Irritating boy!

The reason I complain about not hearing from people I want to talk to is because it seems to work.
About ten minutes after I posted yesterday, Bluetooth answered my text and said he'd like to hang out more, too. Wherein we both mean "hang out = have sex" and we both know we both mean that. He added the possibility of a poker game, alcohol, and other people.
I can get behind that. I've always aspired to be more Hunter S. Thompson than Louisa May Alcott.

Breaking news (but no more bad puns).

The Good

• I'M GETTING PUBLISHED. Sorry for getting all caps lock shouty, but hot damn I got the best phone call of my life on the night of the 17th. Alligator Juniper is publishing the two short stories I sent them for their 2011 new writers contest. No victory lap around the campus game room like I did when I found out I landed last summer's internship, but that was only because this time I was at home and it was 11pm and I had to go tell my parents why I woke them up (answer: victory shout).
  They emailed me my Publishing Contract yesterday. I'm signing it, scanning it, sending it back today. I will be a published author before I graduate college, with eight whole contributors' copies that I've already mentally handed out (Mom and Dad, Mike, high school newspaper teacher, New York writing friend, North Carolina writing friend, guitar teacher, Stephen King, me).
  Major life goal: check. And the best part? It's awesome and doesn't have anything to do with boys.
  
  • And as a happy little footnote, I was in the middle of writing a superhero story when the science fiction magazine I submitted to six weeks ago emailed me a reminder that they're still accepting submissions and they liked my writing. Would I like to try again?
    Yes. Yes I would.
• Also good but having everything to do with boys was when Bluetooth told me, during a scattered texting conversation, he got me a Christmas present. Set aside the fact that I hope he's just using me for sex because that's what I'm using him for: aw. That's sweet. So I said I had something (small, non-fancy) for him, too, and then the next time I went to Kroger I stood in the home shit aisle debating whether a plain white candle in a plain glass holder would be considered manly enough to give a guy who said one of the reasons he loves living off campus is because he can light candles in his own damn room. I added a three-position lighter (vaguely suggestive, adds more to the pyromaniac angle) and called it good.
  "Trust your instincts--they're spot on."
• Kanye West's new album. It's amazing and doesn't remind me of BF at all. 
• I made three As, one B, and one B+ this semester.

The Bad

•  I have ten-hour days to look forward to for my print journalism senior semester that starts in a week and a half. We're running our own paper, five days a week, and I'm terrified.
• BF still won't talk to me. I understand; at this point I don't even think I've ever had anything legitimate to tell him since we broke up. But it's really depressing, especially when my dad says it's weird we're together almost three years and just cut off contact like we did. Like BF did. I know, Dad, and it makes me feel like a helpless bitch.
• Bluetooth hasn't texted or answered the two texts (both last night) I've sent him the past few days. Again my brain jumps before it looks all the fucking time, so I'm half convinced he's gone back to his ex or found other better sex and just doesn't want to tell me while my other half (generally the bottom half) keeps reminding me that he's used phrases such as "next time" and "sleep over" and "I can never have a one-night stand" (although that was more of a physical reference, I think) and we both have those goddamn Christmas gifts (unless he's lying about all that! shrieks my top half) to exchange. Maybe his phone broke.
  This is when I realize I've gone through this cycle at least twice in the past month and as long as I know and want to have sex with him, I will want to strangle him because of his uneven attention.
  Once again, the plan is to call him when I get back to campus. See if he wants what I do. Make and eat enchiladas and strawberry pie with or without him, regardless of outcome. 
• I'm worried about my friends.

The Weird

• I had a wet dream about my hot Greek reporting professor last night. It involved volunteering to go on assignment with him somewhere we had to wear asbestos suits, and cunnilingus. I'm not sure in what order.
  ...Yeah, that's been the weirdest part of break so far. Not as weird as my first wet dream, which was about Bill Clinton and woke me up with a wedgie so far up my ass I thought could taste cotton.

Tonight I'm getting squiffy off a single-serving bottle of shitty wine from Wal-Mart. It's a combination celebration/trying to forget and move on ritual.

Three years.

"I don't know if I've been changed for the better
Because I knew you
I have been changed
For good."
--Wicked. A quote from our musical on our day.

I have not cried yet. I don't plan to.

Also: dude has usurped Festivus. Unsuccessfully thanks to the US Postal Service, it sounds like.
Get the fuck off my Seinfeld.

It's a Festivus miracle.

Winter break starts for me in about four hours. One more shower, one more room sweep, and one more exam to go. I will be far away from here by the time they kick everyone out on the 14th. I will be far away from the couch on which I got my first kiss on the December 14 three years ago.

Mike--fuck, man, keep your self-destructive impulses scary so you don't act on them. I don't normally recommend this but live for your God if it helps.

Happy holidays.

The sad thing is I'm so damn happy.

"We have plenty of time to listen to Jimmy Buffet when we're old and sad."
--Greek



Which is why I shook my hips and hair and shoulders and knees to this song last night, after explaining who Eric Clapton is (!) to Bluetooth but before yelling along with "Sweet Child O' Mine" with my guitar teacher to mock the band that was currently playing. Which all happened before I got laid.

I only still call him my guitar teacher because it feels weird that we're friends now. I adored him in high school and looked up to him as only a freshman girl can to a senior boy who is nice to her and teachers her how to improvise on the blues pattern scales. That's how it was through college, too, until he graduated and suddenly we're on even footing. I'm rapidly catching up, closing the gap to where he's stayed in life the last few years, and we're all getting fat and depressed and more dependent on alcohol but there's still the music. After all the changes we've both been through separately, we're still actually fond of each other.
Huh.

Despite the fact that Bluetooth had a paper to write and I needed to get into the library science computer lab at 9am the next morning, he drove me back to his apartment with him and took me to the roof where we looked at stars (such a surprising amount of them up there) and pulled a couple flash poppers he had still packaged in his car.
We went inside and downstairs and into his room and spooned during the three minute intro to an episode of The Office before the opening credits came on and he declared intermission and we started making out and he asked in very delicate terms about my birth control situation. I mentioned the condom I had in my purse. He wanted to know if I was sure. I said yes, and we made good use of it.
It felt different. It felt better, because it felt more. We fucked in the blue light of his computer monitor on his (covered) foam mattress, and it was exactly where I wanted to be doing exactly what I wanted to do at the exact moment I wanted to do it.
He's wider and shorter and slower. He wanted to keep the covers over us. He said he never comes the first time with a new person; neither one of us came but oh, it felt good.
It has taken me so long and so many tries to realize that sex can feel amazing even if no one comes, to just feel the pure physical joy of it all as the point.
He said next time I should bring some extra clothes so I can stay over. He said that twice, the next time stay over part. I halfway wanted to but, schoolwork.

