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

The sprinklers come on at 4am.

Tuesday night I couldn't sleep. At all. It didn't even feel like my eyes were glued open against my will  or anything. I was just wide awake.
I didn't fight it for once. My roommate was up late to study but even she threw in the towel at about 2:30am, so I made a nest in the study room.

I finally got around to eating my feelings.

Excerpt from email I sent to Jenna at about 12:30am yesterday morning:

Gah, I'm crawling out of my fucking skin. I can't take this. I want to grab Mike's face and yell "DO YOU LIKE ME AS MORE THAN A FRIEND, YES OR NO?" and make him say one or the other so I can KNOW.
That doesn't mean we have to do anything about it. I just want to know how to interpret all this shit that may or may not mean anything different now that we're both single and that is at present the mental equivalent of banging my head against the desk.
I asked him to go see Inception at the RuHo on Friday, because it's free and we see the good ones when we can and I thought the walk back to his car (a shitty white Cutlass that always takes two or three turnovers to actually start--oh, God. I'm mythologizing his car. MAYDAY, Jenna.) I could ask him exactly that. He said "Maybe. Can I get back to you?" Sometimes he goes home for the weekend; maybe he was freaked out by Thursday. WHAT DOES IT MEAN??
But I can't even ask, however innocuous I want to sound, because it will always sound like I'm gunning for him. And now he's invited my suite mate, whom it turns out we both know (and I hate. There. I said it. I hate her. She has no sense of social clues whatsoever, and every time I use our shared bathroom I can hear her yapping loudly about nothing). I found out through the suite mate.
I. don't. want. to care. This feels like detox sounds, all twitchy and anxious and meanwhile I can barely look at BF's Facebook feed because it sounds so cheerful and it makes me feel like an awful person but I want to know he's as unhappy as I am so I can recognize that we actually MEANT something to each other once upon a week ago.

FUCK FUCK FUCK *bambambam*
*Breathe*

Things got better. After I decided to just stay up all night, after I finished off a jar of ranch dip with Food Lion brand tortilla chips, after I read about Mr. Rochester's secret lunatic wife (and really, how easy does the damn fool give up the ghost, as it were, after he's just straight up asked?), I did get sleepy, so I eased into my dark quiet dorm room and bed and slept for about four hours.

Yesterday I was euphoric for a couple hours in the afternoon. Yeah. Euphoric. I said it. On the way to Pysch 101 the world seemed kind and full of possibilities. I was also listening to the Killers' Hot Fuss and rediscovering why I still love that album.

This is/was my first relationship. I should mention that. I've stopped hanging out with people--friends--before but not with someone I've loved and been best friends with and know how his morning face looks for three years. Oh.

Letters I won't send.

To BF:
I'm sorry I called you again last night. It was just to let you know that I gave your camera to the front desk of your brother's workplace on Friday so they could give it to him Monday so he could give it to you...whenever the hell he said he would. Per the instructions in your letter you left for me at the front desk of my dorm.
Which annoyed the hell out of me, by the way. Is a Facebook message really so much more fucking trouble than manually writing something in pen when you type 90% of the time and had to actually travel further than the far edge of your futon to deliver the damn letter in person at a place that is still clogged with memories of, well everything? Was it really so fucking much easier to give a letter to a person so they had to flag me down instead of just hitting send your own damn self? We don't even have to be friends for you to send me a Facebook message. Embrace cyberdistance and leave my parasympathetic nervous system alone!
Ahem. You will note that everything's in there, and that I deliberately avoided Brother. I'll miss his snarkiness (I fondly recall snickering when his fake shanking turned into real sucker punches when you made a bad joke. Which was often.), his Lego catalog, and the victories of making him laugh. I won't miss feeling like I'm performing every time I talk to him.
You're a good guy, and I just want to make sure you understand immediately what I'm trying to say. I'm impatient. You know this. I want to be understood, not in an existential sense (although bonus points if that is managed), but in a clear communication sense. You know this. The way you talk around things drives me up the batshitting wall. YES or NO or I UNDERSTAND do wonders to my nerves at strategic times.
But I guess you don't really need to know that anymore, do you? No.
From:
Your ex-girlfriend who has been avoiding that label all week but needs to slap herself in the face with it until she gets use to it

