A year and a half ago, I wrote a series of entries about Kennedy. Our freshman year of college had just finished and we were what I called then an “unlikely duo”. She is many things to me: my first and most significant girl crush, an authority figure who I am more likely to listen to than anyone else (my mother included), and nowadays a kind of sister. “Best friend” always seems inadequate.

We were supposed to go to Europe together that freshman summer but through a combination of my own irresponsibility (made a terrible impression on her family) and simple bad luck, we didn’t. She’s in Germany now and late this May, I’ll be joining her for nearly three months. So it looks like two years later, our trip is finally coming to fruition. This means a great deal to me.

So in celebration of our summer together, here is a compilation of entries about my greatest love of the past few years:

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While riding on the Metro 70 this morning, I saw the man beside me reach over to his female companion and pick something out of her hair. A year ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about the gesture, but that was before I met CK.

CK is one of my closest friends at college. But more than that, she is also the first and only woman I have ever been romantically interested in. That fact is as public knowledge as it is a running joke. But it is also the truth.

Her hair and I are deeply involved. Poofy, unkempt, and unapologetically black, it shuns chemicals that threaten to smooth out its kinks. It has a life of its own. It has a spirit. My job is not to break that spirit, but to calm it. CK looks different when her tangles are neatly pried free. I wish I knew better how to handle black hair, because if I did, I’d pick out her hair completely for her. She rarely does it for herself, and so I find myself constantly retrieving odd pieces of paper and dust from her fro, when not busy taming it with my fingers.

CK doesn’t conform to traditional beauty standards at all. And yet she has managed to capture my heart while piquing my sexual interest, no small task when considering that I am decidedly preoccupied with what our culture deems pretty. Here is a picture of her, if you can close your eyes and imagine: brown skin, full lips, big mouth, wide eyes, slender legs, round nose, and rounder bottom.

To me, CK is always attractive, but this is not merely an empty compliment I offer all my girlfriends. She is beautiful in a way that wine is better tasting once you have had a few sips to start. She is beautiful in the way that a lover is always beautiful. When she is fresh out of the shower, I sneak glances at her breasts and backside as she changes, because I might catch something new I haven’t discovered before on these seldom-seen spots. I have long determined through close observation that I have never seen a more beautiful body than hers.

For starters, CK has an amazing mouth. It is full and juicy, the most kissable I’ve ever encountered. Sometimes slick with gloss but usually bare, CK’s mouth is a contradiction of sorts. Peeks of metal and colored plastic hint at a tongue piercing, unexpected of this chaste Southern girl. The precise manner with which she bites down on her lower lip is altogether coy and disarmingly seductive. CK is a virgin. But of course.

Invariably, I am tempted to request a kiss, but the rare lip-to-lip contact she makes me crave often comes when I least expect it and never when I outright demand it. She is a frustrating lover who operates on a whim, most affectionate when least solicited.

CK is a small woman, and that too is part of her charm. She is compact, portable like me. Even with all her curves, CK is adorably petite, possessing a slender frame and the features of a cherub. Now that I have known the build of her body, I question whether I could ever be attracted to an Amazon, a taller, broad-shouldered species of girl. And the truth is, part of CK’s appeal lies in the fact that she reminds me astonishingly of me. We are girls who can be broken if squeezed a bit too hard, if pulled more forcefully than expected. And there is a kind of solidarity in living in the same five-foot-tall world.

This started as a piece about my relationship with CK’s hair but I realized in the middle of writing it that there is so much more that must be explained about her body and about her quirks in order to communicate the intimacy of my fingers working through her locks. So I will try, for the first time, to write more clearly than I ever have about what it means to love someone.

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We met on the second night of school via our mutual friend Kam, although “met” implies handshakes and introductions while our meeting consisted of Kam escorting me from the door of a finals club to the door of my bedroom.

Immediately, she hated me. The feeling was more than mutual. She was the worst kind of abstinent. Laying no claim on holier-than-thou coolness, CK refrained from drugs, alcohol, and sex out of personal conviction alone. You could call her moral, but you wouldn’t dare call her straightedge. While she thought, “That rash, drunken whore is going to get herself killed,” I silently fumed, “Who is this short-haired, fully-clothed monster telling me what to do? Kam better get rid of this pint-sized bitch by morning.” Neither of us was particularly impressed with his taste in friends that night.

