Night Out with Friends

Marguerite, Amanda, Virginia and I were in the kitchen of Marguerite's building getting drunk.  I was at that swimmy stage that I am such a big fan of. 
It was a conversation filled with revelations.  I didn't know that everyone in the room was aware of what had happened between Matt and I last summer.  I sort of felt that it was a secret, of sorts, between Matt and I.  I mean, it wasn't something we agreed should be a secret, but I worried, even though I was almost always pushing Matt away, how Virginia would feel.  I didn't want her to get hurt.  She's so nice, she deserves better than getting hurt. 
And yet, pretty much everyone had already heard what had happened.  Well, sort of.  They heard Matt's side of the story, which wasn't so much inaccurate, it just lacked my feelings.  Which obviously Matt doesn't know in full.
From what I could gather from the conversation it seems like everyone in the room sided with me anyway, which, in other circumstances, would surprise me.  But when I saw Erin in March, she mentioned something that happened between Marguerite and Matt that changed the way everyone looked at Matt, and not for the better.
"What's his new girlfriend like?" I asked, out of curiosity.  "Genie?"  I was struggling for her name. 
"Genevieve," Marguerite said.  Amanda and Marguerite both seemed to think she was utterly boring and cowed.  The sort of girl who didn't appear to have a thought for herself.
I always thought that stereotype of nice girls who were nothing but nice being the thing guys date when they have nothing better to date was just a stereotype.  And yet I keep finding evidence of it.  I wonder about these girls, since they strike me as mystical creatures.  Are they real?  Are they really just good at covering up anything even mildly disagreeable about themselves?  Do boys really love them, or do they just love the ego boost?  How does this affect the dating prospects of women who refuse to change themselves for a man or men in general?
After all this time of hearing about Genevieve, I still haven't met her.  Part of this is because I haven't sought Matt out, but part of this may be because this group of friends has mostly kicked Matt out.  (The Marguerite/Matt thing being the ultimate cause.)  I find myself curious about her.  Is she really that boring?  Or is it possible she's just shy?  I have a terrible affinity for shy women.  I like to talk to them, especially when no one else is.  I like to try to coax something out of them.
(It's been my experience that the best way to get something out of these women can't really happen on a one encounter sort of thing but multiple encounters.  Some of the most interesting women I've known are women who don't usually talk to others, but who eventually talk to me.)
Virginia told us about her new beau, Nick.  He sounds nice, and it sounds like he makes her happy.  I hope he doesn't treat her weirdly like the last one.
After we had been sitting down there for a while, mostly talking about boys, a group of people came down.  Among others, Jonathan and Zack were among them.  I don't really know either of those boys that well, but they're nice.  Zack had what was possible his beau, who like Zack, was really skinny.
(Again, what is with this skinny boy thing?  I don't like it.)
Zack's friend had red wine, and he poured me a glass.  Which I promptly spilled on myself, and was totally embarrassed and felt like a slob.  (Why do these things happen when I'm with people and not when I'm alone and no one can see me?) 
"Rut-ro," he said, imitating Scooby Doo. 
I raced upstairs to the nearest bathroom.  I was wearing this new coat that I had gotten (and loved) that was that was a tan/khaki color.  The red wine had turned purple, the same kind of purple that happened when someone gets punched in the eye.  I desperately tried to wash it out, and was mostly successful.  There was still a spot on it. 
After proving myself so incompetent with holding a glass, I went downstairs and said my goodbyes.
The problem with this was that it was cold outside and my coat was half wet.  Ack.  As I was walking home, I noticed a bit of wine had slipped in between the coat and the belt that is part of it, which obviously also had to come out.
And if that wasn't enough, I appeared to be bleeding.  Not heavy, but there was a little nick on my finger.  I thought about Claire and how she was totally bothered by blood.  I wasn't so much bothered by the blood as I was annoyed that I had to deal with this on top of a half wet coat and a wine on it and now possibly blood and Jesus, it was cold out there.  Cold in a way it wasn't meant to be. 
I got home early enough, and I said hi to Jimmy and Kristina, who were sitting at a table in the lobby, working on homework.  Jimmy was nice enough to give me his key, and I trooped up to his room and cleaned myself up (coat included.) 
As Jimmy went downstairs to hang with Kristina, I got online and did a little writing, including some poetry.  I got dressed in my pajamas.  I wondered where Karl was at.  It was the weekend, so we can hardly expect him to be around, but he wasn't exactly the going out on the town kind of guy.  I hoped he wasn't avoiding me. 