Dear Mike,
I won't tell you how many times I've checked my cell phone for text messages even when I haven't heard the obnoxious unmistakable chime that doesn't mean anything else. It's embarrassing.
I won't tell you how your smell reminds me of my grandma's kitchen. You might take that as an insult (it's not; it just means you smell clean).
I won't tell you that you're the only live friend who's asked me how I'm doing. You might find that needy.
I will say thank you and DAMN IT, MAN, TELL ME I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO FELT THAT LAST THURSDAY and I'm going crazy trying to save you from being a rebound guy. You're too good for that. I like you too much for that.
I don't want to think about this anymore. Want to see a movie that will require all of our attention? It's free and really interesting.
--Your friend

Hey, Katie,
YES, I will come celebrate your birthday with you. Holy Zadie Smith YES. I want to learn how to party.
It should piss me off that you haven't responded at all when I told you about last Tuesday, but by now I really appreciate an excuse to have non-selfish, non-confusing fun.
And maybe you can demonstrate what tastes best with vodka.
Love,
Mel

Twitchy Freshman:
Just go away.

I am the only one who thinks I'm going crazy.

Dispatches from home.

Mom: "You're the only one who knows what's right for you."

Dad: "I always thought he was a little selfish."

Mom: "It's better you realized how you feel now than later."

Dad: "You need to focus on getting the next step of your own life together--not in a selfish way, but you do have a bunch of stuff coming up fast."

Mom: "Want to watch What Not to Wear?"

Dad: "Want to listen to Buddy Guy?"

This weekend, man. This weekend made me feel loved and friendless and liberated and blackly depressed, all while I was hungry but disgusted by food, checking my cell phone every ten seconds (YES, I KNOW nobody's called, texted, or raindanced at me; I KNOW it's really unlikely; I KNOW this itchy, crawly, impatient dreadful unfufilled anticipation just makes me more bored and useless and depressed, but I can't help checking, oh sweet Christ on a cracker I wish I could), reading, realizing I can still play the piano, staring at the TV, and crying and listening to Oasis and the Tragically Hip and drinking the single-serving bottle of wine that has been marinating in the bottom of my bottom sock drawer since a guy gave it to me a year and a half ago as an end-of-sophomore-year present.

"Vaccination Scar," by the Tragically Hip

I got back to BF's Facebook page filled status updates that shocked me because they sounded neutrally cheerful. Since when the fuck does he go to the library unless I (his little book nerd) suggested it?
I feel like such a bad person for being angry about this. I want to see he's hurting too, dammit.

I can't stand the stillness of being completely alone. I know I have to get through it but right now I feel like a pile of shit with amazing typing skills.

It wasn't always this way. It isn't always this way, I should say to greet the day. Sometimes it feels great.

Mom also said I shouldn't feel obligated to tell them everything about my life. Really? That's contradictory to the vibe I get every time I contact them (especially on the phone).
Like when I told her a couple hours later that I'm off birth control and plan on being celebate until next semester starts? That's probably what she meant.
To be fair, that's not a typical conversation I'd have with anyone related to me.

Goodnight, Michael, I'm going home.

My first social outing since Tuesday was inadvertently stumbling into my college's homecoming street celebration, which is called Cockfest 2010. (Our mascot is the gamecock. An angry chicken.) I meandered through said Cockfest to meet a celibate-until-marriage guy friend I find attractive.

I don't believe in the universe molding things just for little shitty ol' me, but that was an amusing train of thought.

