Murphy and Me XXXVI

"You can borrow them, if you want."

I stood up and nearly whacked my head into the underside of Sasha's closet shelf. "Really? I mean - "

She chuckled. "You can borrow my hooker boots. Really." Her smile turned sly. "I think Murph will appreciate 'em." She outright grinned. "I'm just sayin'...He likes it when his girl looks good."

"And hooker boots make me look good?" Yeah, there was some skepticism there.

"Well, he likes you anyway, even when you wear those damn things - " she pointed to my ugly-as-hell plain black sneakers, my work shoes. " - so I think you could go barefoot and he'd be okay."

Which was true, too. "Okay." The boots moved from the closet to hear my backpack. Wouldn't look odd at all for me to be walkin' 'cross campus with those. Not. At. All.

I sat on the half of the pushed together dorm beds that was Sasha's. "Where's Cara?"

"Class." Sasha crawled onto the desk chair and nearly fell out of it. "Then she has some other meeting and then the choreographers meeting."

"I don't know any reason why they wouldn't let you two dance together." Was the truth, too. Cara, from what I'd heard, was a great choreographer.

"Oh, I know." She fiddled with one of the photos taped to the study carrel. "Anyway - How's Ford man?"

"Murphy's fine." My phone somehow appeared in my hand. Open. Shut. "He had a nice time Sunday." Open. Shut. "Elizabeth loves him."

"Which is code for everyone, am I right?" Sasha chuckled.

Silence stretched between us.

"Cara and I almost had sex last night."

That came out of left field.

"Oh." And...Yeah. No idea what to say to that. None whatsoever. "Uh...Things are going then, yeah?"

She bit her lip. "Yes and no. I think we're in some sort of odd transition state and, while it didn't feel weird last night it wasn't...I mean, we've been there before but this had a different feel to it."

"Good different or bad different?" Still trying to process that last bombshell.

"Just...Different."

Which, in an odd way, made both perfect sense and none at all. "What happened after?"

Sasha shrugged. "We kissed some more, then she held me and sometime later we drifted off." She looked at her fingernails. "The only thing that you could call different was that I was the spoonee and not the spooner."

Spooning was the Visa of cuddling - generally accepted everywhere. And it wasn't just for hetero couples.

Technically, I think Murph and I had yet to spoon. Technically speaking.

Also just realized my best friend slept either naked or mostly naked. However, not my business.

"Did she say anything during spooning?"

She shrugged again. At this rate she was going to strain a back muscle.

"Just that she missed me."

Which could mean more than one thing. Murph murmured "missed you" into my clavicle when we shared a bed on the weekend and he hadn't seen me since Wednesday.

Or, in this case, it could mean missing what Sasha and Cara had had. I think part of their simplicity was gone and it was going to screw with them for a while.

Then I asked a question that would normally not see the light of day. "How was the almost sex?"

Sasha smiled slowly. "Brilliant. She did this, this thing with her tongue and..." She blushed faintly. "Anyway. It was good."

Any almost sex she had was better than the slim chance or sex that was my life.

And the fact that I was terrified of my own body had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. Let's factor in the fact that I was downright terrified to let Murph even think about glimpsing me naked. Considering he was male and my boyfriend, he had probably thought of me naked. Multiple times.

Which was a train of thought that needed to go away. Immediately.

"So that was normal?"

Sasha nodded. "Maybe...Maybe we've got past whatever we needed to get past."

Maybe. Or maybe it was the calm before the proverbial storm. Who knew - the weather was supposed to be shit all week.

"That would be a good thing." A very good thing as I could stop worrying that my best friend was heading for a breakdown of monumental proportions - and tequila.

"Very," she said quietly. "You and Murphy have plans for Halloween?"

I let the sudden change in topic slide, grateful to talk about something less awkward. "Yup. Costume party and...That's probably it." We hadn't thought much beyond Colby's costume party. We'd probably just come back and crash. Depending on what Dev was doing would determine my place or Murphy's. "You got plans?"

"Maybe order in, watch some slasher films and cuddle."

Cuddling was nice. Slasher films? Not so much. Chinese or pizza would be the deal breaker.

