let me tell you about d, and m, and maybe you'll understand.

I know I've probably told you before, but when I'm about to go out and meet the fresh blood, the first years, at a bbq and kitty hawk, and I'm not looking forward to it. I feel pulled, compelled by the unappeased hope that there might be one person out of all of them who I may speak to, who might be kind.

When you meet D, you'll be struck by her practiced stolid expression, her flawless Korean skin and the bone structure that holds together her thin almost breastless frame, her long controlled black silky hair, her artsy expensive glasses, her crisp shirt and fashionably worn jeans. You'll think, she's cute, you might even be into her innocence or mock innocent way she talks about sex, you might have an Asian or schoolgirl fetish and desire to please her. She acts aloof but you know she is raging with passion and you run into her at the gym and you want to name the trickle of sweat that you glimpse under the ink ponytail over her neck. She carries a perfect shoulderbag and perfect trendy stationery and writing utensils.

And you are jealous of her best friend, who is a young latinas but twice her size, jocky, butch. You watch them together one night and see her friend hold her coat for her, and you think, longingly, that one's a dyke. When you meet her, one of the first things she'll ask you is, "So what fellowship did you get?" because she wants to make sure she's got the best. And she has. She's published. She's done her Fulbright. You know her goal is to sleep with the best. You are achingly polite to her, ask her, when you catch her drunk at a party, if she needs a ride home.

But you hate her.

For she dismisses, maybe even hates, you.

She's easy to understand. M's a little different. He also has the best. A financial gift that has an expensive-sounding name. You think because he wears chinos and button-downs, he comes from money, too.

His parents are divorced. His mom's suicidal. His stepmom's got dough. He's an only child, manic-depressive, on meds, and his family packed him in a car after they bailed him out of jail (the charge was arson, for setting fire to his own house while he was asleep -- he claims it was a candle he left burning) for a shitload of money, under the condition that he leave the state, and he arrived without an apartment, coming off drugs. He wore a suit to the first meeting and made sure everyone knew who he was, which fellowship he got. He camped in the office. Came to class obviously drunk, smelling like it, and because of that was removed from class, told that he was too good for class, and had private meetings with the instructor, instead. He cranked out poems every week. They were sad, sentimental, poetic. You wondered what was up. Why did someone like him get the money? Because he needed it? If he was forced to work, like you were, would he rise to the occasion?

You don’t know anything. Sometimes you don’t want to know. Knowing has damaged you. You want to retreat.

And now because you've helped him through a bind, he calls you twelve times a day, leaves the same message over and over again, going over in detail what he is doing (take a nap, shower, shave, like I care), and if you ever pity him and decide to take him to the grocery store, you realize, as usual, he has not left the house in days, and you stand there waiting for him to get ready, finish rinsing his teeth, and he wants to hug you.