Losing Your Virginity, or, Ohio: Part I*

this morning, after waking up too late to even attempt going to work. i went shopping and got a few things done around the apartment. namely, checking my e mail (not writing any though), and checking blogs while i composed this entry in my head. apparently, ceri is *chomping at the bit* for me to write about ohio. and even though i had a great time nothing of interest, like watching miss nebraska running a red light, happened.

about ceri. ceri and i have been friends for five(?) years, most of them while she's been living in other places. what really cemented our friendship was our trip to europe together. most likely, the crying jags in greek train stations and yelling at each other along quaintly cobbled streets. it is a trip to the library that really explains how our friendship works, it is where ceri is searching for a book she has been wanting to read. it's not on the shelf so she's looking on the to be shelved cart. i'm idly standing by (i think at this point in my life, my library card had been revoked) when a bright book binding catches my eye. i pick it up. it has a nice cover, and i think i've heard about it on NPR. it looks interesting, i might have ceri check it out for me. and that's when ceri sees the book i have. it's the one she's been looking for, almost frantically. we argue about who gets it. clearly, i've found it, though, being the responsible one with the active library card, she wins.

all background for why i was up for a fourteen hour (one way) trip over the weekend to visit ceri in ohio. in bowling green, ohio with the promises of a vegetarian restraunt, bike trail, and (get ready)the LIBRARY! and that's pretty much what we did. after the friday night miracle of getting back to bowling green from dayton when i got us lost almost instantly after getting into ceri's car, we went to bed at 4:00 a.m. only to get up at 10:30. saturday was spent on a bike ride...on a borrowed bike that was made for a monkey. it got us around and i saw the quarry, where people swim and scuba dive, a small town in ohio, and around and around bowling green. the vegetarian restraunt turned out to be fabulous, with a server who would give me the thumbs-up sign, and the library across the street was beautiful. then came saturday night with byron, the neighbor. ceri thought byron and i would get along well, so she arranged the meeting. he's nice. he's cute. he's very interesting, but i didn't feel the pull of long lost soulmates, so he ended up talking alot with ceri. later, we went out had drinks, DID NOT END UP GOING TO SEE CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, and instead rented videos, hit the grocery store, ending back up at byron's apartment drinking coffee and watching foreign films. nothing noteworthy.

it was after the fourteen hour trip back to nebraska that ceri told me the good stuff. she had been talking with byron and he had asked how i liked ohio. then she asked what he thought of me, and he said i reminded him of the girl he lost his virginity to. wow. how do you take a comment like that? is that a compliment? a slam? what did he think of her...of me? can he separate the two?


ohio can be a pretty wild place.



*and don't think there will be a part II.