"That sounds fun." It did - I'd just pick a different movie. "How's classes going?" Breath. "How's Koshare?"

"Classes are classes." She picked up a pen from the holder on her desk and began turning it over in her hands. "No big emergencies or panics there. And Koshare...It's interesting to have your girlfriend as your choreographer. It's not a collaborative process, more like following her vision. It's a great vision, don't get me wrong, but it's a little awkward at times." She fumbled the pen. "Especially if you're not seeing eye to eye."

Dance move to dance move might have been more appropriate but I kept my mouth shut. However, couldn't resist in the end. "Artistic differences?"

Sasha snorted. "Understatement." She nearly dropped a second pen to the floor. "I mean, it's great but...There are some parts that would look better if I did them because they're..."

"Not her concentration."

Sasha nodded. "But it's all good. We keep the studio in the studio as best we can."

Which was probably not an easy thing to do. Maybe it was a good thing Murph and I didn't have a common extracurricular activity.

"How's your week look?"

It was my turn to shrug. "Same as usual. I'm kind of sucking at getting my teaching hours so far, but it's hard between lab, practice, games and...breathing." Looked at my hands, unsure if I wanted to drop this bombshell. Oh, what the hell. Live in the moment and all that. "I'm not sure I want to do this anymore."

She stared, pen thumping softly to the carpet. "What?" She reached for number three.

I slipped my Chuck Taylor's off and drew my legs up. "I just...I don't know. It's a lot of effort on top of everything else and I'm not really liking it as much as I thought I would. It kinda sucks." My socks were mismatched - one gold toe, one blue. El would approve. "I'm only doing it as a back up plan and not as that thing that I really want to do with my life. I mean, look at Murph. Murphy wants to be a history teacher. He's pumped about it. Wants to stay and do the MAT program. Me? Right now it's just another thing to worry about."

Between physics, keeping track of time, and soccer, I had enough to keep me occupied. And I hadn't mentioned orgo, yet.

"So why did you sign up?" Sasha moved her computer back a bit to put her rear on the actual desk. "Why apply in the first place?"

"Because it was a back up plan." Not the only reason, but definitely the simplest. "And I like to work with kids." Again, slightly more complicated than that. Why be black and white when you could operate in shades of gray?

"But you're not sure it's what you really want."

That right there summed it up quite nicely. "Yup."

And really, that's all there was to it. What it came down to was that I didn't know what I wanted, now much less wanted as a back up plan. Hell, maybe waitressing would just be my back up plan. It'd worked like a charm so far.

Considering I turned into a workaholic when I was home for the summer, it didn't really surprise me.

I looked at the time on my phone - it was nearly eight. "I gotta go - I'm having dinner with Murph."

"It's late for dinner, isn't it?" Sasha squinted at Cara's clock on her desk.

"Not when you're having a sort of date with your boyfriend." I uncurled and started to put my Converse back on. "I guess it's not really a sort of date, it is a date. Dinner and a movie." Dinner being ordered-in Chinese and the movie being from the boys' DVD collection. Depending on what mood we were in it might be an action film or something hopelessly romantic.

Hope we were more inclined toward action, truthfully. While I loved my best friend and the fact that she was in an exclusive, loving relationship with someone as great as Cara, it was sometimes a little hard to swallow. Maybe it was because my relationship with Murph was so new, that I was still trying to get past that infamous four month mark.

That damn four month mark I tried really hard not to think about since it made my blood pressure skyrocket.

Sasha stumbled off her perch to give me a hug. "Have fun on your date."

I nodded, turning serious while picking up the boots she was lending me. "You ever need me - to talk or listen or anything - just call. My phone's always on." It was. For her it always would be.

"Thanks." She hugged me again.

With footwear that made absolutely no sense being within fifty feet of me in hand, I headed out of the building and down the hill. And back to my original train of thought about those damn four months.

Bobby and I had been off and on all through high school - usually in periods of about four months. We'd be good as gold for a while and then things just sort of...went downhill. So we'd take a break for a little while and then after a couple weeks - maybe a month - we'd get back together for about another four months. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

Considering Bobby was my one previous decent relationship - though hindsight is twenty-twenty - I had to base things off of, I was honestly expecting Murph and I to follow that same pattern or a variation of it. Not what I wanted, but more or less what I was expecting.

