"Are you Ava's sister?"

"What? No. I don't think so. No."

This happens to me all the time in coffee shops. People are always asking me whether I'm related to someone they know. I'm not Ava's sister. Or Anita's. or Faranaz's.

Once someone asked me if I was Smitha's sister. My sister was in Providence. I was at a cafe in Los Feliz. This was the only time someone got it right. I looked around to see if this was some kind of prank. Would my sister pop out from behind a bush? No. I'd like to think people related to me are more creative than that.

"Yeah. How did you know?"

"I was in Smitha's junior year abroad program in Egypt. You have the same hand gestures. And the same eye rolls. And the same earrings."

Hmmm.

I do come from a family that relies on highly animated hand gestures during conversations.

Most of my friends are heavy gesticulators as well.

In college, K made a short documentary about himself and his friends. It included a scene of me, drunk, sitting on the floor and eating sushi from a plastic container (bad idea, eating sushi when you're drunk). I was speculating on when the angst would go away. "Maybe when I'm 30?" I asked.

To the 20-year old me: No, sorry. not yet. 10 years and still going strong. We haven't beat that one yet.

There were other people in the short film. And K, telling stories, gesticulating wildly.

I think we had a viewing of the thing. We all looked like assholes. Seeing yourself on film is surprisingly jarring. I shouldn't talk while I eat sushi. We were all quiet after the film and one by one went back to our rooms to read or eat or work or avoid ourselves and each other. The next day I saw K in the CIT, looking uncharacteristically sad.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked.

"I'm so dramatic," he said. "I hate myself."

"I know," I said, throwing down my bag and slumping in the chair next to him, "I'm so angsty and self-involved. I hate myself too," I said.

And we sat beside each other, in the CIT, sad and hating ourselves for being ourselves.