night and he seemed to not mind too much and we chatted for a bit. I miss Ari now after seeing her so briefly yesterday. I talked to Mako about my friendship with Ari for awhile. We've known each other for 15 years now and she knows me, knows my life story, lived it with me. Even though we haven't seen each other very often over the past four years we have that rare type of friendship that is always normal, always real, despite long distances and times. I wonder if she knows how important she is to me even though I haven't been up to New Paltz to see her in over two years now. I hope she does know. I think she must. Okay, I'm gonna go read more Normal Mailer now.