I'd believe anything she told me

Curtis Sittenfeld finally published her book. I loved the things she wrote in Seventeen, you remember, and then later, she appeared again writing, for, what, Salon, wasn't it? I can't remember. But I just bought her book, Prep, and it's so perfect, Vicki. It's about us. I think this girl is us. We can wax on about this feminist stuff--you say we Need feminists like doctors or policemen--but we're still such girls.

"I imagined that if I left South Bend, I would meet a melancholy, athletic boy who liked to read as much as I did and on overcast Sundays we would take walks together wearing wool sweaters."

Oh gosh, Vicki, that was part of what we wanted wasn't it. We were pining for the boys we'd meet in college, and now it's mostly worked out, hasn't it? Hm.

'a demand pushed to suffocation' is nice, good. A strange image. Being suffocated, a suffocating room, a feeling that suffocates. Lack of air, but also lack of room to think. This thing pushing against your whole body, or just your throat, mouth.

You don't believe in God, and now, you don't believe in humanity either?

"In fact, I had never talked about Cross with anyone. I had not even said his name aloud since surprise holiday. But I had thought of him so often that sometimes when I saw him, it was weird--real Cross, moving-around Cross, Cross talking to his friends. He was the person I always thought of?"

When the boy and I were first talking, I think it was two Christmases (Christmas's, Christmas'?) ago, I recommended a book for him to read, and he went to the library the next day, and actually checked it out. I remember that was when I was sure he was interested: because he was reading a book I liked.