I've been recently derided by one Rachel for not keeping up my blog. She has become the second person to care whether this blog is regularly updated, the first one being my father. For that, I offer her my congratulations and thanks.
And, because of that, I've decided to dedicate this post to Rachel, by giving you all (Dad) a bit of a brief character sketch. Of Rachel. Because she's awesome.
In case anybody's read the backlog of this blog, she's the girl I met at orientation who miraculously happened to like (most) all the things I did. She's also the one who ventured with me out into the cold of the January city near the beginning of our first semester. In fact, I've probably talked about Rachel more than anyone else in this blog. So, I guess I'm keeping within a theme.
Rachel oozes happiness. Even when she's being crushed under the weight of unrelenting homework and her ridiculous two jobs (now, thankfully, she only has one - she had to save up enough money to study in Paris for the summer, and she figured the best way to do that was to absolutely kill herself) she always will smile the biggest smile and tell you exactly how she love love loves J.D. Salinger or Allen Ginsberg.
Physically, she's a bombshell, the (proud?) owner of the perfect hourglass figure. However, having certain Kardashian proportions often makes her the recipient of unwanted on-the-street attention, which she regards with a mix of disgust, revulsion, and repugnance. Despite her love for Woody Allen, and her forgiveness of Ernest Hemingway for having too many wives (admittedly, I, too, tend to be over forgiving of an artist's misogyny, including the misogyny of dear, tormented Ernest,) I would call her a feminist. Her body is her own and is not to be commented on by strangers or shamed by airbrushed pictures in magazines. She unabashedly enjoys underwear parties, dances to Florence and the Machine on the roof, and nearly closes her eyes when she smiles. She has perfect cheekbones and is my designated partner for 16 Handles frozen yogurt pit stops. She knows more about nearly every single author we read in class than I'll probably ever know about one. She will talk about anything and we though we both love literature and movies, we completely disagree on what's enjoyable in each category. Which is the best, because then we can argue (amicably of course,) and that's pretty much the best thing two friends could ever do.
She's one of my very favorite people I've found at NYU. I've been exceedingly lucky in finding her - who else would wander the city in the freezing cold with me? Who else would endure my illogical and negative rants about men? Who else would play subway roulette, getting off at a random stop with me and go exploring? Who else could whisper well informed half-audible commentary to me during British Literature lectures?
She's the tops. Really.