Today he sent me a text message saying "Thanks for last night," with a smiley. I sent back "You, too," because really, what a lovely evening.

I should maybe mention that I received this text message while walking across campus wearing a cape I got to borrow because I let Mike's friend borrow my Psych 101 notes and then lent him money to fill his student card so he could make copies on the library machine. This was after I finished my library science final project in the computer lab they keep so cold I leave not sure if I still have toes but before I walked downtown to get pizza with Mike for dinner while halfway expecting BF to walk in on us and come to the wrong conclusions as we talked about how uncomfortable my stance on sex makes Mike. And Led Zepplin. We talked about Led Zepplin, too.

I just feel...complete. I don't think I've ever felt complete.

Best non-sexual conversation of last night:
"He has a digital lyric book! Do you know how expensive those things are?"
"Do you know how popular that song is?"
"I mean, I know the lyrics and I don't even like it!"
"My point exactly!"
Best non-sexual moment of last night: hearing the first band jam on the Top Gear theme song for ten minutes.

Results.

There now, was that so difficult?
"Done. Let's go."
Two minutes into a phone call and hot damn, Bluetooth will go with me to see and hear my guitar teacher's band tomorrow night.
"Would you believe that my phone died and I lost my charger and then today I saw your message and I was like, crap?"
NOW WAIT JUST A GODDAMN MINUTE HERE MR.SHIEKY PANTS.

Okay, I don't care enough to believe Bluetooth or not. I just wanted an excuse to use my new favorite quote in the history of the internet. Thanks, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books! You are giving me such good excuses to not study for my Theories of Mass Communications exam.
The caps are theirs, by the way. I think it adds that special umph.

Revisions.

All right. FINE.
I'm actually going to call Bluetooth this evening. Get this goddamn thing over with. I want to know.
My former guitar teacher's band is playing downtown tomorrow night. I want to go. It's as good excuse to call as any I can come up with by Friday--better, even, as there will be more than 12 hours to plan to "hang out" if both of us so want.



Random male caller during my radio show yesterday: "I adore your taste in music."
My good man, you are too generous. No, seriously, about 25% of what I put on air is blindly chosen from cover art and song names, based off station reviews that are wildly misleading depending on who's doing the reviewing.
But I try, so thank you.

Spiral of silence.

As my phone stays silent but my depression lessens (much more sleep + less PMS?), I've decided on a couple things to do/remember/chant through my nose and shout through my mouth this next week.
Exam Week Resolutions Because New Year's is Too Cliched and Broad:

•  I will not call, text, email, or Facebook Bluetooth. He never responded last night. Not even an "Am still sick *sneezes plague into phone*", "Bitch please," or non-sequitor. Any of those would prevent me from hating him a little. Now I hate him a little. I deleted his shit from my phone.
  A comment of his on his own Facebook page: "If you look in the YouTube comments, there is at least three marriage proposels." There ARE. THERE ARE THREE.
• However, if I don't hear from him by this coming Friday late dinner time, I will call him (CALL, not write/type and send/hand over something he can ignore for however long he wants) and make sure we both understand what we want from each other. When this conversation ends, I will either get laid or tear up his business card and move on.
• I will not care what people think of me.
• I will not shame myself for feeling frustrated over a guy. I will not chastise myself for feeling "all girly" about not knowing why a guy stops talking to me for no apparent reason. I will acknowledge this frustration (*ACKNOWLEDGE ACKNOWLEDGE.*) and why it bothers me (I don't know what the fuck I did or did not do). I will acknowledge that maybe he's not doing this on purpose, maybe he doesn't know this frustrates me so much, or maybe he's not worth my time. Yeah.
• I will only use the rest of my Benadryl pills to get to sleep the nights before my exams if I need them and not as a general sleeping aide. 
• I will get out of this dorm at least once a day besides the five seconds in the morning when I go to the student union to get a cherry Coke Zero. 
• I will wear jeans, undergarmets, and a new shirt each day, even if they're the same ill-fitting secondhand man's jeans, pink bra, and variations on layers of t-shirt, hoodie, and pea coat. Sweatpants equal giving up.
• I will not go downtown exclusively to walk pass my ex's condo lot. I will try my utmost to minimize my time and not get raped or mugged if I do go downtown after sunset.
• I will not go on Facebook more than an hour a day. I will not watch any more online back episodes of Greek. I will be allowed to watch the new season one episode at a time when they start in January. 
• I will brush my teeeth twice a day, wear my retainers every night, brush my hair every morning, and shave every week. See point about clothes.
• I will invent a new recipe by using my leftovers and the dorm stovetop tonight: macaroni quesidillas. They will be delicious and possibly go well with chocolate milk.
• I will not call my ex. (Have been good at that lately, as in I can't remember the last time I caved and called.)
• I will clean that goddamn bathroom. It's getting disgusting. 
• I will go down and watch Elf with the rest of the dorm tonight.

There you have it. Time to go to CVS for...something. Cleaning supplies? Couple of laps around the shampoo? Dinner additions? Maybe dinner additions.

Feats of Strength

I didn't sleep last night, at all. I've been awake for about (got up at 9am Friday, now it's 4pm Saturday so that's 24+3 hours to noon+4 more=) 31 hours straight. It probably has something to do with the two liters of diet Dr Pepper I drank between 6:30pm yesterday and 7:30am today, but those last two glasses were pure resignation.
After everything settled down last night (which was already early this morning), my brain went in every direction at once and would not shut off. It's still doing that. I laid down, turned off my light, closed my eyes, and waited. Got up to pee, laid back down, closed my eyes, waited, turned my light back on, read a little, turned my light back off, laid back down, closed my eyes. Waited. Nothing--well, no. Everything.
I gave up about 4:30am, turned my desk lamp on for good, finished Wishin' and Hopin' (Wally Lamb's Italian-American parochial school version of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which is a good thing), started George Singleton's Novel. Watch the sky gradually turn bluer and bluer until it was daylight again. Worried about my brain.

Being alone lets me indulge in my eccentricities. But this insomnia is getting ridiculous. 

My lunch was a cheap box of macaroni and cheese mixed with salsa and canned mushrooms.

That's a crappy short story but a good table mat.

Dad called right when I poured the noodles in to boil and we talked for exactly seven and a half minutes, which makes for good noodles and happy parents alike.
Dinner might be identical or it might be the rest of the quesidillas.

...Really? I'm posting about food that took like five minutes of effort to make? It's all come to that? Shit cheese and save the cracker.
This is all to cover up how much I want to go to Bar I Like Downtown tonight and party with one of the radio DJs who does the party DJ thing, too. But I'm scared of getting mugged or raped if I go by myself. It's been happening over there a lot lately. But if I don't get out of this dorm at least once today, I'm never going to sleep again, I can just feel it. But I just texted Bluetooth to see if he'd go with me but he hasn't answered yet but it doesn't start until 10pm but maybe he's actually sick but maybe I need to study some more and not fall asleep at Bar I Like Downtown and not care. I'm so close.

