You know, you really shouldn't smoke," I said to Pokey, a friend's two-month-old cat, as she lifted her paw to her mouth and took another pull on her Parliament. Her tail twitched idly, thwacking against the sofa's arm. "You're still young and all. It could stunt your grow-"
She cut me off. "Oh, who do you think you are, anyway?" she shot back, her green eyes narrowing. "You don't even know what you want to do with your life."
My shoulders slumped. She'd hit home.
"Heh. Them's fightin' words," I said, trying to shake off my unease with a few forced laughs.
But she was right. Leave it to a girl to prey on another girl's insecurities.
"You know you want to go abroad," she provoked, tucking her paws under her chest. "Don't try to deny that you do. They say it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, made for you romantic writery-types. Just make up your freakin' mind, anyway."
"Gee, no one's ever put it to me that way," I deadpanned, arching my left eyebrow. "What about you, anyway? You're just going to stick around this campus, TA for econ classes and keep up the Investment Club stuff?"
"Yeah," she said, blinking, then yawning. "I mean, leaving would mean missing out on half a year of real college life, and let's face it, my parents aren't paying 40 grand a year for me to bar hop in Barcelona."
"Well, what about the summer?" I asked, plucking the cigarette from her and, against my better judgment, taking a long drag. "You know the first round of internship deadlines was this past Tuesday."
"I'm staying for summer school. I've really got to buckle down and boost my GPA. What are you asking me all this for? You're the one with the problem-I've got it all figured out."
I was silent again. I hadn't told her that I was having second thoughts about my newly declared major. I didn't mention that at a conference last month, I'd heard a journalism professor loftily declare column clips as "insufficient" to get a writing job. I didn't talk about the pressure to find a reporting internship, about the need to amass news clips right now so I can get a job in two years. I didn't even mention my less-than-stellar grades.
Somehow, she just knew.
"Cat got your tongue?" she asked.
"It's just that I never thought it would be quite like this," I said. I stubbed out the cigarette.
"What? You thought college would be all beret-wearing and philosophy-spouting, cappucinos in the garden gazebo and snowball fights on the quad?" Her words were cutting. "You thought you'd be able to sit around, read New Yorkers and write florid Towerview articles all day? Sorry to burst your Dead Poets Society bubble, mon cher."
I reached out to yank her tail. "Thank you, Daria, for your ever-encouraging words of optimism."
"Listen, all I'm saying is that the whole 'woe is me' thing doesn't cut it around here," she said. "You know that you're an innately driven person. You knew you were enrolling in a success-oriented school. Besides, if you're truly aimless and drifting, what are you doing spending all your time at The Chronicle?"
"What?! Oh, come on, I do not spend all of my time there, just a lot of it. What's wrong with being involved? I'm not 'selling my soul' to the paper, or whatever it is that you call it."
"Are you sure?" she asked, her whisker-tinged mouth turning up into a smile. "I think I sense a little wistfulness. It seems kind of pointless-to invest a lot of time in something now, only to walk away. The goal is upward mobility, no?"
"You are so calculating. I'm hearing the Darth Vader death march every time you speak," I said, rolling my eyes.
"Hey, just because I'm black and Darth Vader's black-"
"...You're calico. You're only part black. Stop being weird."
"Weird?! Let's not get personal here. After all, you're the one-"
"I know," I said, and this time I meant it. "Up a creek without a paddle."
"At least you have your health," she said, jumping off the couch and sauntering over to the window for another smoke.
Sarah Ball is a Trinity sophomore and editorial page managing editor for The Chronicle. Her column runs every Thursday.
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