hello sinister. i bought knee socks today. white with cable stitching, from the little girls' department at j.c. penney. they were 20 percent off, and i got excited, picking out the package from the rows and rows of pink and white and lavender anklets and tights and crew socks. i bought navy knee socks without cables, and enjoyed my dorky purchase, swinging the bag as i walked, imagining myself in the knee socks. i put some on about an hour later. and i looked at myself in the mirror, liking the socks and the way my twenty-year-old legs looked in them. and i wondered what i was doing, who i was kidding. and then i remembered i was just playing a part, after all, of the girl who never loses the flowers she was born with, only the ones she picked up along the way. *** i think living alone is getting to me. i have started to do everything with a solitary sense of self, going shopping and eating and walking alone. i sit somewhere for hours, with a book or a cigarette or nothing else at all to keep my hands busy, and just watch things happen. watch people holding hands or riding a bike down the street or making a call on a pay phone. i try to remember what it was like to look like i had someone, and i can't. but then i never really had anyone, i finally remember, and i start wishing a song could follow my footsteps. a soundtrack for me. a theme song. but i don't know what the song would be anymore, and i can't think of anyone who would particularly care to hear it, or change the undoubtedly lonely lyrics. so i keep walking, trying not to stare and trying harder to ignore the people leaning out their windows to shout through the summertime that i shouldn't be so down. *** tonight i was walking to get a sandwich, and a woman approached me. she looked lost and a little frantic. to be fair about it, she looked a little like a crazy woman let loose on the streets of lincoln. and she came up to me, wearing a matching red shirt and short set. her face was very tan, and i wondered if she was native american. i looked at the deep and many pock marks on her face, surrounded by a mass of tangled black hair, as she asked me for help. she was in a domestic violence situation, she said, and could i give her some kind of help. i stood there, a little girl in her knee socks, and said the only thing they teach little girls to say to strangers who might be transients. "no, i'm sorry. i can't." walking on, i wondered why i hadn't told her to go to the ymca two blocks down the street. why i hadn't taken out my spoiled suburbian cellular phone to call the police for the name of a shelter. why she had to keep walking to find an elderly couple who gave her what she needed. someone to help her. i thought maybe i hadn't because i was starting to get scared of everything. of everyone. maybe i hadn't because i went with my knee-jerk reaction. maybe she hadn't been telling the truth, was pleading for something else. but in the end, i knew i hadn't helped her because i didn't know how. i didn't know how to help a woman when i was already being asked to save another, one i couldn't save, either. one who was me. and i kept moving forward and tracking back, retracing the same path i have walked so many times, looking at my feet making the pavement disappear. what kind of person am i? i should have helped her. i should have been able to. but instead i was infatuated with myself and a love i will never have. because i am not brave enough to love. i am not brave enough to help. and i am not brave enough to be myself. not anymore. *** someone told me it must take courage to dress the way i do. and i laughed, because i am not brave at all. i told the girl that all it took to wear rainbow-striped knee socks and patent leather shoes in the middle of june was a tiny bit of chutspa. a tiny bit of self-assertion. this boy named austin gave me a bit of advice, and, upon looking at my quivering bottom lip, decided i really wasn't that brave. and told me as much. and somewhere in the back of my mind i remembered something someone wrote to me once. in the middle of may. lou = brave. and i had cried then, and i cried now. lou doesn't equal very much some days, and the days she does she seems to stay inside. maybe if i call her and let the phone ring long enough, she will wake up again and come outside. into the summertime she hates so much. maybe i can learn to be brave. to be me. to help. to love. and to not be scared anymore. maybe i can learn to just be. no matter what kind of socks i have on. love, lou xxx ------------------ THE FOLLOWING IS AN ADVERT FOR EXCELLENCE: never learned how to ride a bike? merely flailed helplessy in a chlorine-laced pool when trying to learn to swim? come to Camp Kids Who Gave Up 2002, sponsored by lindsey baker, dave snyder and conor oberst to learn to ride and swim like nobody's business! while you're temporarily residing on our beautiful, secluded island paradise camp, enjoy lessons from friendly guest instructors such as mandee wright and listen to a different live band every night (we feature saddle creek gems and omaha rapists)! dating lindsey is also an available option, so long as conor is off-island. 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