What followed that disastrous first encounter is a bit of a blur. Against all odds, we came around to liking each other. Precisely how, I can’t say because I barely remember. She informed the gay best friend that I was “actually cool” when sober. JB, in return, sang her praises. I decided that I was a fan of CK after all. After repeated run-ins through mutual friends, we became comfortable enough around each other to hang out, just us. One night in early fall, she stopped by my dorm room, upset at a guy’s inconsiderate actions. Mid-explanation, her voice cracked and eyes welled up. I didn’t expect it. The vulnerability she showed made the difference between friend and confidante. I trusted her completely after that.

Before two months had passed, we were living together. I relocated from my tense Canaday D suite into hers in the neighboring building. I liked her roommates better than my own. In a box by her closet, I kept a toothbrush, a towel, and flip-flops. Each evening between her sheets, I cradled my laptop, slept against her back, and crooned off-key the Bright Eyes that accompanied the late night. In the morning, I’d scurry down her stairs, across the courtyard, and up into my room where I quickly showered and changed. But after class and between meals, I’d be found in CK’s room more often than in mine, whether she was there with me or not. Sometimes, all the others were out, and they came home to no one but me, their adopted roommate, napping away in CK’s bed at the most content I’d been since college had begun.

I began to feel more comfortable in her skin than in my own. I took to wearing her clothes like I would wear a boyfriend’s, though I joked that her wardrobe (which ran more casual than mine) was reserved only for my grungy days. Her tshirts and sweatshirts and pants and even socks — they were all fair game, except for the size six shoes that would not fit. And although the mismatched outfits I constructed fit my frame, my appearance was that of a stranger invading fabrics not her own. I looked just as out-of-place in CK’s clothing as I did in the oversized garments of my male lovers.

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I have learned CK’s curves from consecutive nights of side-by-side embraces, from furtive caresses over shoulders and under chins and down happy trails. I like to think that she has a body only I know how to hold and handle, that there are words and gestures belonging to us alone.

CK has a boyfriend now, but I don’t know if he picks at her hair like I do or if she drawls “baby” to him while teasing his cheek with her fingertips. I am certain that her paramour suspects me of being bitter. He would not be incorrect. As much as I adore him, I can’t help but think that he has somehow ruined our relationship.

My animosity toward her relationship is hypocritical. I date far more men than she ever has or will. But in my defense, none of them have ever presented an actual threat. I have been more fully exposed before CK than I have ever been before a boyfriend. And there is no man I have ever loved as deeply as I have loved her. There is a part of her not mine now but I do not begrudge her her contentment. In the same breath that I admit my jealousy, I confess I share in her happiness.

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We were supposed to backpack through Europe this summer, just the two of us. We didn’t go, to our mutual disappointment. Now I don’t know if we missed the only opportunity we’ll ever get to take a trip like that together. Sometimes I wonder if a prolonged journey to another continent would have changed things. Away from boys and friends and boyfriends, I wonder if our thoughts would’ve turned more willingly toward each other; if during one warm, heavy night, we would’ve curled up on the floor of a hostel like we have countless times on her bed; if this time, we would have dared to press our noses together closer than we ever have before.

–September 2006

Been doing a lot of explaining lately to a new guy who has yet to read my blog but wants to understand how it’s impacted my life. I want to write about him, how I feel, what we do together, etc. but it’s probably a bad idea and quite honestly, I think any description of him whatsoever would give away who he is. My readers have a way of finding thing things out (as they did when they deciphered the real identities of Aidan, Sam, and this guy, among others).

So here’s an unpublished entry from the archives, written over a year ago right as the weirdness in my life started feeling normal :

“Yes, it’s kind of weird that people I don’t know read my blog. But what’s worse is that people I do know read my blog. Which wouldn’t be an issue if said people weren’t co-habitating with me. But they are, in addition to working, studying, and partying with me as well.