Geek stamp.

Tonight was...frustrating. 
I made apple chicken quesidillas by hiking to Food Lion after my last normal college class ever; chopping up two apples, an onion, a little bit of a tomato, and a can of corn while baking chicken legs; dumping everything into buttered tortillas and gluing everything together with cheese and a hot skillet; and skittering into different clothes and red lipstick and my badass shoes at the last second.
I'd like to say I can play the sexy domestic hostess without any effort, but it took most of like three hours and upper arm strength I will never have.

And yes, those are my skeleton plates.

It was for the potluck dinner me and Suitemate and Mike and a couple of their other friends had in the dorm where Suitemate and I live.
Bluetooth couldn't come. He had a headache.

Pros of the Evening (optimistic thinking!):

• I do like cooking. I love how it's like playing music; there are written instructions, but those are more suggestions that you make your own. And I'm better at cooking than I am playing the piano. That didn't use to be true.
• Got to hang out with Mike. It was a little awkward until one of us made us both laugh. Then we were back in our comfort zone. That is where we'll always be. Minor sigh, but it's for the best.
• Good food. Quesidillas turned out AWESOME, thanks much, and so did Suitemate's apple crisp (yellow cake mix + margarine for the crust. Must remember.) and her friend's meatballs. 
• This photo. I got to play with Mike's sword.

That's my battle sneer.

I knighted him, too, in the back parking lot, before we talked about superhero movies but after he burst out laughing at something and exclaimed, "I love you, Melanie, you're awesome" in the same way he exclaimed he loved Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, it's awesome.

Cons of This Evening (embracing my inner cynic! It's my true nature that I can let fly freely now that I don't have to work around BF's unfailing cheerfulness):

• I hate chopping things into tiny pieces. It took longer than anything else, and it gave me a blister. That might've been my shitty knife.
• Had to hang out with Suitemate the whole time I was hanging out with Mike. That's how it's been EVER SINCE she figured out we all know each other. She wants to do everything with BOTH of us. I'm not in love with him, I promise, but I am definitely in hate with having to explain our random shit to her and then listen to her unfunny jokey interpretations. I want my best campus friend back, dammit. 
• I didn't really like the other people. I talked with the boys about Star Wars purity (George Lucus only made THREE MOVIES, dammit. The prequels NEVER HAPPENED.) and one's bar tending job. To be fair, that's how it usually goes, and I'm okay with that.
• Suitemate took that picture. She was with us the whole time in the parking lot. Parking lot discussions with Mike are my favorite. 
• I started my period today. Although I'm happier than usual about this, it and exam schedules mean I probably won't get any before winter break. Another pro, though--this also means I have time to get my diaphragm prescription filled so I can continue my double-protected ways. 

If I ever actually need it. 

"But then I'm a scumbag."
"Ah! But a scumbag with dignity."

We're going to be classy as shit, and maybe take a group picture.

In chronological order, I present my last 36 hours or so:

Seeing Brother yesterday shook me up, a lot. I didn't even realize it was him until he was gone. Distinctive Dr. B waved and smiled at me, so I waved and smiled back (what else can you do at a guy who teaches a class about Motown Divas and the Men Who Ruined Them? With that as a legitimate class title?) and thought nothing of the brown-haired hoodied person on his other side until I glanced at their backs and realized holy shit. That was Brother.
I stopped at stared at the air. They don't look alike except around the eyes and the bridges of their noses. But that's the closest live spotting to anyone who I could even begin to mistake as BF in a month.
It was bad. It made me high-step it to Psych lecture, breathing through my mouth like a winded horse.

"The card was going to be Dr. B making a fist and saying Merry damn Christmas. I thought it was genius."

After Psych, I almost literally ran into Bluetooth. Oh thank fuck he's actually damn cute in the sunlight. I ran back and punched him in the back of his big puffy jacket and walked away, all without taking my headphones off. I spent the rest of the day worrying he would take the punch as hostile and not high-spirited (Tough Actin' Tenactin, that's the nickname I was going for).

Brian the biofeedback counselor I saw looked like the opposite of the flowy, vaguely hippie women counselors I've seen up there. He was literally button-up, sweater vest and tie and angles. He said that he doesn't concentrate so much on the breathing part of biofeedback but more on the meditation part. After slouching in the armchair (hey, he said keep my eyes closed) with the heart rate clip hanging off my right earlobe and breathing inthroughmynose, ouththroughmymouth for what seemed like ever, I couldn't tell you the difference from the first breathing-centrtic appointment I had. It worked the same, too. Except when I thought about sex. That jacks up the competing nervous systems, apparently.
Brian said meditation's about accepting your emotions. Accept the fact that I'm insecure and want everybody's approval. And stressed. But mostly the first two.
"Welcome to the club."
It does make me feel better. I am insecure and want everybody's approval. Hear me roar.

OH MY GOD SUITEMATE SHUT THE FUCK UP. See? If I didn't want everybody's approval, I would have shouted that in her face last night when she came in our room and started yapping about what to wear tomorrow like it actually MATTERS if she's wearing a dress or jeans when a group of college kids are getting together without adults to tell them whether to dress business casual or not.
I'm wearing a skirt because I want to show off my badass heels and possibly get laid. I'd actually prefer if the rest of you bitches looked tore up from the floor up--for comparison purposes, you understand--but that just makes me, you guessed it, insecure. I'm regretting even hinting that I might wear something other than jeans, because that meant you spent twenty fucking minutes in my room bothering my studying roommate (okay, she didn't care. BUT I CARE IN HER PLACE.) and me by asking about outfits in your untrained violin voice.
That's what she sounds like, especially when she's excited (all the time): one of those beginner violin classes where the little kids can't do anything except scrape away the screetchies.

Humph. HUMPH I SAY. Today I was suppose to meet Katie for lunch because she can't come tomorrow because her boyfriend is taking her to see the Nutcracker...in some city that is not here. I don't know where. But she couldn't make it to campus on time, of which I was secretly glad because, and here's me being honest again, I'm a hermit and wanted to read while still letting Katie know I love her. Mission accomplished.

Also accomplished: ALL OF MY SCHOOLWORK EVER. No, not really. But everything for this semester. I presented my Theories of Mass Communications project (on commercial content in WWE shows--shut up. It was a tribute.) and got the fuck out of there. No more reporting class, which means no more hot Greek reporting professor with his hot Greek accent but also no more hauling around a slacker during group projects or swearing at unfamiliar multimedia software on an unfamiliar computer for six weeks or so.
I have exams, but in classes I'm doing well in. I have a final project, but it's not due until the 10th. Tomorrow, she is all mine.

