Inner Workings of One's Heart

All at once an idea lit up within her: I have the happiness of being in love, she said, to herself one day, with an incredible thrill of delight. I'm in love, I'm in love, it's obvious! A beautiful and lively young woman my age, where else should she experience strong feelings if it is not by being in love?

-Stendhal
"The Red and the Black"

Twenty-five years ago today:

October 4, 1986
Saturday

When I returned Mark Landreth's call we made definitive plans to go to TOMMY T's in Concord to meet Ginny Haire and her group of friends. It was fun. Ginny was with Russ (a geek). They're supposedly engaged to be married. Is she really 'in love'?

Mark and I followed the TOMMY T's visit with three more destinations: El Torito, Gallagher's at Jack London Square and Johnny B Goode's on Webster Street. We made the rounds. It was actually pretty fun because we didn't settle on any 'one place'.

I went bicycling today, too. The beach was overly crowded. I saw a number of QBL (Questionable guys) as I was lying out (next to my bike). Earlier today I was alone, observing.

Might I ask for your friendship? This may be very difficult for you, but ask I must. I am trying, by this request, to learn to content myself with what cannot be changed, to draw sustenance from the small comforts. Perhaps it is enough to have one person to whom nothing is a secret, to whom one can lay open the inner workings of one's heart. Possibly, at the end of life, to have said that would be enough.
-Shyan Selvadurai
CINNAMON GARDENS, a novel