Boot 'N Paddle - February 16, 2007

I know that diaries are “private,” and that they should technically be privy to only the author, but the other day, I stumbled upon one that was just too good to resist publishing.

Last weekend I was walking home from an important meeting and noticed something dark on top of a snow bank. It was nighttime so I couldn’t really make out what it was until I got closer and realized it was a notebook. I flipped open the cover to the “In case of loss, please return to:” page, underneath which was written the name–– Wait a minute… oh my gosh! That is so insensitive of me… I can’t write her name! Heeelloo!! Alex, that would be so embarrassing for her! I’ll refer to the author as LD.
When I got back to my room I looked up LD in the directory, emailed her to let her know I had found her journal (or what I assumed to be her journal), and while I was waiting for a reply, just killing time, I began to flip through it. It was her journal.
A couple of entries in, I stopped and thought to myself, “Holy cow, people need to see this.” LD had without knowing it, or knowing that I had her diary, written my column. Here’s the first entry that got me:
“October 22, 2006 –– WE KISSED!!!!! Okay, whoa…I’ll calm down. Lucas and I kissed last night. I have so much work to do but I CAN’T DO IT because he’s all I can think about!
I’ll start at the beginning. Yesterday, a bunch of us all decided to go camping and Josh knew a really chill place that’s right on a river so we got our stuff together and left behind any school party potential. The campsite was AWESOME!!! It was like five minutes from the road so we didn’t have to walk far, there was a awesome fire pit, and oh yeah, Lucas was there.”
I learned a little bit about Lucas in earlier entries… He lives on the same floor as LD, she has had a thing for him since the beginning of the year and they would have hooked up once if it hadn’t been for LD’s “creepy” roommate.
“We started setting up our tents. Lucas didn’t bring a tent but instead planned to sleep in his truck. It’s so like Lucas.
So that night we were all sitting around the fire, and Lucas was practically only talking to me! Oh my god, I feel so lame and girly writing all of this… But anyway, the night went on and people started going off to their tents to go to sleep until it was only Lucas and me sitting by the fire.
He moved over to me and I totally knew what was coming. As we were talking our faces got closer and closer. And then, we kissed, the really good kind where you know you’re both so into it, and that there’s so much more to it than just kissing. Then he told me he’s been wanting do that ever since the night we watched Ghostbusters together.
Oh my god, I HAVE to start my work!”
Here’s another entry from later in the semester. At this point, LD and Lucas are going steady, but trying to work things out after a bit of a fight.
“December 10, 2006–– Things are so much better between me and Lucas now, but for a few hours I wasn’t sure whether or not we would make it. It was so awful.
A little while after he stormed out of my room he showed up to my door and asked me to go for a walk with him. We walked around campus as the sun went down and as snow began to fall. Talking with him, I started to think that maybe we were about to breakup, but then it happened. In the middle of my sentence, Lucas grabbed my shoulders, spun me around, and started kissing me like he did that first time by the fire. The snow fell heavily around us but inside Lucas’s embrace, I felt warm and safe.”

Sitting there waiting to hear back from LD, I pretty much read all of her diary. I wanted to show you these two entries because they were the most romantic and passionate of them all. I asked myself, “What is it that makes these encounters so stirring?” I thought about it. Then it hit me. Like a good kiss in the rain, or a groping session underneath the stars, these situations were heightened by the element of the outdoors.
So for all of you lovebirds that didn’t fill your quota on Wednesday, head outside, because it is outdoors where indifference becomes passion, distaste becomes desire, and aversion becomes lust.


* On a separate note, would Libby Dunhill please stop by the lost & found desk in the student center.