Why did I stay sober for this?

Never again, my friends.
I'm not even talking about Bluetooth; we'll get to him in a minute. Right at this second I'm talking about never, ever again relying on campus-run activities on a Friday night or the people who like to go to campus-run activities on a Friday night for a fun Friday night.
It doesn't fucking work.

Okay, picture this: the state fair with all its long lines and corn dogs and fried pickles (no, really, get that specific image of a puke-smelling dill pickle all up in your head and nose and gag reflex) and crowd and longass lines, but without the rides or clear night air or one-man band that makes the experience awesomely chintzy.
We stood in line in the student union for cheap metal engravings, airbrush tattoos (not me for this one, thanks--am morally allergic to anything on my skin that makes me look stupid), and caricatures. Standing in line took fucking HOURS.

I've been practicing my shit-eating grin.

Hours in which I had to  listen to Suitemate and Clingy giggle over Bluetooth, who by the way was standing right there. He flirted hard with her, touching and hugging and joking about sex and basically pulling all his Stock Moves (they worked on me too, okay?) while she took in the attention like a cat, with a sort of arching-back smugness and almost purring but not quite. But wanting to.
Completely independent of any complications, Suitemate and Clingy are the two most annoying people I've ever stood in longass lines with.
It made me want to stab all three of them.
Clingy's twin sister I shall call Subdue. I didn't want to stab her. She seemed coolly low-key and willing to call anyone out on their ridiculousness.  Truly refreshing.

Mike was suppose to go too but he's sick now. Which was another thing Suitemate was bitching about all last night, only she tried to keep it secret and coded even though we all knew exactly who she was talking about.

Bluetooth did not ignore me. I made a well-placed American Psycho reference, he surreptitiously poked me once in awhile, we contemplated using his mustard/ketchup puddles for finger painting instead of corndog coating.
But I got so jealous I had to step outside and put my hot forehead on a cold railing for a few minutes. And at one point, I was lying down in the middle of the basement mail room twitching at the sound of Clingy and Bluetooth playing foozball in the game room next door. I didn't have to check my mail. It was midnight on a Friday, not a shouting distance of being open.
Jealous. Yeah.
I don't want to be his girlfriend. I kept repeating this to myself. Nope. Don't really like him all that much as a person. But dammit. DAMMIT. OW. Secret sex lives hurt, y'all. This was exactly why I was not planning to and still am not going to the movies with them tonight. Not that they want me there anyway.

I was angling to walk him to his car alone and possibly thus grab a makeout minute or two, but that didn't even happen. We all walked to Clingy's car in the garage and then she drove him to his street-parked car, dumping me and Suitemate off at our dorm on the way.
FUCK YOU GUYS AND THE MATCHMAKING SUV YOU RODE IN ON. CHRIST ON A CRACKER.

I was fuming when I got back into the dorm. Fuming. I flung myself down on the nearest lobby couch, grabbed a year-old copy of Us Weekly that I started ripping through without reading, and initiated a texting conversation with Bluetooth that started like this:

Me: Why did I stay sober for that?
His response was immediate: Fucked if I know. What a waste of a night.

HA! All of a sudden I was validated. Within twenty minutes, I learned that he thinks Suitemate is annoying, too. He's already fended off a girlfriend offer from Clingy but he still loves the attention.
Oh, my god. *takes deep breaths of fresh air* It's not about competing against another girl for his attention. It's about finding out he feels the same combination of bored and pissed off that I do and also had to hide it for four hour and now wants to bitch about it too. Eureka.

Is there a female equivalent of blue balls? Mauve clitoris, maybe?

PS. Mike called me Thursday while I was eating dinner at the student union; he was wondering if I wanted to grab dinner at the student union. I told him come on over and I'll be back right after I take a post-gym shower; then I persuaded him to actually attend the radio station interest meeting he had been thinking about, and after that he found me in the theater right before the movie started (I was going to enjoy Robert Downey Jr. on my own time, thanks) and said, "I'm going to the next meeting." Hook line and sinker, thank you.
I'm happy that I have my friend back.
"We should use Google Docs to schedule our social lives. It'd make everything so much easier."
"No, no: Google Calendar. It automatically updates."
Your nerd is showing, sir, and it's adorable.

