Special shout-out/thank-you to revi, who sent me a postcard while travelling through Copenhagen. It is very nice and has KOBEHAVEN written across the front in a bold uppercase 1984-esque font, which lends it that extra European flair, I think. Thanks revi!

I think there is something (extra) hormonal going on with me, because I have developed a crush on, like, everyone I’ve met over the past few weeks. (In case you’re wondering what happened to that boyfriend in DC I used to write about, well, that’s not happening anymore. I don’t have the energy to get into it today but there is a good story there so I’ll tell it soon.) Even weirder, there are a bunch of people who seem to like me too. Sometimes these people even overlap, which never happens to me! Usually there are the guys I like, and the guys who like me, and never the twain shall meet. But lately there’s some very good cross-crushing action going on.

(My roommate Jane and I have this joke going because I can’t stop talking about how much better my skin has been the past few months, and I’m all like “IT’S BECAUSE OF THE PROACTIV. I LOVE THE PROACTIV.” Which sounds like a typical scary drone infomertial person, right? So whenever I’m telling her about something good that happened to me, she says, “It’s because the Proactiv saved your life! Millions and millions served!” So…yeah. All the guy attention is totally because of the Proactiv!)

Do you want to hear about all the boys I am in love with? Here goes:

1. The guy whose studio space is right next to mine at school. The walls don’t go all the way up so we play music for each other and hold conversations across the wall, and sometimes, when we are feeling extra extroverted, we actually leave our respective studios and talk to each other while leaning up against the wall in the corridor!

He is fucking gorgeous. He was the first painting major I met here, and and oh my god, he is so smart and flirty and has that ability to make you feel really special and attractive. Right away he invited me out to this bar where all the others (all of us! Join our cult! Wooo oooo.) hang out, and I met these three girls who I now hang out with all the time. However, that night I ascertained that he is cute and flirty with EVERY DAMN THING THAT CROSSES HIS PATH, which is a bummer, but he’s still so charming that even knowing that, while we’re talking one-on-one I’m like “Oooh, dreamy,” the whole time. I mean, I mentioned that I was reading Anna Karenina for fun (which is totally true), and everyone else I’ve said that to has been all, “Anna Karana-wha-wha?” But he got all excited and told me that he had recently read The Brothers Karamazov and then he launched into a big spiel about Checkov vs Dostoevsky, and I was basically thinking “I WANT TO BEAR YOUR CHILDREN!” the whole time.

Falling for womanizers is very dangerous, I know. I guess I make dumb choices. But he has an accent and blue eyes and sideburns and I LOVE sideburns and that is all I will say. Moving on.

2. A guy in one of my studio classes who is always there working at the same times I am. We are two of the only people who do the out-of-class paintings in the classroom, as opposed to at home like most people do, so we have lots of time to talk. This past weekend we were both there all day, all three days (Friday through Sunday), so I basically saw him more than I saw my two roommates combined. He is Hawaiian and a really good painter and very quiet in class, which is what first intrigued me, especially because he’s chatty when it’s just the two of us. Of course I told Jane about all this.

This past Sunday morning:

Me: I’m off to the studio! AGAIN.
Jane: Are you going to do actual painting, or are you just going to stalk your Hawaiian lover?
Me: (pause) I’m going to kill two birds with one stone, okay?
Jane: Good luck with that painting.
Me: Shut it.

I get the feeling he likes me too, because when he finished before me on Sunday and started to go, I said, “Oh, you aren’t going to stay around and keep me company?” and he totally put his stuff down and was all, “Yes! I will stay!” and then I was just sort of dumbstruck and silent. And also, dumb.

3. Also there is a guy in my art history class who keeps calling to study together and go see exhibitions and stuff and he’s pretty nice, but he’s about three years younger. Also he makes me a little physically uncomfortable, in that we once rode our bikes to a gallery and then once we were inside I was saying how much I loved the air conditioning, and he goes, “Yeah, you’ve got, like, beads of sweat on your forehead.” Which, okay. If we were good friends that would have been fine, and I would have said something like, “It’s okay, you don’t have to call them beads. It’s a swamp, I know,” but I really don’t know him, and it made me really self-conscious.

(Hello, I am a big sweater! Nice to meet you.)

And there’s no way I could ever date a guy who I got self-conscious feelings from just from something as small as a little sweat. ALSO, he looks a little like my cousin. So, again, moving on.

4. Finally, there is a guy in another studio near me who is quite possibly the strangest person I have ever met, which I told him on like the fourth instance we ever spoke. His studio is a weird explosion/melding of a toy shop and “I love the 80s.” He’s this total packrat who does art with My Little Ponies and puffy stickers and little Care Bear figurines. I mean, the first time we met he showed me a puffolump (popalump? I don’t know. One of those 80s plush toys that has a little pouch in its front that you can roll the rest of its body into) and told me he was using it to make a portrait of Emily Dickenson. And then he told me that he wasn’t really planning to “paint” anymore, at least not in the sense of, like, using actual, you know, paint.

I mean, come on. How could I not be intrigued by this? He is hilarious. Also, the first time we met he couldn’t even look me in the eye and I figured he was really nervous around girls, which is charming. Lately he has warmed up a lot though, and we have long conversations about ART AND BLAH BLAH SOCIETY BLAH, and I want him to be my best friend. I think I will pass him a note asking him to check the box: yes or no?

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So that is the land of my raging Crush Machine life lately. Also, there has been class and painting and studying and stuff. I got a 100 on my art history exam! Hello, I’m a big school nerd.