Louise's thoughts

Girlfriends

I was at the gym the other morning, working out before going to work because then it is over and done with and I can stay working in my office as long as I want to. I go to the gym 2-3 times a week to keep the pain in my hands and arms away, it is the only way my Carpal Tunnel syndrome won't bother me too much. This also means that whenever I go traveling somewhere, getting a hotel with a gym is an essential thing and half my suitcase contains gym clothes and sneakers. The rest of the suitcase will of course be books and high heels, some of my books have been all over with me, which is starting to show (not good when it is other people's books).

My gym is one of LA's fancy places because I like the clean and roomy atmosphere and because they have towel service, the best invention since the treadmill. But it also means that all of Orange County's finest ladies are there, brushing their hair, making up their faces every morning. This is the only gym I know that has more hairdryers than showers and they are always in use.

I was drying my hair and putting on mascara when I overheard 3-4 women chit-chatting about their common problems. They talked about laundry and how they had to do at least two loads twice a week and how they hated when their maid went into the hamper, but it was okay if she took care of the dry-cleaning. I was quite fascinated by their talk, but not only because I do laundry something like once every second week and really don't have much clothes that needs to be either dry-cleaned or ironed (the fact that I have never owned an iron myself, might have something to do with this). I never had a maid either but that was really not what made me gloomy eyed. No, it was the fact that I realized I have no American girlfriends. I have numerous American guy friends, ex-flings/future-flings and professional acquaintances (some even belong to more than one category), who are all great and incredibly nice but no American girlfriends. And that was why I was so fascinated by their chat, because it made me think that I was totally missing out on something here. I had never really talked makeup, boys, TV or even cooking with another American girl on a regular basis. Being in computer science, definitely had something to do with it but I also realized that girlfriends are hard to get. Real girlfriends are something that takes years to find and you have to nourish such relationship. I have a lot of Danish friends, but of real girlfriends, the ones you can call up late at night because of a broken heart, the ones who you can just be in the same room with without having to talk, the ones you can confess your secret crushes to, I have only few. I could count four on the top of my head, but I knew that are were all exactly what I just described; girlfriends I can call up just to talk to even from California, totally ignoring my phone bill, girlfriends who will not email me for a month, but who I know thinks about me and look forward to seeing me. The ones who I sometimes cry over getting emails from because I just miss their company so much that I feel so alone even though I am surrounded by nice people. But I am not surrounded by my girlfriends here. They are all in Denmark. And I guess besides my two brothers, those are the ones I look forward to seeing the most, the minute I get to Copenhagen.