Tonight was our last radio station DJ body meeting of the semester.

I've been waiting so long for an excuse to use this picture.

It was also my dorm's fall banquet. Guess which one I went to.
Hint: the fall banquet was always boring as hell even when I had BF to showpony me around to all the faculty associates and even when I had never seen him in a tie before. This year I would have to explain why he's not there. You see how well that went last night. Also, suitemate said she was definitely going. I won't be able to avoid her at tomorrow's party, so GIVE ME PEOPLE IN FANCY CLOTHES IN PEACE. THANK YOU.
The radio station meeting ended about an hour ago; since then, I've been holed up in the production studio listening to No Way Jose and then Beethoven on vinyl. I wanted to have an Epic Picks of Latest Show burning session, but apparently my CD drive is now nonexistent. Or it doesn't like Dinosaur Jr. (That better not be it.)
I'm hiding from the dorm people. The party will be ending at 9pm. I'm staying up here late enough to justify the "Yeah, I totally had this long-ass meeting...shucks and whatnot."
My rage is oddly non-confrontational.

Suddenly I'm exhausted. Bad sleep last night, presentation anxiety followed closely by counseling and the high/crash of dressing classy/realizing no one really cares has caught up with me.

Let's go on a living spree.

My counselor said I should reclaim my memories with BF as something that's part of me, something of a great time that's over but just a piece of my whole life. Sort of. I might be paraphrasing.

So I'm reclaiming Kanye West.
Memory: May 2008. BF's graduation. We wake up in his half-empty dorm room and rush to get decent to this song. I can't hear it without seeing the sunlight making the white walls glow around us as he dug in his closet for twenty minutes trying to find his dark pants (he didn't). I was so goddamn proud of him.

It was just getting past PG.

More random conversation bits from yesterday. My id answers in italics.

From a friend of mine who just got back from teaching English in Korea and was randomly visiting the student union before he leaves to go teach in Japan in a couple weeks:

"So I heard you dumped BF. Good for you."
Uh, thanks?
"You're too good for him."
I am? 
"I guess. I don't really know what to make of BF. He's just...BF."
Yeah, me either. You have been inside my parents' house, and now all we have in common is an ex-girlfriend.

I am a people with a Korean lesson now. 

From the former principal of my dorm, who loves BF and tolerates me because BF introduced me to them and the dorm:

"Maybe you'll get back together. It's happened once before!"
*punchsnap* FUCK OFF!

That made me so fucking angry.  Yes, in September of my sophomore year, I broke up with BF for three weeks because there was another pretty boy who wanted to kiss me and whom I wanted to kiss. It was a mistake, I made everybody including myself miserable, and I patched it up as soon as I could as well as I could.
I don't know how to make this look different. I don't know how to let people know I've grown into this decision and that it's serious and final. So instead I feel like punching an old man and breaking his cell phone so he can't make patronizing news reports to his wife while I'm standing there trying to be polite. RAGE.

At the end of a random texting conversation with Bluetooth:

Aw, and it was just getting past PG.
I don't want to talk about the non-PG parts of yourself that you shave. I don't shave there and I don't want to hear the experiences of people who do. GO TO BED.

No. The dirty talk is live-show only, folks.
Sometimes I feel like I'm handling this really well, with all the right expectations and everything, and then sometimes I feel like I'm botching it badly.

 

Texting.

A text message conversation between Bluetooth (the initiator this time) and me last night while I was attempting to write a paper for my Theories of Mass Communications presentation that may or may not be today:

Bluetooth (6:47pm Monday): :-)
Me (6:48pm Monday): :-) to you too.
Bluetooth (7:18pm): :-P
Bluetooth (7:19pm): Ever watch peoples [sic] eyes, on a cold day when they've been standing outside then come to a warm room?
Me (7:20pm): Yeah. They sort of go "ahhhh."
Bluetooth (7:21pm): Very good :-P Most people wont [sic] notice that.
Me (7:22pm): I people watch a lot.

I will never understand people or their conversations.

My personal chain of communication methods from highest effort to lowest:
Phone call > text message (still require the more personal info of phone number rather than cyberspace addresses) > email = Facebook message > any other Facebook communication

Oh baby, don't feel so bad.

Last night I sobbed up a big wad of depression and phlegm between bashing away at my library science homework, pissing blue Gatorade Zero, and learning Italian from Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True. Oh and wanting my mother.

But I wear tighty whities.

I wish I could say that's not a typical Sunday night for me. But it is. It was even when I spent the weekends at BF's place, because when I went back to the dorm Sunday nights I still remembered exactly how he felt next to me in bed and had to wait the longest out of any point in the week to feel it again.

Somehow this weekend has punched me in the heart with all the post-breakup sadness and regret and loneliness that I didn't feel the first two weekends. The shit I thought I was past because, hey, wound is scabbed over by now, yes? I always did have a bad habit of scratching scabs.

Let It Bleed

I’m not much of a holiday person. Go ahead and give thanks, sure, but don’t make me say the blessing or eat turkey. Oh, dammit. Fine. Uncle Bruce? Tell me again why there’s no such thing as time, seeing as how it’s a human construct and everybody measures it relatively anyway. That’s a good one. Not as good as the one where you say everybody shouldn’t take everything so seriously, though—I actually believe you’re right there.

Can you tell me why everyone looks so small and grey this year? Including you. Good fuck, Mom’s right about you looking like House. Your head use to be too square, your face too clean-shaven, your body too stocky—not fat, mind you. You’ve never been fat. But now you’re scruffy-skinny. It’s weird and frightening. Stop aging and tell me again how you’ve been single since 1997 and don’t regret a minute of it. Tell me about being a happy cat guy down in Florida.

…Oh. Your cat died in May. Huh. I’m really sorry, man, he was a good one—

Want to hear about being a newly single (something about that word rubs me the wrong way, but it’s the best description; “independent” is too celebratory, “lonely” is too pathetic and only true in the deep dark part of my brain that died a little when I broke up with BF) undergraduate home for a long weekend of break from final projects and fuck buddy shenanigans? Okay.

Well, there’s not a hell of a lot to tell. I cried while looking at laptops on the Apple website. Dad thinks my next laptop should be a Mac, because I’m on the creative side of things.
BF is a Mac fanboy. For most of the time I knew him, he carted around a white plastic unibody Mac Book with those little dirty arcs worn in front of the keyboard by the heels of his typing hands. When it was stolen about a year and a half ago, he bought an aluminum unibody and named it Mr. West. After Kanye.
I was just looking at laptops and remembering the first time he had his dorm room to himself for the weekend while we were dating and we watched The American President with that Mac Book on our knees on his roommate’s futon and how I still have no idea how that movie ended because we got too busy making out, and I had to duck into the bathroom and sob for a bit to get a hold of myself. And hear, I’m tearing up again writing about it.
Those hand arcs just killed me. I took that plastic unibody to his college graduation for him. I can’t even remember why now.

