from an email i wrote to a newish friend

I remember the insignificantly significant. I remember the exact first words Josh Nitschke and I exchanged ("Is that the room? They all look alike!"), what I was wearing when I met Jon (a large lampshade hat, which i was really trying to make work that day, but had come to realize in the hour beforehand that it was not to be, something that his expression told me instantly. thanks, could have saved me alot of trouble). I remember my friend's friends names better than I do my classmates, I connect songs to every event and personage in my life, I collect the ticks and inflections of other people. I think it's because I am saving them up to use someday, maybe just in writing, maybe not. Sometimes I feel like JSF, a collector. Now that I have romanticised myself, I will say that I am also brazen and notorious for sharing things that folk honestly don't care about or don't feel is appropriate unless under influence of alcohol. Though I have never been drunk I would assume that were I to be, I would be the best friend that the main character would not want around because I would tell so-and-so that so-and-so likes him, and so on.

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Forgive this, but my cat has nine lives (i do not tire of finding that amusing): what sort of gesture did you choose to represent yourself? I hate those kinds of things. Not expression, but having to encapsulate yourself, say something about yourself. It seems like on the one hand if you knew yourself you wouldn't be able to summarize at all because it's too great, then again if you knew yourself utterly you would know the one word, the one gesture that could be you, tastes and preferences aside and be damned with only the core remaining. And if you knew yourself you'd be okay with that. Whereas I, though I like to think I know myself so much better than other people, feel like I have to demonstrate my layers or duality or so many elements of my identity (as I would like it to be) constantly. In summary, those kinds of things give me too much personal anxiety-- as if by saying the word or making the motion I am sentencing myself to be that, rather than letting that speak for me. Ah well.