Which, if Murph found that out, he'd probably have me committed. At least.

This was one of those times where I hated being in my own head.

A couple of Smithies nearly whacked me between the eyes with the front door of Jackson while I fumbled for my keys. Snark in check, the stairs to the second floor seemed a little longer than normal and I dropped the boots - and my Chucks - on the new, and, honestly, forty-year-old-homemaker welcome mat and knocked on the door of the fishbowl.

A breathless, wet-haired Murph answered. "Yeah - Oh. Hey."

I stuffed my hands in my pockets. "Hi." He was wearing his good jeans and a nice button down with a long-sleeved white shirt. Murph always looked good to me but right now? Hot. Damn.

Which had me worried I was under dressed. "Am I...?" Not the most eloquent question I've ever asked, I'll admit.

"No," he said quickly, "you look fine. Great."

He was a little nervous. Clearly. "I'm in jeans and a t-shirt."

Murph gave me that smile, the one that threatened to break his face. "Do I really have to say it?"

"Nope." His hand found the small of my back once through the door and the room smelled of Chinese take out. Lunch now seemed very far away.

As far as impromptu Thursday night dates went, this was quite excellent. And it technically hadn't even started yet. Sure dinner was ready but the movie hadn't been picked out and Murph seemed more on edge than he ever was. Especially around me.

There was another blanket down on top of the comforter, an older one, and while eating a Nutri-Grain bar was one thing, sesame chicken was quite another. Smokey sat proudly atop Murph's pillows and I settled on the bed, leaving Murph plenty of room. He handed me both plates to get himself up there and I handed the beef and broccoli back.

"We're away this weekend," I said, mixing the rice with the sauce. "So, I have no idea when I'll be back."

He swallowed what might have been a broccoli spear whole. "Do...Do you want me to leave the door unlocked?"

It was tempting. The only problem was that I was probably going to reek and didn't want to accidentally wake Dev. And where would my bag go? That didn't need to stink up the whole damn room at some beastly hour.

And him leaving the door unlocked was the equivalent of him giving me a key. Which threatened to make my head explode.

It was easier to look at my plate, pushing rice around. "I don't want to disturb anybody."

"It would be a Saturday, right? No idea what Dev's gonna be doing but I have a paper to write, so I'll be here." He moved an onion out of his way. "I mean, if you don't want to, that's fine - "

I looked at him. "I need to shower, at least, because I don't wanna crawl into bed - yours, at least - sweating and smelling like...sweat." Ate some chicken. "I'll let you know when I get back and shower and then I'll come down." Because chillin' with Murph on a Saturday night? Damn fine plan.

"If you don't - "

"I do." I did. "I just don't want to freak you out by how bad I smell."

"Oh." He blinked. "You don't have to worry about that."

"Call it a girl thing."

He popped a piece of beef in his mouth and nodded.

"What's your paper on?"

"It's our history midterm paper. Four to six pages."

Which reminded me I need to not only make flash cards for T-S Britain, but also needed to study them, too. "Fun."

We talked about classes, about flu season (and this year's flavor was swine, not bird) and ate our way through our respective Chinese containers. Murph deposited the empty containers in the hall trash and flipped one row of lights off on his way back to the bed.

"So," he said, easing to the floor and burying his upper body under the bed. "I have two potential movies."

I flopped ungracefully forward, feet against the wall, palms against the bed frame to steady myself and looked down at Murph's broad back. His movie collection must be under his bed. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." He grunted. "Do you have your phone handy?" He stretched a hand back; I shimmied the phone out of my pocket and dropped it into his palm. "Thanks."

"No problem."

He thunked his head on the way out and stayed on his knees, resting his forearms on the mattress on either side of my head. Up close and personal, and he dove in for a kiss. "I have Robin Hood: Men in Tights and Stardust."

Good choices. Very good choices. Not what I was expecting, though that was fine by me.

"Stardust, if you're okay with that." He kissed me again and stood, firing up the DVD player and setting the TV on the right channel. I rolled upright and leaned against the wall. Murph tossed the DVD remote on the comforter and turn off the rest of the lights.

