Sam,

Home is wherever I'm with you.

Leah is coming to visit this thursday. I'm going to take her everywhere I've been, show her everything I've seen. We'll be tourists for the day, roaming the streets of telegraph and chinatown and fisherman's warf--party. I like Leah. She keeps me sane and I need that despite my quest for insanity. I like that she can just be Leah and I can just be Sami. Wherever we go, it's teethy grins all the way. And I like it like this.

Home is wherever I'm with you.

I like Leah. And I like you. Sam, I know things don't always go the way we planned. There are times we end up somewhere else, or back where we began. Sometimes we're out in the moonlight and the night is ours. Sometimes we're sunken in the cushions of the sofa with plates of bagel bites resting on the edge of our laps. But I like being here and there and here again.

Home is wherever I'm with you.

Sam, people are always asking me if college is "good," if college is "nice." It's fine it's fine it's fine. I don't know how much I like it. I mean when I'm there sometimes I get bored and sometimes I want to be home in norcal drinking the free tea at naan & curry. Sometimes I am sick of reading about malevich and mondrian and matisse. Sometimes I just want to go home. And when I come home, when I'm here, I get bored too. And then I want to be back at school drinking the free coffee in the dorms. Sometimes I am lonely because here, no one calls. No one wants to know what I'm doing for dinner, or when I'll be back from the ceramics studio. And other times, I think I make myself alone. I don't bother to ask my friends to come over. Instead I curl up in bed with a cup of earl grey and open up my modernism book just for "fun." And still, when people ask if college is "good" or "nice" or whatever lame adjective they want to use to describe it, I always say the same thing: College is good, but home is better.

I'm just trying to figure out where exactly that is.

Home is wherever I'm with you.

Love, Sam

Sam,

"What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary. "

I want to spend the rest of my days in front of a big fire, swallowed up by elephantized sweaters and marshmallow socks, listening to the Spring Awakening broadway soundtrack without a smidgen of guilt, dipping gingerbread in mugs of milk. I think I'm going to buy eggnog even though I'm not sure I like it. I'm pretty alone these days, how bout you?

love, Sam