Sarah Says, No

November 30, 2002

Brian wants to come to Italy with me. And when I finish my job, he suggests we take a train to Paris and stay with his ex-girlfriend.

"Is that a good idea?" I ask him.

"Fuck yeah," he says. “It’s a great idea.”

After we wear out our welcome there, we'll take a train to Amsterdam. We haven't done anything to plan this out yet, other than to say to each other, "It's gonna be so cool". But since I don't know when I'm going to Italy yet, that's about all the planning we can do.

Brian was engaged recently, but the whole thing fell apart. I tried to tell him not to feel down about it because the engagement is the best part. He figures he's due for a little getaway. I’m all for it; it'll be more fun to have someone to get into trouble with. And then later we can say, "Holy shit! Remember that?"

My friend and former landlord, Pauline, flat won’t be available, I already checked. She’s subletting the place for the next 6 months.. Hopefully, I'll be able to find us a floor to sleep on. When I left Amsterdam at the end of the summer, Jara told me that anytime I came back, I could always stay with her. I'll have to ask about my tag-along friend, though.

A friend of my co-worker, Sarah, came by the studio to meet Sarah after work. Sarah introduced us and we hit it off. I asked her if she would go out with me sometime. She said she would like that. But when Sarah realized what was happening, she said, "No! You two can’t go out. I can’t allow it!”

I laughed. “Are you joking?”

She wasn’t, she said. She knows too much about me, she said. And she knows too much about her friend. About us both. You’d think that, as a girl, she would know better than to say that she forbids us to see each other. We all know how that plays out.