There was some jostling as we tried to find some comfortable position and still clearly see screen on the dresser across the room. In the end, Murph's back was to the wall with me tucked into his side, one arm around the small of his back and the other resting on his thigh, our fingers laced together. With my left shin across both of his, this could possibly be utter contentment.

Could? Let's rephrase: Is.

Ian McKellen's voice came from the TV speakers and I relaxed further into Murph, ear close enough to hear his heart.

However, while I was trying to melt into a puddle of goo, Murph was wound about as tight as a friggin' eight day clock. I dug the fingers of the arm behind him into his opposite hip.

Murph jumped spectacularly.

Yeah. Tighter than a clock.

"What's up?"

"Nothin'."

"I call bullshit." My fingertips creeped under his button down to rub his side through his layering shirt, mindful he was a tad bit ticklish.

He rubbed his thumb over my knuckles where our hands were joined. Took a deep breath. Nuzzled the top of my head. "Is this alright with you?"

That happy little phrase could pertain to a whole lot of things. My heart kicked it double time, sesame chicken churning in my stomach. "This being movie and dinner?"

Murph shifted a little. "Yeah. I mean - Dinner ordered in..."

It suddenly clicked.

Murph was afraid this date - dinner and a movie in - wasn't good enough. He was worried I wouldn't be happy enough with what he'd be able to give me. The boy wanted to bring me the moon and was worried I wouldn't be happy with the simple star he'd brought back.

He didn't need to take me anywhere fancy or to an eight dollar movie to make he happy. This, sitting here with him, stuffed with Chinese and watching a movie in the fishbowl, was more than enough for me.

Hell, just having this opportunity was enough for me.

"Murphy," I said, sitting up and effectively cutting him off mid ramble. "I don't need a nice restaurant or a movie in a theater. This right here is perfect for me." Just to make my point, I cupped his face and kissed him. Hard.

His hazel eyes searched mine in the darkness and he must have found what he was looking for because he all but melted as he relaxed.

"Wanna watch the extras?" he asked as we settled back in.

"Definitely."

Tristran tackled Yvaine and this impromptu middle of the week date was something I could definitely get used to.

Planning. Sort Of.

First of all, I have somehow managed to gather and corrupt forty followers. I consider this quite the accomplishment, considering that I'm just a college kid blogging about what it's like to go through this stage of life and occasionally getting sidetracked by other stuff along the way. Or getting lost. Those two are kind of interchangeable in my world.

To my forty bright and shiny followers - Thank. You.

This is the second full day that I have been home for the summer. The mountain of laundry I brought home with me has been done, and it was a nice way to invite in the summer because I got to hang out most of it yesterday to suck in the country air. Makes everything smell so good and when you take a big whiff the only thing that really permeates my braincells is home.

I have not, however, woken up in the morning with eighteen pounds of cat on my chest or fifty pounds of dog on my ankles. However, I have had my ears cleaned a number of times already.

Now that junior year is done (which, by default, makes me a senior and scares the hell out of me) and it's summer, it's more or less time to look ahead (or try to, at least) to what the upcoming three months will bring. Considering I picked up two work shirts while I was in town today, I think it just comes down to how busy I'll be when the full season rolls around. I go back to work on Wednesday. I'm quite alright with that, truthfully. Been waiting for it for almost two weeks now.

Which more or less means I'm going to be a sort of workaholic in the summer. All while spending as much time with the family - including the small child who's not quite so small anymore and still growing like a weed - and writing. I've got a book to try to finish (actually, if you think about, roughly three, really) and if anything else wants to come my way, well, that'll be welcome, too.

No big plans. Just tryin' to live day to day and sometimes that can be more of a task than planning something huge in the middle of the summer heat.

And, of course, I'll spend some of my summer just doing what I do best - Wandering.

If anybody's got any big summer plans and wants to share, go for it. Here's to the coming good weather and whatever it may bring.

SuperWomen

I know we have a few more days until Mother's Day, but that's right smack in the middle of finals and there's no guarantee that I'm going to remember to do this when I've already had my intro geo final and a Shakespearean performance to do in the afternoon, followed by more preparing for my hardest exam - physical chemisty II (quantum mechanics) - bright and way too freakin' early the next morning.

