Yes, Lucy of Peanuts fame, sometimes I quite agree with you. It's easy to feel to friendless on the inside, especially when the only friend who looks remotely promising is ... well, a dog who once starred in a cartoon special entitled Flashbeagle. ("Flash! Flash! Flash! Flaaaaashbeagle!" Surprisingly, I'm not embarrassed to know about this. Seven-year-olds have such a limited and charming televisual exposure. Their literature is twenty times better, too.) But really, I can't complain about friends, because I'm still neglecting to call them. My recently-pulled wisdom tooth still hurts, I tell myself. Why don't they call me, I ask myself. But really, really, how are they supposed to call me when I've got five unanswered messages on my machine? Why do I untie all my ties when I'm not feeling well? I think this proves there's something wrong with me. When I just might need people most, I don't want them at all.

I'd ask if there were a Freudian in the house, but Lucy will do. I think Lucy really wants to be in the Ziegfeld Follies, dripping with diamonds and feathers and fanfare, signifying nothing. Lucy structures her life around structuring the lives of others. I am the opposite of Lucy. I structure the lives of others by structuring my life. Does that make any sense? Probably not. But I guess if Charles Schultz, god bless 'im, didn't always have to make sense, then neither do I . . .

54 is new. So is Artist. It's about time.

Who invented wisdom teeth, and will somebody please give me the local addresses of their closest friends and family?

It ought to be some sort of gift, really: "And behind this curtain, four more teeth!" It's not that I'm bitter about having extra teeth in my mouth. No, I'm bitter about those extra teeth refusing to fit into my mouth. By some sick and disturbing twist of biological fate, wisdom teeth grow in even though they don't have room to do so. So tell me, biologist persons. Tell me, scientists. Tell me, intelligent-looking people in long white coats. What is the evolutionary point to teeth that don't fit into your mouth? Did our ancestors chow down on rocks? Is that the origin of this great dental joke? Is that why I had to be woken up this morning by searing pain in the back right of my jaw, even though I had emergency surgery to remove one wisdom tooth in high school and was subsequently told the rest would fit?

It's a dental conspiracy, that's what. And I'm going do something about it, too, once my jaw stops trying to rip the nerve endings out from underneath my skin.

When most people delay on their laundry, they wind up slogging around in sweatpants, t-shirts, or maybe some sweaters that have seen decidedly better days. When I delay on my laundry, I usually wind up in my self-coined "fancyclothes." Skirts, boots, a dress or two. This may explain my tendency toward the eccentric. It may explain my lately-renewed disinterest in getting up and going to class. It may also explain why a younger guy ("Wow! I'm only a third year!") chose to openly hit on me last night. When my friend went to use the restroom. At a burger joint. (Heck, I wasn't even sure they still had burger joints.) In an interlude that actually included the phrases, "I swear I've seen you somewhere before," "You're pretty tall, huh," and even, "Do you play volleyball?" In any case, a lingering sense of high school seemed to permeate the entire episode. Is there a high school handbook in the house? Because I think I left mine at home. In a box. With a good strong lock on it.

Or maybe this is God's way of telling me about cleanliness, and how laundry should be next to it.

"Hello, you've reached Christa. You know the drill. Leave me a message after the tooooone, and I'll get back to yooooou."

Allow to me ask my ardent fans a question. If you called someone on the phone, and you heard the previous message, would you then leave a message for somebody named Tien Kim? Would you leave a heavily-accented message for a job inquiry at some hospital? Would you leave a nameless message to your wife detailing the time you'll be home for dinner? I don't think so. You would not leave these messages, because you are probably sane. You probably have a small touch of intelligence. You probably listen to answering-machine messages and realize that when the message says you've reached Christa, there is a high certainty that you have not reached Tien Kim, the hospital, or your wife.

Interestingly and sadly enough, I have taken to calling these persons back and leaving messages of my own. I do not leave these messages because I am a nice person who wants to correct mistakes. No, I leave these messages because I fear spontaneous combustion. (Answering machine: "Hello, I'm calling for Tien Kim!" Me: BOOM!) My messages consist of the phrase, "Yeah, you've been calling my number and seeing as my machine clearly says I'm not the person you're seeking and I don't know who you are or what you want, I'd appreciate you not calling again." This kind of honest and slightly aggravated flippancy is what comes from poor listening skills, ardent fans. So do us all a favor and pass it on. Just make sure you're dialing the right number before you do.

Poor poetry. I pity it, really. Poetry has been slapped up and smacked down and taken for a ride around some mascara-encrusted, soul stabbing, waves crying and seagulls crashing block of doom. Ask any high school student how they feel about poetry and they'll give you endless variations on the lemonface. Ask any webperson how they feel about poetry and they'll gush forth in such rapturous escalades your brain will turn to oatmeal and proceed to ooze from your bodily cavities. (Chew on that visual imagery.) Ask any poet how they feel about poetry and they'll jump you for spare change so they can just eat one freaking meal today, for the love of god! I kid where I ought to be serious, however. Poetry is in a sad state today. The old poets languish on their shelves and the new poets are either living in bohemia, writing books that nobody reads, making amazing guest appearances on Def Poetry Jam, dropping out of school, teenybopping to the sounds of cookie-cutter popstars, drunk, sweating away at jobs they despise, or going hungry and stealing my change.

