Despertar

may 5, 2008

At midnight, Justin was working the tension out of my neck and shoulders with his nice big hands. I had a horrible headache and had requested the service, posing it as a contracts problem in homage to his upcoming exam: "Here's my offer: as consideration for some return act, I want you to rub my shoulders till my head feels better. I'll deliver the return act afterward."

I was figuring he would ask for a blow job in return, but he had taken Adderall to focus him through his last night of studying, and he was driven. While he was rubbing, he stood behind me at his computer and asked me to download all the old exams for him and save them to his hard drive. I did it wrong twice and he fake-yelled at me. There was a hard edge to his voice. I don't like Adderall.

After he finished, we went downstairs to see if we could find Red Bull. The vending machine had, of course, been totally drained of its Red Bull supply, so we tried the academic building next. Locked. We sighed, collectively, I kissed his cheek and we parted ways to study.

Because I couldn't get Red Bull, I took the opposite approach. I went across the hall and borrowed orange juice from Ben and made myself a screwdriver, instead. He came over fifteen minutes later to borrow milk for a White Russian. Within minutes I could barely keep my eyes open.

Marcus was chatting me up online for the first time in weeks, maybe months. He misses me a lot, he says. He told me about how he can't wait to get to the District in two weeks, and how, once he does, we only have two subsequent weeks of secrecy before his girlfriend gets here too, and goes into prohibitive jealousy mode. I was quiet through this. I don't want another confrontation with her like the one I just had.

I told Marcus about my screwdriver, thinking I was changing the subject. He made a joke about how we'll have to get drunk together when he gets here, which we've never done before. I said, "We'll see." He said, "Could be dangerous." I said, "Maybe not, I'm never going to hit on you again." He said, "But I'd probably hit on you if you looked like you do in [this picture he had seen of me from a ball I went to in January]."

I said I had to go to bed. I worked on a white jigsaw puzzle for about twenty minutes, with Blades of Glory playing in the background, then fell asleep.

I woke up at seven to feed the parking meter out front. I realized, when I went down, that my car wasn't actually committed to either of the two nearest meters, but kind of suspended between them. I picked the one on the left and fed it, hoping I wouldn't get a ticket for tying up two legitimate spaces in a limited parking area.

I shuffled back upstairs and got online, just to see. Justin was still awake. I told him to gt some sleep and myself fell asleep again for two hours.

I woke up at nine-forty to feed the meter again. I couldn't find enough quarters, so I had to trudge across the street, in my pajamas, to the change machine. I ran into at least a dozen people I knew, suckily. Everyone was already awake and stationed at the cafe for panicked last-minute notes review. Hugh and I walked back together and Hugh showed me where he had forgotten to shave a bit over his lip. I told him no big deal, no one would care in the exam room. He said he didn't care about that, but he has a lunch date or something after the exam is over. I was quiet.

As I walked from the seventh-floor elevator bank to my room at the end of the hall, I considered whether I care, actually, about Hugh's dating life. After our one brief thing, we agreed to go back to normal, except it was mostly his mandate, independent of my actual consent. Since then it's been Justinland again, so, by the time I reached home, I had decided I didn't care.

I skimmed my outline for a few minutes, went back out and fed the meter again, thought about Justin. Because he'd been awake as late as seven in the morning, I worried he might sleep through the one o'clock exam sorting process. I decided to call him at one.

At ten minutes to one, I changed clothes and packed up my computer, books and exam ticket. I rounded up enough change to keep the meter happy till my exam ended. I went outside and fed it one more time, talked to some other people in my section about the upcoming test. Ben and I compared notes from our drunken studying sessions the night before.

The test was eh. Just kind of eh. Commerce Clause, Dormant Commerce Clause, Appointments Clause. Constitutional Law has been, so far, my least stimulating class, even though everyone went on and on about how great the professor was. I finished the test twenty-five minutes early and worked on the white jigsaw some more. I started this entry. I accidentally slipped my foot out of my flip-flop and stuck it in the backpack of the girl sitting in front of me. She was wearing earplugs and didn't notice. Some kid sitting to my right went through an entire bag of Starbursts, the chewing of which sounded like cunnilingus, which made me think about sex. As I was saving my finished document to the standard-issue burnable CD, I started thinking about whether or not I would proposition Justin about tonight, and how.

After the test, I ran into Hugh and talked him into going for Italian food. We parted ways to go put our stuff down, then met at my car. It took us thirty minutes, almost, to drive sixteen blocks, because neither one of us really knows our way from campus to Dupont Circle without getting lost. While we were driving, Justin called me back from this morning, and sounded irritated, which I discovered was because his Contracts exam had been dismal.

Italian with Hugh was good. We talked like old friends, which is nice, a return to normal. The waitress was really slow with the garlic bread and had a horrible attitude, but not as bad as the waitress at that brewery in Chapel Hill, so we forgave her and tipped her anyway.

When I got back here, it was almost seven-thirty. I vacuumed the floor, scored some Follow the Leader entries, talked to my mother on the phone.

At nine, I started falling asleep. With my last bit of energy, I texted Justin and told him I was leaving my door propped in case he wanted to come by and wake me up.

I fell asleep. By midnight, I was dreaming about eating turkey legs in an elevator.