Meetings with Professors

I had a series of meetings with professors.  I showed up at a class I wasn't enrolled in and after the class, we went back to his office to talk over my future plans. 
He thinks I could make it into graduate school, which is one of the things I want to do with my life.  I like academic work.  Parts of it are scary, but I like reading and analyzing and talking.  I'm excited about teaching.  I don't want to teach younger people because there's a lot of hand holding involved, but the idea of teaching students who want to be there and are at least marginally interested in having conversations about art, literature and other related topics excites me.  (Maybe I don't even want to teach in the traditional sense where I lecture and students take notes, but where I encourage students to think for themselves and learn to be their own best teachers.) 
Anyway, I'm clearly getting away from the story I'm meant to be telling here. 
After that first meeting, I happened to wander down the steps of the building, and I passed an office.  Just to see what was going on, I poked my head in.  I wanted to get a look at the list of current professors to check to see if certain people were around.  And lo!  A couple were.  I started contemplating dropping by their door to see if they had office hours posted.  As I was turning, I ran into Cameron. 
I hadn't seen Cameron in about a year.  He was coming out of a meeting.  He looked different, in a subtle way.  There was something different about how his hair sat on his head and his face seemed more square than I remembered.  We talked briefly, and he told me to call him so we could have a drink. 
I went down another set of stairs.  I ran into another professor.  He told me to come see him the next morning, at eight. 
"Eight?" I said.  Eight's really early for me, at least these days.  I used to get up at eight for work, but since leaving that job, not so much. 
I think he could sense my reluctance for that hour.  He sort of laughed at me. 
I've got mixed feelings about this teacher.  He's kind of a jerk.  I get the feeling he's one of those people with low self-esteem, because he can't seem to handle anyone knowing anything and there's something very pushy about him.  But I could at least consider what he had to say.  Maybe it was something good?
I went past the office of the other professor I actually wanted to see, and she told me to come in the next week, and okay, okay, I can do it.  She's only available for two hours every week (pretty much no exceptions), which is kind of annoying, because I have a schedule too here. 
As I was going down the last set of stairs before I reached the door to the outside, Bobby came through the door.  I haven't seen him in about a year, and I was so excited to see him.  Bobby is one of those people that I just adore.
Bobby and I mostly talked shop.  He told me about the professor he was working with on an honors thesis.  It was actually another professor I didn't particularly like, but whatever.  He told me about how he's decided to concentrate on early modernism, so stuff around the time of Shakespeare.  
He had heard through the grapevine a little about what I had been up to, mostly thanks to Erin.  He also invited me to a party.
I have to admit that I have a bit of a crush on Bobby.  In addition to being nice and smart, he's obviously into literature, and that's way more than I need to be happy with a boy.  (It is a sad statement on boys that even with those two requirements, not many boys are left.)  Unfortunately, Bobby's got a girlfriend, so I don't think anything will be happening there anytime soon.    

Claire's Birthday Dinner

I was talking to one of Claire's friends, named Chris.  He was telling me about his hometown, how everyone muttered and how he had taken up speaking fast but that he didn't really have an inbetween speaking speed. 
"You don't have to perform for me," I said, referencing the fact that he was an actor. 
"So just to be clear," I asked.  "Are you gay or straight?"
The other people at our end of the table heard us, and they went up in fits of laughter.  Both Vicki and Amanda admonished me for speaking to him like that. 
"She doesn't have a filter," Amanda said. 
I do too have a filter.  There are all sorts of things I don't say, and I suspect that people would be deeply scarred if they heard the majority of my thoughts.  In comparison with other people, who lack thoughts to say in the first place, sure, it looks like I am filterless.
I suspected that Chris wouldn't mind me asking, and he took it like it was totally normal.  "I wake up everyday asking myself the same question," he said. 
After a while, one of Claire's other friends came along.  He sat down at the table next to Chris and in front of me.  He was dressed as a hipster.  We chatted about the neighborhood and made fun of hipsters and how expensive the whole thing was.  As he was talking, his voice reminded me vaguely of someone's, and then it occurred to me that he sounded just like Kashif.  And then as we continued talking, I realized he didn't just have Kashif's voice but that same particular sweetness that I've only previously encountered in Kashif.  Too bad this young man was gay. 
He talked to me about singing, which he was apparently into, and about how everyone can sing, and about the business aspect of getting a job in singing.  He asked me what I did, and I said I was a poet. 
(As an aside, can I just say how impossibly hard I find the question of who I am or what I do?  I hate the idea of identifying myself as just one thing.  But at the same time, if allowed to, I would babble on forever about who I am and I suspect people still wouldn't know.) 

In any case, the young man was nice enough to be supportive, ask me who my favorite poets are (another question I dread and never seem to just have a good, truthful and concise answer to).  He told me he liked Sylvia Plath, and since I like her too, that got us both off and running.  We discussed the Bell Jar. 
He also was nice enough to make some suggestions for where I should go read my poetry.  He told me it was casual, and not to worry.  I really don't like to read my poetry; part of the reason I write is because of my aversion to performance. 

Maxwell had moved over to sit with us at that point, and he talked about his failed attempts at dating and how much he really wished he could be on Gossip Girl.  A lot of people probably wish they were on television shows, myself included, though Gossip Girl isn't the first one that comes to mind. 
Chris and I continued talking a bit.  He told me about how much he loved Joss Whedon, and guessing correctly, I asked if he liked Firefly.  (Shocker, he did.  When boys say they like Whedon, none of them mean they like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel, what they mean is that they like Firefly.  Which would be fine but I wish they'd be more honest about it.)  He also said he liked Dr. Horrible. 

