She Always Wears the Cutest Sweaters

I’ve often felt that my blog was the ultimate form of online masturbation, but apparently I was wrong. Turns out, having someone write a guest blog about me on my own blog is the ultimate virtual jerk-off. Back up before I spurt all over the keyboard and onto your screen names. Hopefully, my graphic introduction won’t scare you away from this extremely thoughtful non-graphic entry by my good friend Rachel:

Approximately two years ago I enrolled in my first college level creative writing class. The large group sat in front of lumbering Dell desktops, half of us crafting stories from prompts like “Describe a man’s walk to execution,” half of us online shopping. We were a group of not-totally-invested tech-college kids.

I sat in the second row, on the end, so everyone could see my raised hand. It was raised a lot. I was kind of a know-it-all. Next to me sat a guy in his mid-twenties, with long hair and even longer fingernails. I thought he was cute and spent the moments before class making sure I looked the CUTEST EVER. Except there was a problem and she sat directly in front of me. Her name was The PQK and she was always way cuter than me.

My first memory of talking to The PQK doesn’t exist. It was probably boring. While I don’t remember what I said, I do remember my thoughts, which were something like, “This girl is so cool. This girl is cooler than me. I want to be this girl. How can I trick her into being my BFF?”

The class wore on, every Wednesday night, and soon the long-nailed boy, myself and The PQK were usually grouped together. We were the cool kids, at least in my mind. We’d write funny stories, and communally roll our eyes at the work of our fellow classmates, who liked to write about vampires and depression. During the class-wide critiques, The PQK would sit next to me (Or I would make sure I sat next to her?) and I’d turn to her with a “gag-me” expression whenever someone just didn’t get my vision.

We’d discuss the upcoming Project Runway episode, and I would compliment her on her sweater or her hair or her top or her shoes or her skirt or her dress. Someone would come around with a towel to wipe up my drool.

Let’s be clear: it wasn’t a girl crush. It was a “I want to be you” fascination. She lived in Italy for a year! She was younger than me! She was born in Madison! She liked cool music! She rode a bike! It seemed that every time I found out something new about her, it was more awesome than the last fact. Despite this, she deigned to continue associating with me for a few hours each week.

That semester we never managed to get together outside of class. Maybe it was because she thought I was an arrogant weirdo. When the class ended, I was most sad that I wouldn’t get to bask in her glory anymore. To my pleasant surprise, however, the following fall I walked into my much-loathed Brit Lit class and GUESS WHO WAS THERE. She smiled and said, “Hey!” I’m not totally convinced there wasn’t a touch of dread in her voice. I sat next to her and we continued our routine of eye-rolls and know-it-all comments and Project Runway recaps.

Maybe that semester I charmed her with my enormous knitwear. Maybe I weaned off The Crazy and tried to be more agreeable. Whatever happened, it apparently worked because we saw each other outside of class!
We further bonded by both transferring to UW the same semester and establishing a weekly meeting time. I freaked her out by having my tarot cards read around the question, “What’s in store for my friendship with The PQK?” but you know, we recovered. We started watching Project Runway together, with fellow blogger and friend GiganticDrumKit. We have brunch and do friend things. She inspires me to shower. You know what I have to say about all this? Victory is mine.