I took Mike to dinner because he paid the last time we ate since I had forgotten all my off-campus money. Here's what happened, pulled from an email I sent Jenna this morning:

Ah, Mike. The evangelical Christian with pretty eyelashes, geeky tendencies (Star Wars is like a third wheel with us; always there and hanging out and saying stuff at random times), a warm low voice and laugh unless he's excited (then they sort of vault up the register), and love for Sarah Palin. Two of those things I disagree with. But we're a lot alike otherwise and we have great conversations, and and and. And last night we were sitting on the hood of his car and he gave me a sideways hug (hug count is up to four for this breakup) and we just sat there for a minute, me leaning on his shoulder ("You're really comfortable." "Yeah, I get that a lot." "Yeah?" "No, not really."). Our heads leaned together and we turned to look at each other before he said he should probably get home. The whole evening I had tried subtly invading his space, which didn't work, and then suddenly this.
My onion breath from dinner kept things in the friend zone. I'm glad. I went away breathless and in need of a good yank. That's not unusual, and I know exactly how to take care of it.
Last week, he sent me a text message that said, "My stats professor mentioned you in class today. He said he'd see me in front of Firehouse, walking with a beautiful girl."
Yeah. That was confusing. I left it alone (except for a thanks and some blushing to myself). I refuse to decode the subtext, because it will just make me more crazy. I don't want a boyfriend now. I want to make out with a guy who is saving 99% of all sexual acts for after he's married. When he broke up with his girlfriend (like eight or nine months ago), he talked about how he's not going to make the mistake of kissing someone strictly for lust anymore. This has been going on for the past 14 months, ever since we met in Technical Writing.

On a side note, I love the rhythm of that last clause: WALKing with a BEAUtiful GIRL.

"Good night, Melanie."
"Good night, Michael."

I like that I now seem to be able to separate what my body, heart, and head all want. Body can lust and heart can ache and head's just like, "All right, guys, take the weekend off. I know it's been hard for you both."

So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going home. Dad's coming to pick me up right after my last class. The ride home might be filled with awkward talks that may or may not involve God (please no), or it might just be filled with Johnny Winter.

I'm not going home for the comfort of my parents. That's more effective from a distance. I'm going home for my dog sleeping on my bum and for my copy of Zadie Smith's On Beauty and TV that's not two flights down and usually taken by somebody studying anyway. I'm going home for peace that doesn't crystallize into crushing isolation. That'll be soon enough next weekend. Note to self: make more friends before next Friday.

When I told Mike that, he looked surprised and said, "Well, you don't have to be alone, do you?" Um. No...no of course not. He said, "I could hang out with you," which made me want to ask exactly how he passes his weekend nights up here.

Don't make this more difficult. Push through.

*Note: the D60 is on its way to its rightful owner. Its journey will take all weekend, so I'll explain Monday.

Introduction

Hi. My name's Mel, and I broke up with my boyfriend of 2.85 years this past Tuesday.

 

From my dorm's computer lab.

It's been wretched, and I want to write about it, in which "it" = the process of becoming unglued from almost three years of my life and most of my college experience. I want to write about pushing through this mass of depression and uncertainty. I want to write about being on my own. I want to write about why I did it, because frankly, right now I'm not even sure myself.

The actual relationship is still too raw for me to talk about today (personal barometer: I'm still sobbing when I hear Paul Westerberg's "Born for Me"). I hate reading about other people's nonfiction relationships, anyway, because when you're in one it sounds and feels completely unique, but it's not. There's nothing wrong with that; it just bores people who are outside the chosen circle.

I'm writing a day-by-day survivor log. Follow along to make sure I don't drown myself in unsolicited advice, schoolwork, or diet soda/alcoholic hybrids.

Day 1: Tuesday
THE Tuesday. It hurt a fuckton. I didn't have classes because it's Election Day. After getting back to my dorm from my boyfriend's place with a glaze of snot and sweat and sleep slicked over my face and hair, I sit in the computer lab, change my Facebook status, click on my email's refresh button like a rat on a random ratio lever (thanks, Psych 101, for teaching me a more depressingly useful metaphor). When I manage to go across the street to the Student Union for lunch, a lunch lady who always recognizes me and says hi asks me about my man. That's what she says. "How's your man?" I hoist a smile that crumples rapidly as I pay and go cry into the chicken wrap I didn't really want.
I go upstairs to do my fundraiser week show on the college radio station. I get to play blues for two hours straight. I only hear about half of it.
I call my parents. Nervous as hell. I break down as soon as my mom answers. She thinks she has to say all this elaborate stuff to make me feel better but I just want to hear her say she's sorry for me. She does; I ignore most of the other stuff, especially about how this might not be permanent. Yeah, Mom. Maybe we will, I say automatically, fretting string in the hole in my jeans.
Get back to my dorm, keep refreshing BF's Facebook page to see if he's changed his status yet. Field a text from my friend Mike, an email from my distance writing friend Jenna, a couple sad faces on my Facebook relationship status. Refresh. Refresh. Nothing. My eyeballs hurt.
At 9pm, I call BF, choke into his voicemail that I miss him, then call two more times over the next 20 minutes. Feel vaguely proud of myself for being able to stop after that.