So, before my life gets a little nutzo and my brain decides to take holidays in its downtime while my Focus runs rampant through the dirty clothes all over the inside of my closet, I wanted to make sure I paid my homage to the mom's in my life.


The first mom in my life is my mother - Mama - and she is a fantastic lady. She has gone to numerous soccer games in various locations - up to nearly three hours away from our house, in some cases - and has gotten me through 4H projects, school presentations, growing pains and changes, multiple surgery recoveries, me living for three months in a foreign country over 3,000 miles away and then getting stuck there for 5 extra days, moving me into multiple dorm rooms (one more to move out of and one more to move into for undergrad) and just being a presence in my life (along with my dad, we'll get to him on Father's Day). She is my mother. The infamous non-existent temper (but really, we do have it, and it rears its ugly head on occasion) comes from my mother's side, as does my sense of responsibility and of doing what's right even if it downright sucks. My Mama is awesome.


The other mother in my life is my sister, Heather. She's a mother to a brilliant three-year-old, and she is amazing at it. The love that she has for that little girl, and the want to see her child happy and healthy and smiling....I can see that it's going to be projects and activities and learning and....she's a soccer mom now. M started soccer last week and now she's a soccer mom. Things haven't always been easy, but even through everything, I am so damn proud of my sister and what she has done and what she has become. So proud. Especially when it comes to her and that little girl and all that she has done. Makes me very proud to firstly be related to her and doubly proud to have her as my sister.


These are the super women in my life. Two Superwomen. They don't have to save the world at the large, or protect it, but they protect and defend their world.


Here's to them and to every Superwoman out there this Sunday, Mother's Day.

(I seem to be having issues with emedding the video that I want, so I'll just link it, instead. Superwoman by Alicia Keys.)

Things to Know XXI

- If I can hear your music through your headphones like you weren't wearing them at all, your music is too loud.

- When the above happens, it makes me want to growl.

- If I'm growling at something, that's not a very productive start to my day.

- My fellow classmate - Do not patronize me about what I did or did not do in response to a slightly irate email by one of our other classmates, and then proceed to make it look like you're "winning" what's actually not a competition, and please remember I was here until 1:45 in the morning, like you were, only I'd started at 9:00 instead.

- Today is not a day to mess with me, thanks so much.

- But, in all seriousness, turn the damn music down or I'll put on YouTube and blast country through my speakers!

- I can't seem to find my Focus.

- Saga coffee is downright disturbing - and one hell of a jolt.

- This is the point in my junior year where I just get sick of dealing with people.

- Luckily, when I was in high school, I phased out of beating up the jackasses when I hit this stage.

- Which, honestly, I really only did that in middle school.

- And, again honestly, I never actually punched anyone.

- Yup. I am going to go YouTube it up.

- My philosophy on that last one is that if you've got your headphones in to the degree in which I can hear lyrics clearly, you can obviously not hear a damn thing coming from my direction and therefore won't mind at all.

- And if you do mind, well, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

- I have over 3,000 messages in the deleted folder in my webmail.

- I find that rather interesting.

- No idea what's going to happen in terms of the labs that I have no idea how to do for chemistry.

- They might be a lost cause.

- At this point in my life, I'm okay with that.

- I have eight lesson plans, a written assessment plan, and to tweak my introduction all by 7:30 tomorrow morning.

- Thank [Insert Diety/Whatever You Worship (if anything) Here] that tomorrow is my last education class because it's been driving me up the effing wall all semester.

- I have no phone service in the basement. Which kind of sucks.

- Right. Time to dig out my microscope now that I'm more or less done ranting (for the moment) and get something accomplished so I can feel a bit better about myself.

- At least the screamo song to my left is done.

Two Sweet, Two Fabulous Two Years

I'm currently sitting on my bed - finished watching Cutting Edge: Going for Gold - and I realized that April was the first month I started blogging in two years ago. A little detective work (because there are some dates I just can't remember) and, turns out, I almost missed it.

Today is my two year blogiversary.