Univited.

Apparently I'm like crack to Bluetooth and as such would interfere with Suitemate's appointed job of figuring out how he likes Clingy at the free movie Saturday night. Suitemate said it, not him.
Let me explain:

Once upon a time, a girl I'll call Clingy wanted to know what a boy I'll call Bluetooth thought of her. There had been vague talk between the two of them about starting along the path of young love, but he became distant and inconsistent in his enthusiasm (here measured by instances of contact and hanging out in the traditional, non-euphamistic original meaning). She then called upon her young loyalist known here as Suitemate to gather a group together for an outing, including Bluetooth without telling him Clingy would be going. It worked. He agreed.

They're going to the Saturday night movie and Suitemate's suppose to figure out how Bluetooth feels based on how he acts for two hours in the dark in the same group as Clingy.
I have been uninvited.

Several things (just let me put aside the instinct that I have been played, too, so I can at least pretend to be objective):

• This is a bad idea.
• Who thought this was a good way to figure anything out besides the exact amount of awkward those stupid little theater seats can hold for two hours?
• Seriously. Suitemate told me to not come because I distract Bluetooth. I am clinging to my objectivity as hard as possible when I say that maybe the fact that another girl distracts him is a sign that he is not entirely interested in the first girl. 
• Nobody knows what Bluetooth is thinking. Bluetooth doesn't know what Bluetooth is thinking. Don't try to interpret because it will be wrong. It's not a boy thing; it's a human thing. 

*hands over objectivity*

• I wonder if Bluetooth thinks I'm going. I wonder if that's the reason he's going. It's not like he's telling me anything anymore, either.
• You know what's depressed me the most over the past 10 days or so? Feeling like my friend (Mike) and my sex (Bluetooth) have both been yanked away from me just when I started getting the most comfort from them. I want them back, goddammit. 
• I was almost over the sex part, too, until Suitemate told me all about this plan.
• This is a really, really bad idea.

I'm going to the student movie fest on they're having on Friday. Suitemate (and, presumably, Mike et al) doesn't want to go. There's a chance Bluetooth will be there. He might've made one of the student movies. (See last sentence of first non-objective bullet point.) 
Of course I care. I wish I didn't but I do. But he'll be there or he won't be there and I'll get laid or get over it either way. Right now it's making my head hurt and my soul itch really badly.
I'm hanging out with Katie Saturday. Dear fuck I need a drink and a place to bury my cell phone and sit on my hands for the next week.
 

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.

Photos make it real.

Do you know what this is, my friends?

AWESOMENESS ON WAX is an acceptable answer, yes.

It's a Queen album on vinyl. From Mike.
Of course I've already taken the shrink wrap off--how the fuck else am I going to practice dueting with Freddy Mercury?--but it was also new yesterday late afternoon until we and my Suitemates (both of them) met up to watch the snowday movie at the student union and before we went in Mike handed me a bag that had what I thought was a calendar in it.
But when I saw what it really was, I jumped up and hugged him. I caught AIR with that hug, that's how good the boy done.
I'm extremely touched that he remembered I love Queen and my cheap but very serviceable turntable. He seemed to like High Fidelity, too; I gave him my copy (and my copy of Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal) and he and his roommate watched it last night and I know this because we had a Barry quote war a couple hours later over text messaging.

Halfway into walking him to his car, he taught me how to box step. He put our arms in the proper positions and we stamped out a foot pattern in the icy snow.

Suitemate last night in a requested one-on-one conference: "Are you interested in Mike?"
I'm interested in the fact that hanging out with him always makes me happy.
Me: "Nah, we're just good friends. ...Are you interested in him?"
Suitemate: "Um, yeah."
AH HA. I KNEW IT. I told her to ask him out on a date her own focking self. Bluntness works, one way or the other, and more importantly it saves everyone else (me) from--
UPDATE: She and he are going to watch a movie in the dorm common room Saturday at 2pm. Nobody else has been invited by either party, so cue the eyebrow wiggling. Heh.
I am actually excited about this. Either they'll find happiness in each other, or the awkwardness will be fascinating.

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.

It's a Festivus miracle.

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

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

Happy holidays.

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."

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!

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.

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. 

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.