One is the loneliest number

So I met the first person in Fargo who I'm going to have a sustained interaction with this morning, which was very exciting. Jessica, one of the professors in my department, invited me for coffee at the university, and we talked for a few hours about the program, possible career paths, my specific interests, other students, and how much she hates Fargo (doesn't like the architecture, doesn't like the landscape, thinks the people are racist, insufficient quality produce). I liked talking to her, and I'm excited about my potential here and afterward. Unfortunately, I learned during our meeting that I am the only student in my cohort, which is ridiculous, but I'll get a lot of individual attention? I don't know, that will be interesting. I was the only one they gave a real financial award to, which explains why I'm the only entering graduate student, and has also given me an inappropriate degree of confidence for my potential in a field that I have zero experience in. Jessica told me I could be one of the Big Names in Emergency Management, which again, seemed slightly inappropriate given my complete lack of experience, but I'm just going to file that one away, along with that guy who just pointed at me and told me I was a "sexy lady" on the street a few weeks ago, as a perhaps undeserved but acceptable compliment.

Coming back to my apartment after meeting with Jessica, I was feeling really lonely again, and the book I'm reading definitely isn't helping. This paragraph really summed up why I think it was so bad today:   

The priest told him, "After I left home, my mother and father moved to Boston. I talked to my mother on the telephone in 1948. I called from the new important hotel in Davao. New at that time. Still important maybe, eh? She said she was praying for me always. Hearing her voice made her sound more far away than ever. When I got back to the parish here, it was like starting all over again on the first day. I felt far from home again." -Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke

I was getting used to being off by myself, and then I went home and saw all these friends and got to hang out with my family, and when I got back to Fargo it was like I had forgotten how to be alone. But also, this book is killing me. It's about Vietnam and how out of place all these Westerners feel and all the terrible things they're doing and that are happening to them there. I don't think I would mind it so much if I hadn't been to Cambodia in the spring and couldn't imagine the scenery he's describing, but his description is uncanny, which makes it easy for me to put myself in the book and experience the isolation his characters are feeling. I'm going to finish it, though.

Well, that's enough navel-gazing. I don't have to worry so much about being alone: I'm leaving for Erin's wedding in Minneapolis tomorrow, coming home Sunday and picking up Les on the drive home, seeing Ellen after Les leaves, and then going to Milwaukee at the end of the week to see Lia. The week after that, I guess my assistanceship is starting? And the week after that is orientation and the beginning of classes. It's a little bit overwhelming, but I'd rather be overwhelmed around a bunch of people than underwhelmed and by myself.