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.