Gone.

I'm leaving school for good today, with a boyfriend, a graduation ceremony to still get through, and no more time to explain further.

My horoscope.

It has surprisingly practical advice sometimes.

Before this day is over, you might grow very accustomed to the flavor of your shoes. Sticking your foot in your mouth isn't going to be your new trademark, but it could be something you struggle with today. You may tend to say things before you think, which is bad. Luckily, it's also a problem that is easy to solve. Think things through and don't be afraid of silence. Not saying anything at all is a lot better than taking a risk and coming up short.

Go on, take everything.

I thought he was more certain about us staying together than I am. He's not. That's unsettling. I was depending on his certainty to convince me.



Shit.
I don't want him to come to graduation dinner but I don't know how to un-invite him.
But we want the exact same thing. We want the exact same thing from each other. That's what's important. We'll just have to be patient and decide.
We want exactly the same thing. Okay. I--we can do this.

Did that really just happen?

...Did Mr. Librarian really just go down on me in the dark, locked common room?

In this chair. That's my ass print 6 hours later.

At 3am. This morning. He did. Because he wanted to. And I wanted him to. And it felt damn good. A little unsettling. (For how many other people has this been a ritual, accidentally or otherwise? This isn't us going too fast, is it? Oh, fuck it--)
But wait a minute, wait a minute.
The Talks I Will Have to Have with Mr. Librarian, Probably Tonight If We See Each Other as Planned but Definitely Before Next Friday When I Peace Out of Here:

• What does it mean that I'm leaving the city and probably won't live here again for an indefinite period of time? I think I like him enough to keep this going, at least to see how it feels in my post-college reality. I think he feels the same way. But we need to make sure.
• What's he invited to on graduation day? Does he go to the ceremony and spend an hour and a solid half getting to know my parents by himself while I chill (freak) out in my seat 5,000 feet away with the rest of the mortarboards? Does he go to the ceremony and sit by himself and make everyone feel vaguely uneasy about that? Does he go to the ceremony and holy fuck please no sit with Mike? Or does he just meet me and my parents up for dinner after? None of the above; well, some of the above stitched together. He'll have work. It's 3pm on a Friday. HE'LL HAVE WORK OH THANK GOD YEAH JUST MEET US TO EAT US. (...Heh. I shouldn't put it that way on the invitations.) 
• He called me his girlfriend about five times last night, just casually tossed off. Three times in public (the Tavern at a local band show we went to hear) and twice during our Choose Your Own Adventure time. I don't care about what we call each other except when the label implies rules. Like girlfriend. And boyfriend. Those mean things.

But you know what's even more intimate? We read each others' writings and liked them. 

"Hey, let's go dance and make the other people uncomfortable."
YES.

Homie, this shit is basic.

Mike called me today.

It was after I woke up at 9am and decided to go ahead and walk to the Food Lion to buy ingredients for a red velvet cake I wanted to make for the senior semester official non-homemade-jello-shots celebration at our editing professor's house and then decided oh what the hell I won't have time in the next 36 hours so I'll go ahead and bake this sonovabitch.

It's not pretty but it gets the point across.

I was walking outside in a flour-covered t-shirt that I hadn't bothered to change because I was going for a run in about two seconds. I hadn't showered and I smelled like vanilla and frosting and had red dye smeared like blood down a forearm. Mike's car glided by and we caught eyes and waved.
That upset me. That made me remember all over again. So I went running.
After, when I was walking back upstairs in my dorm, he called. He said seeing me on campus made him realize we hadn't spoken in two weeks. (Two weeks? That time span sounds odd. But it's true.)
Yeah, I mean...I thought we were sort of going with that. The no-contact thing. As the least painful, least tempting, Jesus-will-approve-and-so-will-our-sanity option.
Now he's coming to my graduation.
That's not as intimate as it sounds; it's a spring ceremony for a public state college and is free and open to the public. A good many people come to hear the speaker and not cheer on some yahoo or another getting a degree.(Hi, Mom!)
But he's coming to see me.
I'm going to meet up with him afterward if that's possible in the chaos. I should somehow explain this to my parents, myself, and Mr. Librarian before it actually happens.
We can haz friendship back now plz?
Oh dear. I'm getting flippant again.

Literature and Star Wars

Star Wars marathon (original trilogy non-special edition, duh) + a mushroom pizza + co-copy editing an English paper for Ed over email + discovering we had articles in the same issue of the student paper in August 2007 = best date so far?
I'm very tempted to say yes.

Old picture but nicely illustrates the nerdy.

His mom watched most of the first movie with us. I'm not going to say that was annoying because guess who shouldn't cast stones from her own parents' house since she's moving back there in a week and some days? Yeah.
But we bonded over what unassigned things we've found in our past English anthology textbooks and Han Solo's bassassery vs. Luke's nobility and I don't know how else I feel about this except  "good." Kind of a generic description, but...good. It fits.

99 problems but this pitch ain't one.

Tomorrow's my last ever day of school ever. It promises to be a calm one in the newsroom.

I'm just glad I passed. That "D" is not my grade (although it's probably damn close); it's my reporting/editing professor's initial. He scribbled this on a blank sheet of tabloid paper and propped it up on my chair when I went down to the broadcast semester's studio. 

This is going up next to the diploma.

One of us does that each week, you know, look in the camera and read the scrolling words we wrote and try to stand up straight while you tell people watching (nobody except us) what's online and in the next issue in 45 seconds at the end of their daily live news show. 

Take an extra second to slow down, get it right, write it out, let your edits breathe. Find the rhythm of your story. Watch the visual grammar of your story structure; that matters too.
Remember that there are many other people and many other things in the world other than the boys you get preoccupied with. With whom you get preoccupied, sorry. Always protect the grammar. It needs your help.
I want to remember all of that.

We the students are having a keg party at one of our apartments (not it) tomorrow night to celebrate our triumph. I'm just glad I passed. I've never been to a keg party, but I like all the other people who are going and hell, don't have to wake up any sort of early on Tuesday.

No produndities, dear reader. Just an ending. I'm ready to get out of here.