I mostly watch passing couples. I see elderly ones, especially, on days like today, when the date is early in the afternoon on a weekday, when people usually have classes and work. It helps keep things in perspective; sometimes, the dates start to feel so serious, when I consider that dates are almost always leading somewhere, romantically, and that these people consider me an option for that particular "somewhere." I have to keep looking at these couples, and asking myself, Could I be happy there?

It is almost always an immediate No. The last Maybe I had was Mike, and before that there were exactly two emphatic Yeses.

I consider my last Emphatic Yes while watching these couples, and try to switch the song on my iPod so I can temporarily forget he exists. It doesn't work.

The sky is really bright, and it's a weird, light shade of blue like I haven't seen in a long time. I tug at the black sleeves of my fleece. It's freakin' cold, but mostly the tug is a front for my subtle watch check, so the passersby don't think I've been stood up. Lateness means we won't be seeing Date Two, which is a rule I almost always live by--tardiness comes off as a lack of respect and enthusiasm. He still has six minutes; I'm always earlier out of some residual nervousness.

A woman in a green turtleneck and grey slacks emerges from the restaurant and gives me a common stranger smile; I've been noting more and more that these smiles make me feel weird, because they aren't smiling, but they are, and they aren't supposed to be smiling at me. There's no logical reason why someone would smile at me out of nowhere. Politeness doesn't make sense. That smile is the bane of my existence, and I consistently meet it with a more genuine grin.

She, like all the others, breaks from the stranger smile and beams.

The grin works. It says, "I'm so glad you're walking the same earth as me."

Small kindnesses that aren't even considered kindnesses. If you're going to smile at someone, make them feel welcome, not placated.

With a passing thought, I worry that I might be underdressed, after seeing her slacks. A mental response: "She was probably on her lunch break."

I'm thinking of a rainbow scarf I should have complimented when he arrives. He sees me, but looks away during his walk towards the building, which is a fantastic and unique sign of nervousness reserved for those who don't serial date.

I decide to go easy and play along, until he's closer. We greet each other, and he holds the door open for me.

The worst part is over.

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Being a badass is exhausting.

We drove to Florida, this weekend, to volunteer for Disney, which was sponsoring a 10K run for the Autism Speaks Foundation. I would have rather spent our day off at the pool than at Epcot like we did, but it was a good time, anyway. Nothing significant, though. I really don't enjoy Disney parks. They're so inherently feminine and consumer-friendly.

What else, what else...

Not much. I've been concentrating on my schoolwork a WHOLE lot more than I used to, and have, because of that, been doing really freaking well in my classes. I've been doing some work for the volunteer organization I'm working with, but generally they're very limiting and don't trust my judgement (which makes me wonder...why specifically take me on over several other people due to my qualifications, if you're going to second-guess what I'm doing?). Finally, I get a taste of feeling limited by the people over me. It's not even bitter, it just tastes like crap. I'm starting my own organization, too, because we don't yet have one for outdoor enthusiasts. I got the idea during a sea kayaking trip...I was walking on the beach, where we all stopped to rest, with one of the guys on the trip, and we got into talking about biology, the great outdoors--essentially the reason I love biology majors--and he seemed really interested in the club.

And I thought, if one person's interested, who's to say twenty wouldn't be?

He ended up asking me out, the next day, but we have yet to go on the date. He's a senior transfer student, and he's hoping to go into research with his biology degree.

Which is fine, if you like being totally bored, eighty percent of the time.

Speaking of being totally bored, I made this, the other day. It's newspaper.

Just because. I'm a sucker for cheap storage options, and Pinterest has done a good job of reminding me that I can make most of the things I need out of stuff I already have and don't need. As far as I can tell, the site is pretty full of random media and girls my age planning their weddings (no thank you). I mostly hang out for the recipes. In fact, I make the most delicious cinnamon oatmeal pancakes, because of Pinterest.

Reading over that, it basically says, "I'm here for the food."



Now for coffee and studying till late into the night.


PS:

"Steve if you're on a fountain right now, it's me you felt staring."
Immediately, my phone is ringing. "That's some secret agent shit you got going on, [my first and last name]."

He's never completely sure whether I'm serious or joking when I tell him that I work for the CIA. I started laughing, one time, after jokingly saying I'd killed before, and then, just as he started laughing, I dropped the smile and walked away.

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Drinking champagne by Christmas light at four in the morning, and watching friends ballroom dance during dinner at an upscale jazz bar, and talking about the comfort in vast nothingness on the edge of nothingness and nowhere at midnight, and that morning goodbye kiss just before you head off to work, and the perfect lamb burger with caramelized onions, and the sentence, "This is it; we made it."

Perfect.

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This is the coolest video I've seen all week.

Segue into a talk on politics.

I tend a lose a lot of respect for people during election periods, because it brings out the ugly. I'm not for Mitt Romney, but every time I see an attack on his sexuality, it makes me sick. That attack insinuates that there is something wrong with being closeted L/G/B/T (even though I'm content with believing, personally, that Romney is not, simply because he says so), and that obviously goes against everything over which many Obama supporters of the LGBT community are fighting.

SO SHUT UP AND STOP MAKING THEM LOOK BAD.

Plus, it's just needlessly mean. These candidates are people.

Come on, world, you can do better. Push your boundaries, here.


PS:
"Looks like a grade one high ankle sprain. Shouldn't be too worried. If it hurts two weeks from now definitely see a doctor"
"So I have to brace both my ankles? D:"
"YES"

He proceeded to tell me to get over it, and that he liked listening to rap at 3am.

Oh well that's cool hey but by the way I JUST SPRAINED MY ONLY GOOD ANKLE COME ON.

I asked him because I was hoping I was wrong. I spotted it while I was in the bathtub--one of those inside-of-an-old-strawberry red types of bruises, right on one of my most useful tendons.

"AAAHHH," I said, because this was not good news, and I was hearing the pop it had made, earlier that day, in my mind, over and over.

So here come the braces. Meeeer.

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