I’ve talked to Mike, Bluetooth, and Suitemate through text messaging. I haven’t heard any of their voices all break. Bluetooth wanted to know if I have picture messaging. My thought process: Yes. *send* Oh fuck don’t send me a picture of your penis, dude. *receiving chime* …The den of your “island home” and a milkshake machine. *whew*

Suitemate on Facbook chat: Are you interested in [Bluetooth]? You totally don’t have to tell me, I realize it’s a personal question, etc etc etc.
Me: He seems nice, but I’m not looking for a relationship at all right now.
Truth. 

 I don’t want to deal with anybody else’s shit.
Right, Uncle Bruce? Right. Adios, ameba! I stole a Vega!

Play us out, fellas.

I'm going home for Thanksgiving break in a couple hours. I'm taking this cold and my Sanity Rabbit with me.

Not pictured: actual sanity. He can flip, too.

I won't have blog access, thanks to Dad's paranoia about me going anywhere except my email account on the home computer. But I'm not planning on having anything to blog about when I'm miles away from my ability to stalk or answer booty calls.

That sounds crude. I feel like I sound more flippant on this blog than I really feel. It's a defense mechanism and something I do all the time. I am most sincerely glad to be buried at home--but that's not right, either. I don't know how I feel.

It's been exactly three weeks.

Bluetooth has to return some videotapes.
Why do I know so many boys who like American Psycho so much?

Raw is War

The oddest thing that kicks me in the heart nowadays is Monday Night Raw. I can't watch it anymore.
It use to be a bonding experience with me and BF and whoever else wandered in at the dorm--we'd turn on the common room TV and settle on the Flip and Freak (pullout couch + door that locks + coed dorm = yes, people have been caught) and I'd pay more attention to BF's chest or shoulder than to whatever the hell John Cena or Randy Orton were up to.
Oof.
His breath would smell like Cherry Coke Zero and ranch dip. He'd fiddle around on his iPhone and answer whatever questions we had about the match or the wrestlers. We'd yell, "Kinky!" to highlight the homoerotic moves, BF would revoke our speaking priviledges, and now it's all gone.
Monday Night Raw was a big part of our origin story, and now it's all gone.
Fucking Santino Marella makes me weepy now, because I notice he's wearing a new shirt and I wonder what BF thinks about it before I remember, oh wait. I shouldn't care.
Monday nights are the worst. I'm calling it. At least Fridays have distractions that don't remind me of him.

Like a bunny.

Um. Heh. So, I guess this post should have a warning, too. How about this: if you get skeezed out by descriptions of making out, groping, or nakedness--dear reader, move on.

Bought but have not worn yet: I need more bad-assery in my life.

I spent the afternoon moseying around one end of downtown, the older end with my favorite used record store and the punkish thrift store and the no-fuss-just-good-food restaurants and the bars that look like they're hung over in the sunlight and the good grocery store and...yes, and BF's condo, but his car wasn't there so I'm guessing he went to watch the stupid football game at his mom's again. When it's a noon game, that turns into an all-day thing because she's a really good cook. I miss her pulled pork.

Anyway, my plan was to keep occupied until dinner, eat at the student union, then dress up a bit to go see a play by our theater department (free with student ID, hey hey). I figured that, plus some boring-ass homework, would get me through Saturday.
Weekends can yawn so wide. I'm afraid of feeling it as keenly as I did freshman year before I made friends (it took awhile) and/or started dating BF.

I was watching an online back episode of Greek (I go through them in a chunk every six months or so as part of my life cycle) about 5:45pm when Bluetooth called.
He called. I had given up. Nobody actually has to write a management science paper on Friday...right?
He wanted to know 1. if I was hungry (yeah) 2. was Chinese food okay? (yeah) and 3. how fast could I get ready? (About 10 minutes. 20 if I have to find clean pants, but fuck that. Pants don't get dirty.)
One sweater-changing, face-scrub, hair-brushing, shoes-slipping-into later, I met him and two of his friends (Also DJ, an electronica guy up at the station; and Polar Bear Shirt Girl, who may or may not be Also DJ's girlfriend. I don't think they've decided yet) in his car next to the honors dorm and we went to dinner.

Okay, stop here for a second. Why did I agree to go with him (them) so quickly?
Because I was bored. Because I wanted to figure how we felt about each other. Because, dammit, I was going to get a makeout session out of this weekend if I could.

A double not-date at a Chinese buffet with people I don't know made me go "Really?" in my head a couple times, but the food was good and the conversation was interesting (if not completely inclusive) and it was An Experience to file away.
After dinner we went back to campus, Bluetooth pulled over into a tiny vacant lot, and we just stood around for a little while until everybody else made leaving gestures and I said, "Do you guys want to hang out some more? I mean, I don't really have anything else to do tonight," and it's not even 8pm, I silently added.
Shrugs. "Uh, sure. We can go back to [apartment Bluetooth and Also DJ share], if that's cool." Also DJ's show is on 10pm to midnight Saturdays, so he couldn't do anything radical, but we did watch an episode of The Walking Dead downstairs on their complex's bigscreen while squished together on the squishy couch.

We didn't really have to squish together. It was a decent-size couch for the four of us. But squish we did on my end. And Bluetooth started poking me.
Poking me. That triggered an unnerving sense of deja vu. That was BF's opening move. Also a headlock.
Most of the way through the episode, Also DJ had to split and PBS Girl went with him. So Bluetooth and I watched the rest. Alone. Still squished. And when it was over we stared at the screen.
"I don't want a relationship right now."
Me, either!
"So what do you want?"
Someone to...hang out with.
"Someone to have fun with?"
Sure. Yes.
"So like what kind of fun?"
Well.
"Want a hug? Here, let's hug."
It wasn't so much of a hug as it was a long, trembly cling of two people slightly startled by its intensity but not surprised it happened. It was a makeout without lips. I noticed how fast his heart was beating and how twitchy his muscles felt--he wasn't relaxed at all. And then lips became involved.
I wish I had some profound way of describing kissing. I don't. It just feels good.
We went back upstairs and made out on his bed and started peeling clothes off and I said I don't have my own birth control so I didn't want to go all the way and he fingered me and I touched him with my hands and my lips and we talked--at one point I was straddled on top of him and he asked, "So what makes me better for this than Mike?"--we talked about life, religion and our general lack thereof, our relationships we've both recently gotten out of, brith control, Ultimate Life Goals. And then he started poking my side with his erection and we jerked off together.
The whole experience was warm and fluid and mutual and purely enjoyable, to my delight and secret amazement. He took an imaginary picture of my vagina with a little frame of his fingers. Click. He called it pretty in passing.
We chatted at each other while taking turns in the shower, and then he showed me pictures from when he spent a month in Israel and then we got dressed and he drove me back and I slept in my own bed.