It's been two years since I started blogging about life, college, and everything in between. There's been high points and low points, triumphs, fails (epic fails, in some cases) and three months that were spent on the other side of the Atlantic. Two years ago I was wetting my feet in the blogging world, not really knowing what I was doing, not really sure where I was going (which, honestly, I still don't know and frankly I'm okay with that), and just more or less wandering around randomly poking things. Proverbially, of course.

Two years later there's still plenty of wandering, some poking, a 53,000+ word novel (yeah, that's how many words Murphy and Me has), and a series of asshattery best described as Things to Know. There's also a heaping dose of reality and, always, too much coffee for one wandering Sagittarius.

Raise your glass - or your coffee cup, you know I'm not picky - and we'll just say here's to two years down, and as many more to go as we can handle. Cheers!

Murphy and Me XXXV

[College. That is all I have to say.]

I trotted across the road while Murph relocated to the backyard. Pretty sure he was more nervous than when he had to meet Peter. In an odd way he should be - Elizabeth might be more difficult to win over than the previous adults.

Though if he pushed her on the swing he might have a chance.

She and Izzy were waiting on the porch. El - With no shoes on, of course - came immediately to give me a hug and say, "Carry me?"

"Of course." I swung her easily onto my hip, waved to my sister, and started back toward my side of the double yellow line. Once on the grass she took off for the backyard and her sudden reappearance as I was drawing level with dad's truck told me she'd found Murph and was confused. "It's okay."

"Pick me up?"

With a twenty-something pound child on my hip, we headed 'round to the playset, Murph standin' between the house and the swing looking sufficiently lost.

"Elizabeth, this is Murphy." She looked from me to what probably seemed like a giant and back again. "He's one of my good friends." Understatement much?

"Morephy? Like my Morephy?" she asked, squirming to get down.

"Yup."

She walked over to him and looked up. "Push me?"

"Sure," he said, unsure what to do.

"Ask her what swing," I fake-whispered, toeing off my shoes and then stuffing my socks in them. He looked at me like I was crazy and then asked the small child, who pointed to the baby swing. Murph picked her up like she was made of glass and she conned him into letting her snap the shoulder straps.

One of the most striking images I will ever remember whether or not Murphy and I stay together is him pushing my two-year-old niece on the swing set. A six foot one football boy and a small child.

The two loves of my life, right there together.

I sat on the regular swing next to El and put blades of grass between my toes, listening to Murph and El have a conversation...Well, as much of a conversation as a college student and a toddler can have. It consisted mostly of "Hear that?" "What?" "Plane!" And two heads looking upward trying to find the plane when it was a motorcycle on the road out front.

Not that it mattered, but, damn, it was both priceless and absolutely adorable.

Even better was when she got out of the swing and demanded - by cajoling of course - that he take off his shoes and socks. How could he deny a blue-eyed Karizslowski descendant? He couldn't. Which brought me to the conclusions that I'd never before seen him in bare feet.

He looked at me shyly. "I'm a little...Not a big fan of my own feet."

Toes are toes. Mine are...Okay, they're not roses but there's no fungus on 'em. With one eye on El, I shuffled through the grass and lined my big toes up with Murph's. It was then I realized I'd lost my left big toenail through some combination of practice, games, and a culminating hot shower. Oops.

"I could probably give you the best lookin' toenails on the football team. If you want me to."

He smiled. "Probably not."

El came from the right, grabbed one of my hands, took one of Murph's and planted a bony foot each on one of ours, pink toenails on display.

"Your toes are pretty," he said.

She grinned at him. "My mommy does them."

So, contrary to Murph's first impression, he and the small child got along like a house afire. Especially when she cracked open the sandbox. He sat on the FisherPrice crab's leg, knees around his ears, and let El bury his feet up to his ankles.


Dinner was a less than interesting affair. My brother-in-law Dean sized up my boyfriend upon entrance into the kitchen, but other than that and El's apparent potato strike, it was pretty tame. Goodbyes were eventually made, and with a bag of monster cookies and one last comment about how El likes "Ollie's Morephy" we were in the car and headed back toward the other end of the lake.

By way of Dunkin Donuts, of course.

"Do you want anything?"

"A kiss?"