At this point, I mentioned to him that I wished someone would invite Whedon to work on Broadway, as I thought it would be interesting to see him work in a live audience setting, and this got the boy talking about a live production of Dr. Horrible he'd seen.  He went through everything with me, the actors, the singing, how Bad Horse was managed, how the lighting worked; it was very detailed and very boring, as I hadn't seen this live production.  (It was almost as bad as listening to Emily earlier that day rave about Darren Chris on Glee.) 
And then Chris mentioned he had a girlfriend. 
Oh Gods, why bother? I thought.  And I was a tad annoyed Claire had sat me with him with no indication that Chris wasn't single. 
Obviously, it was time to abandon ship. 

We talked a little more.  I asked him what it was like to work with Claire, and he said that she was his favorite person, and that of everyone he knew, he thought she was going to make it.  We chatted about superheros, particularly Spider-Man.  We ate our dinners, and Maxwell shared his chips with us.  (Good man.  There are few things I like better than food, and one of them happens to be free food.)  Then I went to the bathroom.  I made the move of leaving, but then was persuaded to stay, and sat at the other end of the table with Jenny, Tamara, and Ruth. 
Ruth was complaining bitterly to Tamara about school, who, possibly more bitter than Ruth about the whole thing, was whole heartedly agreeing with her.  We started talking about the waiter, who I've encountered a couple of times before at this place.  He is very talk, and somewhat built, with a little fat  on him.  But what I find extraordinary about him is his face, particularly his hair.  It's very dark and long, and in some guys, I find long hair very attractive, as with him.  He had the whole dark eyes thing to complete the look.  He looks very much like he should be playing in band, particularly bass or even maybe drums.  When we asked him last night, he said that he use to play football and that's all.
That's all, I thought.  Good Lord, you must be lying.  I can't imagine that he is only a former football player.  And, moreover, what the heck is he doing being a waiter at a restaurant?  Surely he must have some other goal.  I was hoping he would illuminate us as to that.  (Jenny joked later that he was an Amnesty International lawyer, which I would find totally acceptable, vaguely intriguing, and a surprising choice.) 
Then we decided to move on to our next place.  We walked down several blocks to a pub I had passed by multiple times but had never been in before. 

The Date We Never Had

I went over to Micheal's house.  He was packing some stuff to go back to MSU, so I was helping him.  As he was looking for something, I happened to notice a Ponyo toy sitting out on a piano.  Last week, Michael had mentioned that he had an extra one and that I could have it.  I've actually never seen Ponyo, though I want to, since I'm a big fan of The Little Mermaid and Hayao Miuzaki.  I went over and squeezed its stuffed tummy.
And then I saw a bunch of framed pictures laying on the piano next to it.  I picked up the top one.  I was Michael's Dad, which slightly less crazy hair, and Michael's Mom, who I've never met.  She had crazy wild hair too, which made me wonder how Michael could be born with completely straight hair.  They were both smiling with a baby sitting in between them, Michael, I assumed.
The picture after that was similar, but instead of one baby in between, there were two.  Michael never mentioned siblings.  Had I just somehow missed that detail about him?  Maybe something had happened to the other sibling and Michael didn't like talking about it?  Maybe it was from a previous marriage, of, based on what the baby looked like, probably his mother?  I wanted to ask but I don't think there's any good way of beginning this topic.
I noticed then that there were no pictures on the actual wall of his house, anywhere.  It looked like a tornado had sweep through, which had distracted me to the lack of actual pictures on the wall.  I wondered if someone had tried to paint the walls recently or if they had moved.  It didn't make a lot of sense.
After that, we got into Micheal's car and headed over to a friend's graduation party.  The guy had just graduated from engineering at MSU and had found a job in Grand Rapids.  Kid was set for life.  Would probably be making five figures right out of college.  (What was I thinking pursuing English as a degree?)  I just graduated myself, but I figured no one actually had graduation parties to celebrate graduating from college.  With my Grandma being all sick lately and me not having anything exciting to say about where I was going, it's probably just as well, but now I have missed the opportunity to have one of these parties twice. 
I was a little nervous to go there, just because people would see me and be like, "Oh, you must be Micheal's girlfriend," when the truth was I was friends with his girlfriend Lisa.  But I didn't feel like it was my place to be picky. 
And, indeed, I totally called it, because everyone shook my hand and treated me as Micheal's girlfriend.  They asked where we had met.  Michael said through Lisa, and that got a few eyebrows.
It's actually a lie, the meeting through Lisa thing.  We met about six months before Michael and Lisa met.  I was sitting on a park bench reading Phillipa Gregory's The Constant Princess and Michael walked by, saw me, sat down, and then tried to pick me up.  No kidding.  We obviously did not end up dating, but it occurred to me then that if we had, this is probably what it would be like.  Again, I was wondering if I was going to regret this hanging out with Michael thing.
It was a normal, though sparely attended, graduation party.  The host's mother was very gracious to us (she knew Michael) and I helped myself to a Root Beer and chips and some Chinese noodles.  They had this interesting wooden servers that were like huge fork ends.  I joked that they were Wolverine servers.  A woman standing there asked what I was talking about, and I explained that they looked like the claws of Wolverine the X-Man.