I didn't feel weird, awkward, or slutty. That was exactly what I wanted out of this weekend.
I don't have any sort of urge to contact him. I think I'll be okay if I never see him or talk to him again. He will be remembered fondly, Velcro shoes or no.
Good talk, Bluetooth. Good talk.

An epic of epic epicness.

Warning: Tale of anger, depression, and stupid boys coming up. If you've heard it a million times before (you have), I would look elsewhere for original entertainment.

Thursday night: we went to see Scott Pilgrim Versus the World. I have class in the j-school until 6:30pm, after which I hike to the student union to inhale dinner before the 7pm student DJ meeting. After that I trot downstairs and found Mike and Suitemate just finishing their own dinner, so I join them. We laugh a lot, mostly at each other. He's easy to embarrass; I'm prone to absurdity. Both of those make us crack up. Suitemate looks mystified a lot of the time, but that's sort of her default setting (She's smart, I swear she is--she's a biomedical engineer, for fuck's sake, but she acts so goddamn oblivious).

At the movie: Suitemate, Mike, me, then an empty seat at the end of our row for Bluetooth who said he was coming after a mandatory jazz concert attendance. Scott Pilgrim starts, and it's awesome--I love the music and how it's illustrated and how the video game touches give the story a sense of epicness that new, complicated romances always feel like when they're happening to you. Michael Cera is still Michael Cera, but it works here.
Bluetooth sneaks in and sits down in the dark a few minutes after the opening credits. I smile at being in the middle of an adorable Comp Sci geek sandwich.

Lights up: we wander out, I lose my glasses in the theater, Bluetooth found them, we all talk about our vision problems, we talk more, I wonder if Bluetooth is slightly racist, but he likes The Boondocks. I love that show. I show him the voice mail icon on my phone and tell him that's him but I still can't get to it; he says, "...I never left you a voice mail. Sorry."
Inside, I wither into a fetal-position-shaped crumbly ball of shame.
We group-walk Mike back to his car, which is named Minerva. I've had the letter I wrote shoved into my pocket this whole time; I give it to him and tell him it's writing crap to read at home.
Bluetooth walks me and Suitemate back to dorm; I give him the downstairs non-signed-in tour, Suitemate goes upstairs, I'm still wired so I walk him to the car in front of the Earth Wind and Fire building (not the actual name, but close enough that everyone calls it that). He asks what I'm doing this weekend. My answer spazzes out. I attempt to apologize and say I don't know, which is not a perfect effort but he says okay, he'll get in touch and maybe we could do something Friday night. I don't know what I want to do. I don't know if I want to do something with him. I just--don't--know and my brain freezes and I smile at him and refuse his offer for a ride back (it's two and a half blocks of a street I know like the back pattern of BF's freckles and oh that's an unfortunate thought to have) and he hugs me, for a long time, until the glasses I've parked on top of my head start to bend and I have to untangle them and we break apart. He calls my phone to leave a voice mail so I can check my voice mail and finally get that fucking thing off my mind; it works.

A few things: his fly was unzipped. The fly on his really old jeans that was topped with a dust-speckled Honors College polo (oh Brother), all wrapped up in an old Northface puffy jacket that was leaking stuffing from one shoulder and VELCRO shoes. And he had his cellphone--his goddamn smartphone--clipped to his belt. When did it become fashionable to make your belt look like a python whose last meal isn't quite done yet?
I like geeks and geek style, but they need to realize that cell phones are becoming smaller for the sole purpose of being easier to store in pockets.

Friday: As I'm walking to my first class, I get into a text message conversation with Mike. He's read my letter. Can we talk/write? Yes, let's phone talk after our morning classes. Countdown to 12:15pm begins.
"I'm okay. How're you?"
"Really nervous."
"Yeah. Me, too."
Upshot is, it's Jesus's fault.
Atheist me and Christian Mike have vastly different expectations and morals for a dating relationship, which works out great for a friendship that doesn't involve planning any sort of life together for any amount of time.
I knew this. It was what I was expecting. Not what I was hoping for, but what I was expecting. What I wasn't expecting was how lonely it would make me feel (a lot).
We're still friends. Campus best friends, as he put it, albeit with an extra two or three servings of awkward sauce that I'm not prepaired to face until after Thanksgiving.

I always fucking take it. Every fucking time I give a guy a note explaining my squishy feelings for them, it ends in "Um, wow. I didn't know you felt this way, and, uh, you're such a good friend that I hate to..." You'd think I'd learn my fucking lesson by now, right? No. Reckless Writing Dumbass triumphs over reason every. single. time and has since 7th grade. I'd like to think feelings have grown more sophisticated, skins thickened, but no.

So then I spend the rest of Friday waiting to see if Bluetooth will contact me in some way that I will receive and be able to respond to; he text messages me about 6:30pm and says there's not much going on and he's cleaning his room. What do I have planned. Nothing except dinner and TV, I say truthfully. Quiet evening in. Silence from him. Real exciting, I know, I joke. Silence for another hour, until I can't take it and ask if he would like to hang out or would cleaning take all night?
No, he said, cleaning won't take all night, but he has to write a management science paper. Sorry.

BULL. SHIT. I haven't dated in 3 years and even I know that NO ONE has to write a SCHOOL PAPER on a FRIDAY NIGHT. Fuck you. You owe me $5.98 for the pint of ice cream and diet Coke I thought really hard about getting that night and then decided to get for Saturday lunch, however much I can spend at the thrift store Saturday afternoon, and for however much it costs to produce The Soup, the Fashion Police, and the hour and a half of Avatar I made it through before deciding to drag my sorry weeping ass and broken ego upstairs to bed while remembering what BF's shoulder felt like and how nobody else in the entire universe has a shoulder that feels exactly like his.

And that's what's happend so far this weekend.

You got your cherry bomb.

I swear I take good notes in sociology.

We're all going to the movie tonight. This means it's move-making time, for all of us.


"Rusty, I can't go to jail. I have serious food allergies."

Counseling appointment 2

Talking to a Student Health counselor makes me wonder when the hell I became mature about handling my emotions. It was the second-most depressed I've been about the breakup because I had to talk about it. I let it out, all over the rest of Counselor Laura's Kleenex. It hurt. But apparently, it was a very well-adjusted hurt.

(Incidentally, "Kleenex" is one of my favorite words to spell.)

