We had just finished an impossible history essay, and Monica and I set out to lunch together, trotting down the stairs as we balanced our books.

“I have to pee so bad.” She said as we went down the hall. “I had to go during the entire essay. It was horrible.” She emphasized the last word with a short sigh.

“Speaking of horrible,” I reached to open the door as a blast of cold air hit us, “did you see Carrie’s new highlighting job?” She recoiled as if hit, and her eyes became huge and she raised a frustrated hand to graze the air.

“Oh I know. She’s going for that whole beach-y look, and it’s just not working.” I could imagine her, in ten years, impatiently smoking a cigarette and flicking away the ash onto some kind of haute couture, maybe Chanel, while walking the streets of Manhattan. I smiled.

“It’s horrendous.”

“She said she got it done by some ‘great guy’.” She set her books down on the wooden table and picked up her purse, fishing around for money. “I bet he’s not even gay.” I laughed.

“Gay guys do make the best hairdressers.”

“I know. They’re amazing.” She led the way through another set of double doors and to the bathrooms. Monica always walked quickly, as if she had little time to do so many precious things. We stood in the line and I wandered over to the mirror to check my reflection. My hair was rumpled and my makeup smeared, and Monica joined me, shaking her hands at the lack of paper towels. “Did Carrie tell you about the party on Saturday?” She asked as we went back out into the sunlight.

“No. What did she say?” She rolled her eyes in exaggeration.

“She’s having some big thing at the beach. I don’t know what’s with her and the beach nowadays. She said that she’s planning it with Karem, and that they’re both going to invite, like, twenty people so we’ll have forty people there.” She paused briefly. “I don’t want to go.”

“Why not?”

“Ok, I don’t like the Gables people, and I know that there’s going to be the people in our clique, than the weird people outside our group that come along sometimes that I don’t like, then the whole ‘ugly girl’ group’s going to be there, and there’s going to be, like, five people I actually want to hang out with.” She broke into a frustrated grin. “Carrie even offered me booze, Sophie, she tried to seduce me with alcohol!”

“She’s trying to make it into a mini-keg thing?”

“I guess.” she brushed a strand of hair off her face.

“So we’re going to have forty teenagers on the beach illegally drinking illegally gotten alcohol?”

“We’re so going to get kicked out.”

“Or arrested.” I added.

“Wouldn’t that just be amazing? All of us arrested on the beach?” I grabbed a Pepsi out of the vending machine and bought Monica a Sprite. I never mind buying people things.

“Carrie would never be able to pull this off.”

“I know. I don’t really want to go.” She repeated. “And I’m sorry, but I don’t want to go if Kirsten’s there.”

“I know. You can just imagine her in a bikini falling over Ryan. I mean, she’s practically humping him sober.” She laughed, taking a draught of her Sprite.

“She would definitely be naked. We all know that.” We talked on for a while about Kirsten and Ryan before Monica lapsed into quiet.

“I’m mad at Carrie. She’s such a needy friend.” She said finally.

“You do need to hang out with her all the time to keep her happy.” I agreed, somewhat reluctantly.

“I think she’s still upset about how I wouldn’t give her my chap stick when she had that gross thing on her lip.” I laughed, tilting my Pepsi.

“I was talking to her about that yesterday.” Monica looked up at me with some kind of trepidation mixed with curiosity.

“What did you say?”

“Oh, nothing much. Just that I knew you guys were having a fight, chap stick involved. She was still upset about it, but I think she wants you guys to get together again.”

“That’s why she’s so into me going to her party. It’s a reconciliation thing.” She mused. I snapped my fingers.

“Did I tell you I saw Jamie in the hall again today?” Monica looked back at me with a silly smile as she threw away her can of soda.

“No.” I gave an embarrassed sigh.

“He still says we need to go clubbing sometime.” She giggled. “I don’t have the heart to say something.” I took another sip. “Besides, what could I say? ‘I only said that jokingly when I thought that you were still together with your girlfriend, plus I think you’re gross and would never go out with you even if the entire earth vanished in a nuclear holocaust except for you and me’?”

