Girl talk.

This is what I've been afraid of the most: this aimless bored loneliness. I don't know what to do with it, it makes me miss BF, and both feelings depress me. It's so fucking quiet around here, which makes me think everyone else is riding out the same long-weekend stupor, and maybe it's just something I'll have to get use to, and hell, the best defense BF brought to this feeling was a better cable package and comfortable shoulders. Which should not be trivialized.



I know at the very least that Suitemate is also bored and lonely, because she's told me.
She's also moaned about Mike to me, which was slightly uncomfortable because part of her uncertainty about him stems from the fact that when the three of us hang out, he and I don't give her much of a chance to talk.
"You two have known each other so much longer," she says. "So you have so much more to talk about."
Er, yeah. Let's go with that.
And not the part of me that is a terrible human being and revels in the fact of being more outrageous and quick-witted and interesting and better at flirting. No. Let's keep that part of me squished into a tiny ball and shoved into this blog for safekeeping.
She's trying to figure out whether he likes her romantically or not, and it's driving her crazy. 

Also uncomfortably amusing: overhearing Clingy Virgin (who did indeed meet us for the movie) wondering out loud if she and Bluetooth (who did not) are boyfriend and girlfriend after one date.
*suppresses panic and overconfidence and eye twitch all at the same time*
...Oh, honey.
*stop it woman!*
Can I at least tell her that he came inside me less than 24 hours before she asked us that?
NO. *smacks back of head*
Here's the deal. All I want from Bluetooth is sex and the occasional general socializing that goes along with it on Friday nights. I'll stop when he finds a significant other. He will grant me the same priviledge. We've talked about this, and frankly it's the most mature conversation I've had about relationships.
But I can't help but sit in the dark movie theater actively keeping my mouth shut while feeling Mike's warm elbow overfill the armrest beside me and mentally track the clusterfuck we've all gotten ourselves into. It's so very human and messy and unstable that it's bound to all make us hate each other eventually. Am I the only one who knows this? Can I be a milder form of the Joker and just let the anarchy ride itself out? It's got plenty of its own momentum.

Mike: "You'd be the kind of aunt who warps young minds."
Me: "Yes! Endless candy and R-rated movies for all!"





"Goddamit Anakin, fall into the lava already!"

May be a lover but you ain't no dancer.

The maiden voyage of my vagina deflector shield seems to have gone well.
I s'ppose I should explain.

But not before telling you that Mike is in this very building, right below my feet, in the dorm's common room waiting on my Suitemate to go back downstairs dressed in a warm jacket over her dress and tights. Oh and he's calling me (on my cell phone, although it'd be almost as easy to call up the stairwell).
[several meddling minutes later]
They're off to dinner. They did watch a couple movies in the common room this afternoon; I set off walking to Food Lion for groceries at exactly 2pm so I wouldn't be able to make good on my intense craving to live-blog their date through the dividing curtain in the seminar room right next door. (No, I don't have a working laptop, but I like legal pads and ballpoints better anyway...)
That took all of 45 minutes, including the part where I tried to remember if there's a reason I haven't had Tuna Helper for ten years (overruled by my boredom of ground beef and non-enthusiasm to put together anything real for tomorrow), so when I got back I listened at the common room door and then opened it really slightly because I didn't hear anything. I shut the door just as quickly when I saw the back of both their heads next to each other on one of the couches.
I was invited to dinner, but I ate the Food of the God of Saturday: boxed macaroni and cheese with mushrooms added, kettle corn popcorn, diet Dr. Pepper with half a hard lemonade added. Also because I love watching my suitemate try to navigate her nerves and my weird sense of humor and insistence that Mike is adorable. She's kind of bad at it.
I'm thinking that Mike has no clue she wants this to be a date, but that might be the bitter/impish (it changes) cynic in me.

But then, Impish Cynic got to dance and get laid last night, at the radio station's first O.G. dance party of the year, so that part of me might still be all romantical at the moment.
"That's where I first saw you, sitting with [BF]." That's Bluetooth pointing at a corner of the bar in the Tavern and remembering me after what has got to be at least a damn year.
Last night was an orgy of movement and immature wisecracks, basically, sprinkled with sub-par dance beats (which disappointed me so much; or have I just grown old since the last one?), real or imagined disapproval from people who know BF as I saw them watch me dirty dance with Clingy Hands McBluetooth, and admiration of his roommate's dance floor conquests.
I wore my Geek Boner outfit: short blue plaid skirt (with pantyhose, people, it's 35 degrees F outside), Star Wars t-shirt, Converse All-Star hightops, and that, at least, felt awesome.
When we got back to his apartment, I spread my spermicide onto my diaphragm and got it in firmly enough to let Bluetooth realize his dream of feeling me without a sheath of rubber between us for the first time. He thanked me in these lunge-y little whispers before and after. Dude, we didn't solve world peace or anything. The 95% success rate of combined spermicide and diaphragm and the student health gynocologist, not you, convinced me. But, uh, you're welcome.
I didn't feel a difference, but I'm counting that as a good thing because it means everything stayed tightly sealed.
He whispered my name while he was inside me. I don't know why I found that odd--well, maybe I assume people drift into fantasy when they're having sex but that kept us on the real side of things.
On the non-sex real side of things, I should sleep on the outside of beds I share because I will have to get up to pee and either brake my ankle trying to climb around the other person or wake them up if I sleep on the inside.

Now we're all suppose to go see the free 9pm movie at the student union, but Bluetooth may not go because Suitemate is trying to set him up with a friend of hers who is a "clingy virgin," according to his own research. Oy vey, such the human interest pieces we have around here.

My grin-busting excitement at getting published cannot be broken, even by this, because there are still people out there who who actually care about important things.

Do the day and let the day do you.

Question: Was the absolutely drivemeupthefuckingwall effort it took to not sleep in my own bed for my first night back up here worth it?
Answer from 24 hours ago: Yes! Dammit, the only reason I want to get up here more than ten seconds before classes start is to get laid! And to buy books, because I have to read most of one of them before Monday. But mostly to get laid!
Answer from 12 hours ago: I renounce text messaging and all the ways it supports--nay, promotes--passive-aggressiveness.
Answer now: Yeah, mostly. Nursing one drink while meeting new people and watching them was interesting in a very "Oh, so this is what normal people my age do" way (I should start a Normal Book). Good sex was good (I came from tongue rather than hand for the first time, and it was diluted yet longer). I have incentive to be nice until after the radio show's dance party next Friday.
But I ended up wanting to sleep in my own bed (I didn't. It was 4:35am; I pulled through). Tonight will be quiet, and for once I'll be glad.

I want diet caffeine and my own hairbrush, NOW.

My impatience, grown large and flailing from three weeks at home, is out of my system.
I missed BF a fuckton over break.
I don't care what it all means, because I'm tired of caring. Not in a depressed weary way, but in an "Okay, so that's all right then" way.
PS. Bluetooth, stop trying to convince the straight girl to kiss me. Yes, she's hot. Yes, I would very much like her to confirm my 99% certainty that I'm bisexual. But no, she doesn't want to kiss any girl except her best friend. I am not her best friend; appreciate her front and back with me and move on.

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.

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.

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."

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.

 

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.