Despertar

february 26, 2008

I like this exercise. Might make this a regular thing, every twenty-six entries or so. (Like I'll remember that.)

At midnight, I had to turn around and go back to Hugh's room because I'd left my keys there. People always leave their doors propped for me, because there's such a significant chance I'll have to come back for something.

At four minutes after, I texted Imani a happy birthday and read for Property while I watched The Family Stone, with director's commentary.

Fell asleep around two with my book open by my pillow, face turned toward my laptop, watching "The Passion of the Jew" on southparkzone.com.

I didn't shower before Property at ten. I always feel awful about that, because I sit next to Lisa, who has a really dedicated boyfriend and tends to smell wonderful, a mixture of coconut shampoo and the natural olfactory emanations of contentment. Andrea, who sits next to me on the other side, asked why I look like crap. Professor C. started lecturing before I had to answer.

Justin was online. I willed myself, with all my might, not to start a conversation with him. Failed myself, of course. Said something really inane about the weather, asked him how his previous night had been. He told me about his tax refund, which somehow segued into a conversation about how much we respectively trust the government, which prompted his statement that he trusts the government more than Mulder does. I started talking X-Files, a little too zealously, until he abruptly ended that line of conversation, because he doesn't really know anything about it.

That was kind of embarrassing. I took a break from gchat to write my "let's talk about love" journal entry.

Right after I posted, I started paying attention and realized Professor C. was calling on all the black people in the room. (To clarify, I don't think that was her intention, but there are only like eight of us, and about half sit in adjacent seats in the front row, so her eye was traveling along a very natural line.) That worried me, so I made myself pay attention for a while, flipped to the correct page in the book and formed a sublease-versus-assignment theory just in case she picked me next.

When I looked back at my computer, Justin was talking about the bone marrow drive, which made me feel like shit because I had promised I would give blood this year but couldn't, because I slipped in just under the weight requirement, so I changed the subject and (stupidly) asked him whether he had gotten to read my letter yet.

(While we were "working things out," I had written him a four-page letter detailing the implications of my feelings and our new arrangement, and explaining that I can't be his casual friend, since he's under this delusion that people with feelings between them can revert to platonic interaction if one needs more time. I had delivered the letter at seven o'clock the night before, addressing it with silver letter stickers spelling "Justim," becuase i had run out of Ns.)

He said, "most of it."

I resisted the urge to ask him how he could have gotten winded reading four pages, when we're used to reading ninetysomething pages nightly. I said "okay, finish reading it," and changed the subject to classroom nosepickers.

While I walked home from class, I completely convinced myself that he hadn't read any of it, and was afraid I was going to quiz him on it or something. Something like that happened with Marcus once.

Two elevators stopped in the lobby on their way down. I needed to go up. My classmates and I grumbled about the inconvenience of having to wait for up elevators. A couple trickled off to the stairwell. I thought about it, but my shins hurt from those goddamn fuck-me boots.

When an up elevator finally came, there were a bunch of kids in it from the daycare downstairs. Every time they go anywhere in the building, their supervisors chain them to this ten-person leash thing. It's sad and hilarious.

My room was a mess. I did some dishes, threw my laptop carrier and jacket on the floor. Collapsed on the bed and tried to recapture my just-a-few-more-minutes sleepiness from two hours before. Valerie came in and asked if I wanted to talk about anything. I resisted, with great willpower, the urge to remind her that when my bedroom door is closed, it means I don't want to talk. Instead, I told her I was fine, and asked her how things are going with Mike. She babbled for a while about communication.

As soon as she stopped talking, I fell asleep.

I woke up with plenty of time to make it to Criminal Justice, but I didn't go. I watched Judge Hatchett and talked to Imani on the phone through her lunch break.

I heated some leftover Chinese and ate it, rather sloppily, while I scored Follow the Leader entries. Twice I got really discouraged with the repetition of the process and quit, then restarted when I remembered I'd already made the contestants wait a week for results. I vowed to enlist co-judges for the second round.

Dr. Phil did a stupid thing about people misrepresenting themselves through online interactions. I watched it and snorted at intervals.

Third class of the day was Legal Research and Writing. The professor excerpted my appellate brief and used it as an anonymous example of what not to do. It's the third or fourth time that's happened in that class, which supposedly I'm to take as a compliment. I just think it's annoying and kind of embarrassing. While they were talking about the absence of a cogent rule in my first paragraph, I realized the tickle at the back of my tongue was blossoming into a full-bodied sore throat, and that my nose was sort of running. I decided I should walk to CVS after class.

When it ended, I went to the mailroom and got a package containing my replacement debit card. I hit the ATM and got two hundred dollars to reimburse various people for subsidizing me while mine was lost. I ran into Brandon by the elevators and gave him twenty. He took it without saying thank you.

I called Justin, who gets out of class at the same time I do, to ask if he needed anything from CVS. He didn't answer, but he often doesn't bring his cell to class.

When I walked outside, preparing to walk to CVS, he was standing by the front door with a bunch of guys from his section, talking about T-shirt sales. I touched his arm and smiled, smiled at the other guys. "Hey," I said to him, "want to walk me to CVS?"

Hesitation flashed across his face. "Well, I would have to put my stuff down first," he said, indicating his laptop and his Crim book.

"Okay," I said. "I mean, you can just give me a call, it doesn't have to be right this second, we can just meet right here." I felt very fishbowled, with all his tall male friends staring at us. I deeply regretted running into him, and asking.

"Well, where are you going now?" he asked.

I had been planning on leaving right then, remember, but I didn't want him to feel rushed, and I for some reason really wanted him to come, so I said, "Oh, I'm going to the ATM first, then I'll be ready to go. So you have a few minutes." Stupid, stupid (but harmless) lie. I already had two hundred dollars in my pocket, and the ATM was in the other direction.

I walked away and my mom called. I started talking to her, turned around and looked back and realized Justin was still standing around, talking, in front of the building. I decided he had no intention of coming with me, so I started walking toward CVS. When I was halfway there, he called and asked where I was, moderately annoyed that I hadn't been waiting there when he got back from putting his stuff down.

I said, "You don't have to go, it's cool."

He said, "I'm already standing here, now."

So I doubled back and met him, and we walked back to CVS together. The walks there and back were, to my mind, very awkward. He said something about basketball, and I somehow interpreted that he was talking about seeing a play. It took us two precious minutes to work out that miscommunication.

I bought Vaseline and Tylenol Cold and Flu, and he bought Gatorade and a Balance Bar.

When we got back to school, we ran into a girl we both hate, and gossiped about her in the elevator.

Before he stepped out, I slipped sixty dollars into his pocket. Long story, but it was sixty I owed him, that I knew he wouldn't accept voluntarily.

After that, I felt like crap. I went home and ate more Chinese, talked to Valerie about her upcoming date night. I think that's when I posted the winners announcement on FtL, answered an email from my aunt, did my Con Law reading.

Some people came over to watch the debate. Increasingly, we agree that Hillary is a tool, and needs to fire her image consultant and whoever is prepping her for these encounters.

I watched half of 10.

I dozed off.

I had to wake up, because I left my glasses at home last weekend and I can't sleep in my contacts. I took out my contacts. I concluded that my eyes are definitely worse than they were at this time last year.

I also left my contact case at home, so I put my lenses into Aquafina bottle caps.

I fell asleep.

Justin called.

The clock struck midnight.