I snorted and leaned over for a quick one before ordering a medium iced coffee and two vanilla frosted donuts (because Murph really likes them, as I'd just found out) and a couple donut holes were thrown in for good measure by the night staff. They were good like that, sometimes.

"Your family is awesome," he said once the lights had faded into the rearview. "And El...She's absolutely adorable."

"They like you." They did, too. Izzy had sent me multiple texts to this effect.

"I could tell." He shifted in the seat. "I like them, too." He shifted again, enough to stretch across the back of my seat again and rub the nape of my neck. His other hand turned on the radio and Brad Paisley crooned through the speakers. "I'm not sure how we'll do at Liberties."

Which was a polite way of saying his season was going to come to an end and mine...Well, mine might go on for a bit. Possibly to mid-December. Or maybe no. Depended on how we did during the opening rounds of the tournament, which depended on how well we did at Liberty Leagues.

And that would be determined by how we did the rest of the season.

Which would make life interesting.

"What are you doing on Halloween?"

I slowed my bucket of bolts down - sixty instead of sixty-five was much better. "I dunno. I'll probably wait and see what my boyfriend does." We were most likely going out, which is why my pirate costume was on the bottom of the pile of clean clothes in the backseat.

"Your boyfriend's thinking of taking his girlfriend to Colby's costume party."

Which sounded much better than going to a frat.

"I can handle that." Then had another thought. "Murph?"

"Yeah?"

"What year is Colby?"

"Sophomore, same as us. Colby was a transfer from the University of Albany. When he got here this summer, they didn't have a place to put him, so he was temporarily housed in the mini quad. Then some of the senior football boys needed another housemate after one of them bailed. So he took that."

Which reconfirmed that dealing with Res Ed was anything but pleasant. "Oh."

"He can't live off campus senior year because he's already doing so." And our school only allowed off campus housing to happen one year out of your four.

"How's this week lookin' for you?" he asked.

I'm not much for planning, but this week might take some actual writing down. "Kinda rough." Any week with physics was automatically difficult. Considering it was a MWF class, well, life was grand. "It'll be okay, though."

Because in five days it would be Friday again.

Wowee

Peeks out from around the bushes.

Hi. Yeah, I know it's been a while. College has been....college. It's winding down which means it's actually doing the opposite, in terms of workload, and that makes life a little interesting. On the bright side, housing for next year isn't an issue and someone, somewhere, decided that I was Orientation Mentor material and now I'm all set up to work with the incoming class of 2015.

Things come full circle, don't they?

I have re-discovered my love of the TV show Numb3rs. It also helps that, considering how many classes I've now taken (one of which I'm currently in is more applied mathematics than anything else) I can actually understand some of Charlie's math a little more. There was a blackboard in the background in one of the episodes, and it was labeled Legendre's Polynomials - I know that. We talked about that in my quantum mechanics class. It's kind of familiar.

Familiar in a way that you've seen it, mentioned it, worked with it once (written it down) and then more or less forgotten about it.

I was at my EiC's house after one of our weekly meetings a couple weeks ago - tired out of my mind - and wearing sweatpants. It was the beginnings of hell week, I think, for the show, and I'm standing there, tired and wearing more make-up than I have in three years, and idly wondering if there was, by any chance, evidence of where I had spilled my beer on my sweatpants. My EiC turns to me, looks me square in the face, and says, "You are so damn comfortable with yourself."

There have been some moments, the past couple of weeks, when I haven't been so damn comfortable with myself. And one of my best guy friends just looked at me and goes, "Be nice to yourself. You deserve it."

Anyway. I guess the point of that is that even those of us who are comfortable with ourselves still have our moments when we're not nice to each other.

Generally speaking, my weeks have consisted of doing college work - six hours yesterday saw the last set of mineral unknowns now in index card form; I have my side of a scene memorized for my Shakespeare class; the book I have on black holes and the general secrets of the universe is quite helpful; my problem set for Geo was done spectacularly early this week.

I'm almost in the mood to start actually writing again. I was going good for a while, working on The Crossing and then, well, academia caught up with me again. What I'd really like is to get some more done on Murphy and Me. Maybe during reading days. Maybe.

Anyway, that's the long and short of what's been going on with me. Hope your end of things has been less hectic.