Yesterday, WHRB 95.3 interviewed me for a story on campus blogs. The producer asked, ‘Has the blog impacted your life in any negative ways?’ I wasn’t about to go on a tirade, but there are so many things that have changed because of this website. For example, I feel like my reputation precedes me in half the social situations I’m in. One of the girls in the adjoining suite was linked to my website over the summer. She didn’t realize she was sharing a bathroom with me until a few weeks into the term when she finally put two and two together. I have friends who inform me all the time that they have acquaintances who are readers themselves. Multiple people have told me that they overheard Yalies talking about my website during Harvard-Yale weekend. And all the time, I meet new people only to hear them say, ‘I feel like I already know you!’ How am I supposed to form new relationships if this is the sort of reception I get at the onset?

When I first started this website, the primary question I faced was what degree of anonymity I was comfortable with, but obviously I didn’t realize how big a deal this would become. Despite the subject matter, I determined initially that I really didn’t care if my friends and acquaintances knew about this — as long as Sex and the Ivy wouldn’t show up under my real name if a potential employer Googled me. And then a few articles, word-of-mouth, and a combination of factors led to me thinking ‘fuck it’ and embracing the inevitable. I outed myself because if I didn’t, someone else would.

If I could go back in time now, I’d stay completely anonymous and keep my identity very guarded. It’s not that I’m ashamed of anything I’m revealing (obviously, I’m not); it’s that this public attention has impacted what I can or cannot write and that’s unfortunate. What I really miss nowadays is blogging as confession, something I’ve been doing since 15 but have recently been unable to continue. Beyond explicit sex and eating disorders, there are many parts of life that can’t be expressed for all to see. I can’t say, ‘I have a thing for so-and-so’ or ‘I can’t stand this certain person’ or ‘My roommate is really getting on my nerves.’ I can’t really be open when it comes to my romantic relationships, the problems I have in friendships, or even my feelings about organizations I’m involved in. This blog is a day-by-day saga for readers but for me, this is life in real-time and even if I can be open to the world about who I am, I can’t be open to all the individuals in my life about how I feel for them.”

– “Caution” December 1, 2006

First off, check out this Sex and the Ivy-related point and counterpoint on Gadfly, a blog written by “a bunch of people who went to Harvard and now have many opinions.” Full disclosure: I am acquainted with both writers and the author of the defense is my very tall and Canadian hubby on Facebook, though I assure you there was no prodding on my part.

Second, I’m too busy with papers and writing projects to write a proper entry, so here is a piece I wrote a little over a year ago about the last time I came apart at the seams. It is very fitting for the current situation, but I dare say that I am doing better this time around than the last. (Well, at least I’m not completely ignoring my friends.)

“At a place where everyone delivers without fail, how do you tell people you just can’t deal?

On Thursday evening, I had my life under control. I went to office hours. I went to makeup sections. All my assignments were done. My TFs didn’t hate me. My iCal was organized. My email had under 100 messages. I changed into a cute outfit to kick off the weekend. I saw Vix for coffee. I made my dinner date with Nate. I met HN and Rody at the Fogg, followed by a gay mixer at the law school with CK. I boozed and schmoozed and met lovely people. Someone called me “fabulous.” Life, around 10pm, was pretty fabulous.

Flash forward several hours to Friday morning. I woke up hungover, topless, and missing a few crucial memories from the previous night — namely, the violent outburst that rocked Mather’s thin walls. By noon, I pulled myself together … mostly because I had to. I saw my therapist. I made it to mentoring. I met my committee at Toscanini. I had dinner with JB. I went to Death Cab. I came home to a party, drank generously, and then called it an early evening after the subject of my aforementioned tirade called it quits for the fifth time in as many weeks.

I was piss drunk and pissed off. By 4 a.m. I was also awake, answering the first text message I paid attention to all night since passing out. I should’ve slept past it, not called back, not answered the door, or for that matter not done a whole series of things leading to a monumental error in judgment.

Since then, I’ve been dropping the ball on basically everything. I have not really left my dorm room at all — not for work or class or meetings. Cumulative time spent outside of Mather since Saturday night? Four hours. Four non-Mather hours in four freaking days.

My goal is to get my life back on track by tomorrow evening. Starting with class today.”

– “Day Four” November 8, 2006

Several of my friends have expressed pretty serious concerns about my, uh, mental state, so here’s an update: I wrote my therapist Anna a very lengthy email last night, basically saying that I only have about a week left at home and I need to stop fixating on everything that’s arisen and concentrate on my work (plenty that I’m behind on) and actually go out with my friends. I think even my mother is a bit alarmed by the fact that I’ve more or less stayed in bed for a week. It’s not crippling depression; I think I’m just really … tired. It takes a lot out of you to get angry at someone, to get over being angry, to get angry all over again at someone else, and then to get over that. And that doesn’t even take into account the horrendous bureaucratic maze I’ve had to make my way through in terms of police and lawyers, etc. All in all, the past few days have been altogether draining (additionally so because of another unexpected, unneeded crisis that erupted on Christmas night).