Hmm. Maybe poetry hasn't changed that much over the years after all. William, Langston, Anne, Jacques, Maya. On and on. If a poet expresses life, othered, that's good enough for me. There's something about fitting words together -- to express an idea, a declaration, a shaft of light -- that just gets to me. Beauty gets to me. Beauty comes and goes and changes and reverts and reinvents, but wordbeauty lingers on.

Methinks I'd have done better to scribble on plums.

Orzo with Peas and Mint
(Serves Four)
one cup orzo
two tablespoons unsalted butter
one shallot, minced
one pound fresh peas, shelled, or two cups frozen peas
two tablespoons freshly chopped mint
zest of one lemon
coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

That's right, my fellow collegiate macaroni-boilers. I, Christa, who didn't know how to make boiled water several years ago, can now mince a shallot. I'll bet half of you don't even know what a shallot is, let alone how to mince it. (Say, why don't I make myself feel better by insulting unknown internet persons? Sounds like a plan!) So I may very well be tired of class and classwork and even tired of being tired, but there is plenty of good cheer to be found in cooking satisfaction. Move over, Betty Crocker. Or at least bring me a folding chair.

There must be something wrong with my joints.

No, you smirking follower of Silent Bob you, not that kind of joint. Fact is, my joints or muscles or whatever they might be don't appear to have all the bendy places everyone else has. Maybe my legs are too long, maybe my knees never knit correctly, maybe I escaped from the amazingly non-flexible circus when I was five and my "parents" found me lying stiff as a board somewhere in the woods. Whatever the reason, I am just not a very flexible person by any stretch of the imagination. (Yes, yes, ha ha ha.) This strikes me as wildly inconvenient. I can't dance ballet without a look of despair, I can't do yoga without a steady grimace. It's also not very sexy, this not being flexible. Bendy people are sexy people, aren't they? Just look at Barbie. One might even say Barbie is too flexible, since her arms have been permanently bent at the elbow since the eighties. At least I can bend my arms back over my elbow, Barbie. Maybe you have a new seven-story penthouse every year and an eternally-loyal mate and more careers than all the populace in China combined, but I, I can make my elbows look freakish.

Sometimes you have to take your blessings where they lie. Or in my case, sometimes you have to bend at the knee, pretend to be graceful, and pick them up.

Sooner or later, each and every one of us will be dead a lot longer than we were ever alive.

Isn't that depressing? It's also informative, though, because it might explain many a strange thing about the world. It might explain why people have always felt the need to look beyond the here and now, to squint into the spiritual side of their short little lifespan. It might explain why people continue to quest for fame -- they want to leave evidence of their presence after they've gone. (Either that, or they consider the pursuit of fame to be an excellent way to live . . . ) It might explain why people do madcrazy things like jumping out of planes and writing novels and splashing around in puddles at the age of sixty-five. People do these things, I think, because at some point we all realize that life is short.

So isn't it funny how our media-driven society revolves around the most watery stages of life: teenyboppers, teenagers, twentysomething upstarts who scribble on websites every now and then? To the media, life begins when you're twelve and ends when you're thirty. I disagree. Life is short, but it's long enough to get things done. It's also long enough to do some pretty heavy thinking about the inevitable end. But not today. Today, I'm going to pencil my puddle-splashing in for October ninth, 2028, 3 pm, age forty-seven. Provdided I don't become famous or jump out of a plane next year, that is.

All right, I'll say it. I want to look good naked.

Close your mouths, the lot of you. It's not such a surprising want. I'd wager ninety-eight percent of all hapless peons on the street today want to look good naked. It is a funny want though, because I'd also wager that ninety-eight percent of all hapless peons will never see me naked. Heck, I'd wager that no one will ever see me naked. So one might reasonably ask, "Christa, if no one will ever see you naked, why do you want to look good naked?" Well, the answer is, I don't really know. Perhaps I relish the idea of mucking about on my daily schedule, fully clothed but thinking all the while, "Ha! Underneath I'm smashing, and you'll never know! Ha!" I should like to fool the world in this way. Or maybe I'd like to wear beanpole clothing. Maybe I'd like to pass mirrors without taking a mental inventory and then sternly smacking myself in the brain for doing so. Maybe I'd like to feel all healthy and glowy. You know, like the fake naked people might feel if all their feelings hadn't been removed with a laughable airbrush.

Of course, one might ask instead, "Christa, can I see you naked?" But then I'd have to kick one's smarmy little butt.