Now I'm trying to comb out weekend plans, all of which seem to involve a movie and the delicate dance of early-stage undergraduate mating rituals:

1. Scott Pilgrim Versus the World: Mike is going to see that this weekend, dammit. Maybe even all three times it shows at the student union. He really likes that movie. I mean, yeah. 
2. Suitemate is going, too.
3. Bluetooth's going as well, because I'm going.
4. Mike and Suitemate have decided on tomorrow night. Can I go at that time?
5. Yes, after class and the radio station DJ meeting. Will Bluetooth be back in time to go then?
6. I don't know. I'm still waiting for a text message reply. If he can't, that means he might want to do something Friday night. With me. Just me. 
7. That's a suddenly terrifying thought. But Bluetooth hasn't replied yet.

Right now I feel like staying in and watching The Soup (oh hi Joel McHale) on Friday. 

Top five.

This is how I felt last night.


Edit: and this is what made me feel better today.
Breaking Up Is Rad to Do

Carrier pidgeons

My rant from yesterday is rendered null and void by the cockblocking capacity of modern technologies.
What the fuck am I talking about?
I didn't know I had two messages from Bluetooth in two different media because my notification systems FAILED so hard I would throw them across the room if that were possible (and/or if it wouldn't mean buying a new phone).
I sent him an email independent of all that shit because I wanted to talk to him. Turns out he wants to talk to me, too. And has been trying.
Maybe we can use carrier pidgeons. He doesn't live far. Or maybe we can just use Mike as a human, delay-time telephone. Suitemate's already indavertantly become one between me and Mike; it works surprisingly well.

Sigh. Contact info has been changed to more reliable address. I hope.
I will be okay if none of this works out. I will not be okay if this ends with Bluetooth thinking I'm a bitch because I don't reply to him.

In which the phone doesn't ring.

This weekend I've let myself check my email and voicemail more than is healthy. I'm both comforted and disturbed by the fact that this seems to be every person's reaction after giving their contact information to a potential...good time? Mate? Significant other? Thing/person to do on the weekends?

I'm not desperate for any of that. I just hate going cold turkey from conversation and oh interesting person hi there why yes let's have a conversation of the bonding sort to [this is the sound of me all alone staring at my sociology paper]. I hate the abrupt slam of silence when I'm not sure if I'll ever hear from the interesting person again.  It makes me paranoid that I dreamed up the whole thing and was talking to my backpack the whole time.
I like my communications fast, clear, and out in the open. Once they're out in the open, I can commence the task of combing through them, sorting them, throwing them away or braiding them into the whole.

But in order to not scare anyone off, I've become just as bad, spending the weekend restraining myself and calculating what any small, significant (online) gestures might mean, obsessing over whether I missed one and whether or not I offended anybody if i did.
My cell phone--I'm blaming it for that last part. The voicemail message icon has been there since the SSA talk, which was in a building that throws me off my network so I didn't hear any ringing, or any voicemail chime. Okay! Yes! This might be some communication! Whoo! Actual voicemail inbox says: "You have no messages."
One of them is lying. All of them are driving me crazy.  

And see? Now I'm Facebook friends with SSA Guy. Thank you for responding, sir. You look really different without your beard.

You can leave now.

Kevin Roose's autograph:
I read his book but I didn't buy it. But I had an extra napkin.

Note to self:
STOP ACCEPTING RIDES FROM MEN YOU DON'T KNOW.
Yes, I realize you don't have a car. Yes, I realize your familiar ride was way too caught up in metaphysical discussions with fellow atheists to be anywhere close to going home at 1am. Yes, I realize it was like 20 miles back to campus and yes, I realize you talked with soft-spoken SSA Guy for 2 1/2 hours which may or may not be enough time to sufficiently recognize a sociopath.
And yes, I realize you are okay. More than okay--you're happy. You had a great time last night, first hearing Kevin Roose talk about attending Liberty University undercover and writing a book about it; then joking around and listening to Andrew and New President talk hard and fast; then deciding to go with them to a house party (The Ungodly Feast) and discovering that, sweetie, you really don't like alcohol (it all tastes like cough syrup to you) and always end up drinking water instead; then settling into a long meandering conversation with SSA Guy until you both start nodding off and he offers to take you back to campus.

You've been missing this socializing the whole time you were in a relationship. It makes you feel liberated to go wherever the hell you want and do whatever the hell you want and talk to whoever the hell you want without checking to make sure it's okay or feeling guilty about leaving your other half hanging. It makes you happy to be spontaneous, and you're so fucking glad you didn't feel obliged to go watch the stupid football game at your ex's mother's house last night.

SSA Guy was a physics major, thinking about law school now. He has a beard and pushes his glasses up his nose in an uncanny imitation of your friend Sean. When SSA guy talked he reminded you of the sociology professor you had second semester freshman year. He was shy and you enjoyed getting past that. He's a lot smarter than you are. He's probably headed back to D.C. by now. He seemed sweet.

But woman, BE CAREFUL.
Open your heart but don't give it away. In either a literal or metaphoric sense; please oh please avoid serial killers and heart breakers.

Recipe for my first weekend up here alone.

Preparation:
1. Decide to not go home a second weekend in a row, especially with Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks so close on my and each other's asses.
2. Hope really hard that my roommate's open suitcase means she's going home so I don't have to explain why I'm still here instead of BF's condo.
3. Eat dried chicken (wonder why everybody who cooks thinks the breast is so great) and polite conversation during the j-school scholarship luncheon.
4. Walk to Food Lion, guiltily check for BF's car, stay paranoid of him and/or how it gets completely dark by 6pm now while you buy food and hike back.

Not pictured: my dignity.

Ingredients:
1 box Hamburger Helper
vague approximation of vegetables
1 12-pack diet cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper
1 good movie at the student union
1 Pastafarians talk
1 good friend (male)
1 cockblocking suitemate who probably doesn't know what "cockblocking" means
depression, lonliness, giddyness
1 call to parents laced with reassurances
2-3 servings of masturbation
1 low-neck sweater
1 sociology paper (5-7 pages)
1 journalism paper (5-7 pages)
1 library science homework assignment

Steps:
Combine Hamburger Helper, vegetables, 1 can diet Dr. Pepper. Consume at regular-ish intervals when needed by hunger. If nausea occures, try more diet Dr. Pepper.
Put on low-cut sweater (be sure to avoid makeup, tight jeans, visible bra, or shiny things near boobs). Go to movie with good (male) friend, cockblocking suite mate, and about 50 other people they both know somehow. Hate cockblocking suite mate when she wants to sit next to me; hate male friend when he agrees and takes his comfortable bulk away from anywhere I could possible brush up against it during the movie. Concentrate on how conflicted Leonardo in a suit is a fine sight and not on how much I have to pee.
Afterward, stand around with everybody first outside, then in the Cheap and Fast and Good sub shop down the street, talking (does not have to be about nerdy things, but it helps). Officially meet Bluetooth and notice eye contact from him by making my own eye contact.
When things break up at approximately 1:45am, don't walk male friend to his car but instead help Bluetooth find the bluetooth headset he dropped somewhere in the parking lot. Marvel at how useful the concept of "triangulation" is. Find headset by almost stepping on it; get hug and reassurance that headset is for listening to podcasts and not "looking like a douche while talking on the phone." Accept two-second ride back to dorm because by now I can't remember if I have toes or if the cold snapped them off.
Take Bluetooth's business card. Scribble my own name-number-email on back of another. Be slightly stunned at how easy that was and how much fun you just had with people who are actual friends. Realize this sort of thing is exactly what you've been missing from your Friday nights.
Bake journalism paper in intervals until done.
Call parents to let them know depression and lonliness have been used sparingly.
Go to Pastafarians talk. Let stand overnight.
Bake sociology paper until done. Suddenly remember library science assignment--pan fry that sucker to a reasonably consistent finish. Wonder if watching The Amazing Race would be too traumatic.