It’s also really frustrating because the people who best understand the insanity that’s been going on are my friends from school, specifically my blockmates, who are all over the place. I’ve been calling Tiffanie nonstop because we’re in the same time zone (she lives in Irvine) and this isn’t really healthy. Even my ex-boyfriend from high school told me the other night to shift my mindset and pay attention to what’s in front of me, not what’s thousands of miles away. “When you’re home, you should leave everything you have going on in the East Coast on the East Coast,” he told me. And that’s fair, though I feel in this situation, it’s an impossible request to ask of me, since I can’t reasonably divorce my thoughts from the people or the events or the relationships that have all changed quite dramatically over the holidays. The timing sucks. I’m not coming home again until June at the soonest and I can’t even devote myself completely to California.

In any case, I lack the emotional and mental energy to really be productive. On the bright side, I finally have time again, which is nice so I guess I just need to get my mind somewhere peaceful. I am finishing crucial forms at the moment, trying to concentrate on papers, and embarking on a first step toward a potentially great project. I am only beginning now to return all the emails I received last weekend, so if I have yet to get to yours, my apologies.

I don’t know when or if I’ll blog again about anything significant until mid-January nor do I really want to write about any of my current romantic interests. There are a couple guys I’m casually seeing (or like five, haha, depending on who you ask and whether you count non-Bostonians) but I haven’t discussed the blog extensively with any of them nor do I care enough to write about them or even ask if I could write about them. I’ve been going at a snail’s pace with guys lately and been altogether reserved (sexually and definitely emotionally). I’m really excited about one person in particular , but … I don’t know. I don’t think I’m opening up very well for someone who plans on making a career out of introspection. I guess I’m just really caught up in being me and dealing with my issues without anyone’s help. Even writing to my therapist was a HUGE leap and her job is to help. Relationships require that you let the other person in. In a way, having a ton of drama that none of my friends or family can fix for me has made me more determined to forge ahead on my own and it is very hard to revert back to my old mindset. I guess we’ll see.

A year after our assignment to Mather House, Tara and Tiffanie have moved off campus; I have transferred to Currier; Allegra has transferred to Quincy; Jason, for all intents and purposes, lives with his boyfriend in Kenmore Square and is transferring to be with me in Currier senior year; and Megan is the sole Matherite remaining. Alas, perhaps my blocking group was just not meant to be confined between concrete walls.

“‘We’re oversexed,’ said Tara over breakfast. Well, that’s certainly one explanation.

I’ve recently determined that I should’ve probably blocked with less amazing women. Because of our combined beauty and charm, it took us approximately two weeks into sophomore year for our living situation and love lives to devolve into utter madness. In the past seven days, blocking group 240 has faced challenges including, but not limited to: running into exes we have not seen in months, having sex with exes we have not seen in months, unintentionally compelling boys not interested in us to ask us out when we ourselves are not interested (got that?).

‘You know what I think it is?’ I said to Tara. ‘Maybe we’re just not very good at this college dating thing.’

Or maybe Mather and the men here just don’t like us very much. Leave it to us to promote rampant dormcest. Over dinner one night, we went through all of the Houses in an attempt to find a place where we could reside without awkward run-ins with former hookups. Off the list are: Adams, Eliot, Kirkland, Quincy, DeWolfe, Claverly, Lowell, Leverett, Winthrop, Dunster. Clearly, we kept busy freshman year.

‘You know, Mather was fine before we moved in,’ said Tara. She’s right. How long did it take us? Not even September? We’d probably screw things up anywhere.

Basically, we’re moving to the Quad.”

– “My Miranda, Charlotte, & Samantha” October 29, 2006

“When I close my eyes, I can still remember how you smell.

Tonight, I explained quite simply to my friends that I love you. Even though I don’t like who you are at times, I really do love you. You’ve changed everything quite irrevocably.”

– “Can Remember” December 19, 2006