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Drunk | Nov 04 2002

I’m waiting for her to call again. As I write this, she’s in another city, with friends, drunk. She just called me from the restroom of a Chinese restaurant to tell me this. “I’m drunk,” she said, “and I’m in love with you.” We discussed how much she’s in love with me. She characterized it as “ridiculously,” which we decided is a more extreme form of being-in-love than “incredibly” or “insanely.” I’m in love with her as well, but we didn’t discuss this.

Her voice echoed the way voices echo in restrooms. She held the phone to the restroom fan so that I could hear what it sounded like and I guess to prove she was in a restroom, although really all it proved is that wherever she was, there was a whirring sound. I told her I wanted to be drunk with her, or barring that, just with her, or barring that, just drunk.

As we spoke, some person or persons kept trying the bathroom door, so she moved to the area outside the restroom—what she called the vestibule. This seemed a too-fancy word (I was thinking “hall”), but since I’m in love with her and since she was drunk, I didn’t question it. At one point an elderly woman, no doubt having just eavesdropped on her love-besotted ramblings, stepped out of the restroom and beamed at her.

If forced to characterize it, I would say I’m “hopelessly” in love with her. “Desperately” seems too strong, but I’m definitely moving in that direction.