"Three possible 'Anya' beginnings"

            The most annoying project of my life!  Usually I call it Letters to Anya, but it's also been Letters to Daniel, Letters to Anya and Daniel, and Letters to.  When I first started writing these, they were for my friend N. ("Anya"), whom* I was having trouble communicating with.  Now they're taking up tons of room in all three of my e-mail inboxes, as well as more space on my laptop's hard drive than you can possibly imagine.  Here are some of the first Letters to Anya ever written.  (The first one isn't even a letter.)

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1.  Anya's eyes weren't like other people's.  Before I knew her I would make fun of her with my roommate, Sam.  We'd open our eyes as wide as we could and pretend to be Anya.  Her limbs were thin and seemingly devoid of muscle, like toothpicks.  Her head was too big for her body.  She was dramatic in the writing classes we had with her, always gesturing wildly and talking with her hands.  Sometimes she'd close her big eyes for emphasis, like whatever she was talking about was so overwhelming she couldn't stand to keep looking at the rest of us.  Sam and I had a term for the pieces Anya wrote.  It was very the-birds-and-the-trees, we'd say - writing that assigned melodramatic meaning to trivial things.

2.  Anya, you looked like a tennis ball stuck on to a T of toothpicks, like someone who might topple over if you lolled too far to one side.  You smoked five cigarettes an hour and got away with showering only once every three to four days.  In class you sometimes closed your eyes while you spoke, as if you were so taken by your own words you couldn't stand to look at anyone.  You wore your issues like accessories, without shame or any attempt to pretend you were doing okay.  You didn't try to act like you weren't sick.  You were everything I'd always been curious about.

3.  Off the plane I take small steps, my eyes on the signs that hang from the ceiling, my stomach wringing itself out like a wet dishrag.  I grip the sweaty metal pole in the tram car, watching my reflection in the opposite window.  The car speeds along the track, hurtling toward baggage claim, where I know you're waiting.  Inexplicably, I don't want to see you.  When the tram comes to a stop, I exit quickly.  Defiantly.  You're my best friend; of course I want to see you.

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            *I have no idea if this is how you're supposed to use the word "whom."  Do you?