“Ha ha.” She said, rooting through her purse and checking the time on her phone. The bell rang more quickly than we expected, and I walked off to English.

My grandmother (Bamba's) Easter show, in which she is in the chorus, was tonight at our church. Which meant that I, the dutiful granddaughter, and my sister, accompanied by my father, must stay for an hour and a half watching overacting old people burst into song. Not exactly the choice way to spend a Friday night, but then again I suppose one should be thankful. The show could last two and a half hours, after all.

I nearly burst out laughing when an obviously fake-bearded John waved around his costumed arms and baptised Jesus, nearly knocking his hand into a microphone, as the chorus sung out two feet behind him and a choir boy dropped his booklet of songs. Then Jesus, in a flamboyant purple robe, suffered the little children to come to him and several small kids teetered out unassuredly and glanced into the audience. They lined up like little ducks in a row and began to sing in a shuddering, warbling voice as one. As they glazed over the high notes about four voices cracked, until a rather hefty little boy broke out into a solo, turning red and hideously embarassed as he struggled dutifully along. Then a girl, obviously thinking that she was on American Idol, burst into a psuedo-Christina Aguilera type solo with a sort of jerky dance to go along with it. It was at this point that the music CD began to skip and the chorus fell painfully silent as the conducter motioned swiftly to cut the music. The audience began to chuckle as the CD continued to skip and a handful of confused children started to sing again.

"Turn it OFF." The conducter said into the mike, mortified. The kids awkwardly moved away and the chorus, unsure whether to finish the song, stop, or start again, buzzed among themselves until the CD, now magically repaired, began a new song.

It was when Peter, who sang with a lisp, sank to his knees in a horrendous job of overacting as he betrayed Jesus for the third time before the rooster crowded that I felt a hideous gurgling in my stomach. Glancing around uneasily, I waited for it to pass. It intensified, and, realizing that it was go to the bathroom in the bathroom or go to the bathroom in the church pew, I climbed over the disgruntled people sitting next to me and ran for the back of the church, bursting through the double doors. Flying across the carpet, I joggled the bathroom door. LOCKED! A conseravtive christian mother was juggling her baby in a chair by the bathroom, and, upon seeing my pained expression, said, "There's someone in there." I waited for a few agonizing moments, hearing voices inside the bathroom. What were they doing in there, just talking? Dancing around a bit in my short skirt, I looked longingly towards the empty door of the Men's room. It was just when I decided to go in there, men's bathroom or not, when a legitimate man walked in and locked the door. Foiled! Turning in circles, I broke down and asked conservative christain mother if there were any other bathrooms ANYWHERE. She gave me directions to one down the outside hallway and through two double doors on the right.

I skidded around the corner, my high heels clacking, and raced down the pavement to the double doors. Thrusting them open I found myself backstage amongst a Roman soldier, Peter, and Mary Magdalene.

"Sorry, but do you know if there's a bath-" Mary Magdalene motioned for me to be silent and pointed toward a wooden door. "Thank God. Literally." I muttered once inside.

After about ten painful minutes I washed my hands, still hearing the chorus belting it out from onstage. I opened the door, gave Peter two thumbs up and mouthed 'great show', and left as quickly as I appeared.

I am currently recovering from post-tramautic stress disorder stemming from my recent trip to the Arizona desert. Not that communing with nature and everything isn't fun, but the fact that there seemed to be no civilization was frightening. When I called my father to tell him I had brought him back a gift (a miniature Navajo bow and arrow), he said, "Oh good. I always love Louis Vuitton."

Heaving a sigh, I replied, "Dad, there's no Louis Vuitton here." Yes. Out in the desert, apparently, the look is 'Kmart chic'. I was morbidly out of place with my faux crocodile bags and black miniskirts.

It was fun, overall. We saw the Grand Canyon and such, hiked up mountain sides in GASP! practical shoes, and gallavanted around in the freezing cold rain in Tuscon.

I am, however, delighted to be back in the big city and have the whole Sarah Jessica Parker air back about my life. I may sound shallow, but the desert scene was not for me.

Nope.

Not for me.