21/12/2002 - 6:01 p.m.

Longer than the road that streches out of here.

Today was made up of rather more conventional things. Brandy, just back from London, has realised anew that there is nothing to do in the United States. We have no places to go and hang out and have conversations except bars, which you can't get into here until you're 21, and most of those you wouldn't want to get into anyway. So we went to Barnes and Noble for a while, drove around for about an hour, ate at Perkins and talked about things.

They say that we don't remain friends with high school friends- we get new experiences and new friends and become different people with different interests. That's not true for Brandy and me, but I don't know why.

Talking over the events of last Friday, Brandy says my problem is the same it's always been- I have a brain. This is the thing that got me into trouble all through former educational enterprises, and the thing that repelled the universe at large. Now, suddenly, it's become something people are taking interest in because suddenly, it's OK to have a brain. In a way, I guess it makes sense- there's something about me that I don't realise is novel, but that everybody else finds as such, and to say that it's intelligence fits very nicely. I can accept that.

We both badly want to get rid of the connections we have in Des Moines, still. She's still here and seeing people from high school- it's like returning to a small town in which you were the only one to get a life. She's working on one, but she keeps running into people that aren't. I would like sincerely not to return here again. Not to my family, at least.

Brandy says she and Anna are still considering their Spring Break trip. At the moment, they're thinking Chicago, and, as it's on the way, they could absolutely make a stop to Cedar Falls. Ah, the possibilities.