Day 2: The First Full Day
Excerpt from email I wrote to Jenna yesterday (Wednesday, November 3)

Today's been just weird. I woke up feeling actually happy. Good sleep + comfy bed + Jane Eyre. Then in the shower I started feeling absolutely wretched, and after morning sociology I cried a little in the women's room. A lady in the stall next to me asked what was wrong and I told her and she gave me advice. While we were still in our seperate stalls. She told me it may seem like the end of the world, but it's not, and "everything except homicide and suicide you can get over." Profundity in unexpected places.
Then when I went to the student union to get lunch, I ran into a guy I know from robotics (the annoying, crazy, loudly competent computer programmer). He acted all paternal (dude's 18...no, 19. Sophomore.) and gave me a hug (I ended up with my head sort of jammed into his armpit and all it smelled like was fabric).
And I need to ask BF the administrative password to one of the dorm lab computers so I can install a slidshow program to get a reporting project done for tomorrow. My laptop crapped out on me over the summer. I also have to give him back his Nikon D60.
I think I'm going to email my professor about an extension so I can beg someone else's laptop sometime before Tuesday.
Tomorrow I'm having dinner with my friend Mike, the guy I've wanted to jump for about 14 months now and have not. I won't tomorrow, at least not for real, but I miss touching already. Not even sex; sex was sort of tangibly related but too often made me worry if I/we was/were doing it right. I just miss being able to lean on someone, or touch an arm with mine, or put my head on a chest or shoulder in a careless familiar way. We watched a video in Psych 101 about baby monkeys clinging to a synthetic furry mom model, and that choked me up because it reminded me of BF's chest hair.

Damn you, Psych 101.
More parental calls--one of each. Bewildered but supportive. Me and my dad are getting so much better at talking to each other.
More Internet browsing and crying until I look like I've been smoking weed all day. I haven't, and never will. Hyperlinks are my drug of choice.

Day 3: Today and So Far
Invited insomnia to snuggle with me about 2am, because it was just standing there staring at me and I figured I might as well make a friend of it.
"Remember, God loves you," in an email from my dad. I'm an atheist. He is not. I appreciate his thought but smell a lecture coming on (it smells like laminated pine).
Went to a pre-scheduled biofeedback appointment at the student mental health center. Learned what I'm calling The Extreminties Boogie to increase circulation and how to breathe from the diaphragm so my heart doesn't feel so much like a jackrabbit's.

That Big Dark Shaggy Beast Called the Future:
I'm meeting Mike for dinner at 7pm. Reckless decisions may or may not be made.


Reading: Jane Eyre by Charolette Bronte
Listening to: Nothing while I'm writing, but I was listening to the AV Club podcast, and I want to listen to the Black Keys.

I still have his camera.

I still have his camera--his Nikon D60, to be exact. The one I borrowed two weeks ago for various reporting class projects (there are always at least two going on at once, because That's The Real World according to my professor) and love like my own child. The one that he never uses anymore, and the one that I had in my dorm room when I broke up with him in his car.

I don't know how to give it back if he doesn't answer Facebook or phone messages from me anymore. Keep trying until my name/voice doesn't stab him in the heart and leave it bleeding on his Mac's keyboard? That shit's aluminum; it'll wipe right off, I swear--I just want to give you back your $500 investment in your art, I swear--I'm harmless, I swear--

No. No, I'm not harmless. I wanted to be so badly. It didn't work.