Another one.

From another science fiction editor of the same magazine:

I'm going to pass on this one, but it was very close.

I love the basic idea. I've even written something similar myself.

However I do see two basic problems. Firstly I'd expect there to be something different about Michael that gave Angie at least a few clues early on. If Michael's supposed to be an experiment I'd not expect him to work perfectly at the first attempt.

Secondly I don't like the overdose as an ending. I'd sooner that she came up with a better plan.

Please keep writing and submit again. I love your ideas and want to see more.

A few things from Your Author:
1. Yes, I stole Mike's name.
2. Hmm. The editor's right about the experiment thing, but this was stealth beta testing. Nobody was suppose to figure it out, especially the other extras.
3. The overdose is of sleep-to-dream serum, so she's not killing herself, just putting herself in a permanent dream state.
But they want more. I think I might like writing a hero-based story instead of stumbling around in mumblecore literary fiction all the time.
Oh, and here's the synopsis of the story I sent in so you know what the hell I'm talking about:

Dream extra for hire Angie becomes obsessed with another extra, Michael, who keeps populating the same dreams she does. Frustrated at her inability to ignite their relationship as a bit player, she works overtime to earn enough money to become a client and gain complete control. While looking for him in their real-world compound, she stumbles onto his face in a computer program that is beta testing robotic avatars meant to phase out human extras. Shocked at first, she then takes an overdose of her remaining dream placement serum to stay with him in the only way she knows how.

Rejection from the outside.

This is the body of an email I got yesterday:

Thank you for submitting your manuscript. If Angie were trying to rise above her confining, tawdry situation to find a living man, perhaps the model for Michael, if she put herself at risk to escape obsessions and other people's dreams, I would be interested in your story. I want to see stories where the characters rise above, grow, take risks to achieve something worthwhile, try their best, recover their souls. When we write about someone sinking down into oblivion, some of our own self sinks, something in the reader sinks too.
You write well. Please consider what I've said when writing your future stories, and I will be happy to read them.

So, my short story "Sleep to Dream" (yes, I named it after the Fiona Apple song) got rejected because the main character didn't stop being depressing. Huh.
You know, I think I can live with that. It's not poor construction; they just don't like the material I used. 

Hurt My Boy

I wrote this short story yesterday.

"Hurt My Boy"

She hurt my boy two weeks ago. Broke his heart and stomped--

Mom. Stop.

--on the pieces. What? That's what happened, isn't it?

I don't want to talk about it.

I know, dear. I know.

We've been talking about it for two weeks. Can we just—not?

Okay. Okay. I'll leave you alone.

You don't have to go anywhere, just...

But I do have to go out of the room, leave him on his side of the couch. It's gone a little squishier around him since that Tuesday. When he gets up for work or food or the toilet, the suede puckers reach up to grab him back in. If I stay I'll notice that, and I'll say something, or at least think something loud enough to bother him.

It's better to give him quiet, so I go upstairs.

The first week, she called his cell phone. Now he keeps that off and upstairs, and she calls the house. He never answers it. That's my job.

No, I say into the receiver. Not here. I don't know when.

He stares harder at his laptops I hang up. Who was--

No one. For Liz.

Like hell it was! Liz is folded next to her brother like a gargoyle, all folded legs and arms and startled eyes. She knows too much. Why didn't you hand it over?

Telemarketer.

Liz punched my boy on the arm. Tell your nutter to fuck off.

She's not mine.

Anymore, I almost add out loud. Horrified, I pick up the remote and start flipping. Liz.

What? Did we stop practicing the First Amendment around here without my knowledge?

Yes, dear.

I need to know these things, Ma. She stands up, leans over and headbutts her brother. I gotta go do my fornicating homework. Can I borrow his car tomorrow night?

Hey! He doesn't move. His face stays round and set.

Where are you going that's so damn important?

That does it. He crumbles.

Liz...

Liz looks suddenly worried. She leans down again and hugs her brother's neck. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Want to come with me? 

No.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Want to come with me?

I liked her. She was sweet. She seemed so happy with him. I was going to--

Mom. Don't.

Don't what?

You know. We talked about it last month. What you were going to do.

On the side of my chair that he can't—won't—see, I tip one of my knitting needles until the red stitches fell unraveled into a basket. She liked red. Still liked it, maybe.

So. Any weekend plans?

He shakes his head.

He use to spend the whole weekend with her, packing his suitcase and trailing it behind him like a tourist looking for the right gate at an airport. He would come back Sunday evenings, sometimes for dinner and sometimes not, usually smelling like her shampoo and always smiling. Liz would bait him and he'd let it flow off him into a bad pun.

That's what I miss the most. That's what I hate her for—she stole his sense of humor.

She can keep that. Liz leans across me to open the refrigerator. 

Can you get me a diet Coke from the back, dear?

Liz squints. You're closer.

Please?

Okay okay okay. She grabbed two, opened one with a chewed fingernail, and handed it over. Cold enough? Should I go grab some snow?

He hasn't moved, Liz. 

It's winter. Nobody's suppose to move.

But he's—inert. Depressed. I don't think he's gotten off the couch in--

About an hour and a half. He was taking a piss when I went to steal his laptop. I put it back before he noticed. He takes a really long time in the bathroom, ever notice that? 

No, dear. I can't say that I have.

I'm just saying that's probably more worrisome than whatever this girl did to him.

How can you say that, Liz? He's...

He'll get over it. 

Liz...

He will. The batshit crazy ones are always the easiest to get over. And she's batshit, Ma. Liz took a long swallow. I don't know what she took of his—essence, or whatever, but it's gone and probably for the better because if that piece of insanity and booze wanted it, it couldn't've been good for him. You know?

She wasn't that bad, Liz.

Liz shrugs. I'm trying to be supportive.

Did you say booze?

Liz shrugs again.

Liz. Did she get your brother into trouble with alcohol?

Liz smiles. See? Now you hate her, too. 

And I do. God help me, but I do. She hurt my boy. What else can I do?

THE END