Love and Other Things I'm Bad At (37 page)

11/7

Feel guilty, terrible. Broke Wittenauer’s heart this morning.

Over coffee, took a deep breath and told him he had to go home, that I couldn’t get any homework done, that we’d never last this way, that I’d found a ride for him on a ride-share board.

“Yeah, but—”

“But nothing. It’s not a sabbatical. You’re just avoiding reality. I should know, OK?” I reminded him of how unhappy I’d been the year before, until I just bit the bullet and started enjoying where I am. Was. Whatever. “This works better if we’re both in school. You know?”

“OK, OK. You’re right. Maybe I’ll sign up for some classes.”

“No, no!” I shook my head. “You’re not dropping
out
. I think you’re depressed. I know because I felt that way last year when I left Grant behind.” I coughed nervously. Perhaps this wasn’t the best way to make an argument. “You’re Corny. You need to get back to campus and be Corny.”

“Depressed and corny. Wow. Sucks to be me,” he said.

“Seriously! You’re about to get your degree. You have a semester and a half left. That’s it! I mean, look at me if you want to get depressed. I’m a transfer student, a sophomore, and I work at a nasty smoothie place.”

“I
am
looking at you. That’s the thing. I don’t want to leave.” He was standing there, his face a bit scruffy, looking adorable in his faded blue Milwaukee Brewers tee.

So naturally we had to make out. It all seemed so romantic now that I knew he was leaving. I was crazy about him again.

Or, just crazy again.

“I’ll see you in a few weeks,” I said when we finally unlocked lips. “At Thanksgiving, remember?”

“Right. Thanksgiving.” He kissed me again.

“It’ll be a nightmare. I’m warning you.”

“What are you talking about? It’s only your family.”

“Have you spent any time with my family?”

“Not a lot, no.”

“Brace yourself. Oh, and there’s the fact that my mother and I aren’t speaking. But I’m still expected to go.” I groaned. “On second thought, take me back to Wisconsin with you. Right now.”

Shouldn’t have said that. He thought I was serious and I had to talk him out of it.

11/8

Wittenauer left at 4
A.M.
Feel lonely without him but also not pressured to entertain him. I am so far behind in my reading, I must set aside personal writing in order to . . .

Dozed off for a second there. Textbook on environmental history is so boring. And you know, why did they print it on paper in the first place? Probably should have been an e-book.

But then people would fall asleep over their computers or e-readers and bash faces into keyboards. Giant fluffy textbook pages make for softer landings.

11/9

Sterling came to take me to dinner. On his own. Claimed he was on business and just wanted to treat me to a more nutritious meal than pizza. Highly suspect. I don’t even eat pizza due to my cheese issues. Much.

Sterling asked me, like, ten trillion questions about school, and how things are going with Wittenauer, and whether I needed any groceries and stuff like that.

He is totally trying to win me over. He even insisted I have the flourless chocolate cake for dessert.

But it takes more than that. Like, a to-go box, maybe. An entire cake to share with roomies instead of just a piece.

I have to know he is a decent person who will not let my mom down. She might be annoying but deserves to be happy. Is Sterling the guy who makes her happy?

Probably. He’s really into statistics. She’s all over that. She likes Excel spreadsheets better than 400-count cotton sheets. They probably sit around and plot graphs together.

Then again, maybe not. I have seen them kiss for minutes on end. Well, I looked away, but I could still
tell
.

What if she was to get . . . like . . . I can’t even write it. Married to Sterling?

And what if they, you know. Decided to have children together? Because I think technically it could still happen, Mom’s age might be an issue but it wouldn’t be impossible. And then I would have a one-year-old brother or sister at my graduation, no doubt screaming and crying? Oh, that would be embarrassing.

Well. It’s not going to come to that. I mean, that would just be ridiculous.

On the plus side, I did find out some interesting facts about Mom’s man-friend.

One, he is younger than her. By a couple years.

Two, he has kind of a good sense of humor.

Three, as a corollary to two, he likes Judd Apatow movies.

Four, he partied too much his freshman year in college at CU. He flunked out. His parents made him take time off, work, get his act together (what act?), then go back for his degree later, paying for it himself. Warned against that.

Warning taken.

Art of the Essay Description #4:
Sterling Vickers

Your average man, I guess.

Middle-aged, forty-something.

Nice. If you like that sort of person. I guess I do.

Genuine? Maybe.

Short. Not his fault.

Drives a large SUV. His fault.

Is a consumer credit counselor. Helps bankrupt people. Not bankrupt them, he helps them after they become bankrupt. Bankrupted people?

After a while that word looks very weird. Ban-krupted. (Bless you.)

Turned to running as a way to get discipline in his life. (Hey, he said that, not me. To me it sounds like an ad for the army.)

Agh, I can’t write tonight.

Well, I can, but. Not when I really don’t care what I’m writing.

What is artful about it when it is forced homework?

11/10

Mom called to see how the dinner with Sterling went.

He’d acted like it was last minute and unplanned, so this was confusing. Which was it? Impromptu or a setup?

Then she informed me that Sterling is coming with us to Nebraska for Thanksgiving. In fact, Sterling is driving.

“Good, because he has a nicer car,” I said.

“Is that all you have to say?” asked Mom.

“Yup, except, what breads is he responsible for bringing?”

“He’s not.”

“No?”

“He’s bringing the pies,” said Mom.

Well, he may as well be exposed to her Thanksgiving nuttiness before things go much further between them.

LATER

Took Oscar for his late-night walk and ran into Grant, who was just getting home. Alone. Naturally, he had to spend some quality time with Oscar. Wondered if Oscar had seen him during the time I hadn’t . . . like, illicitly. The way he did when I first moved in.

Haven’t seen Grant in a long time. He asked what was up, and since I wasn’t going to talk about my week with Wittenauer, I immediately started complaining about my mom. Suddenly, I stopped. There were other things I wanted to talk about with Grant. “Why am I telling you all this?”

“I don’t know, I guess because I kind of know your mom,” he said.

“Right, right. The thing is,
I
don’t even know my mom anymore. The woman who wouldn’t spend twenty-five cents to buy a newspaper is now splurging on hardcover books, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

Grant gasped. “Wow. She really is
out
of
control
,” he said in a sarcastic tone.

“Shut up. She is! For years we had to put up with her being a miser. Now she’s throwing her money around.”

“What money?”

“Hm. I don’t know, I guess.”

“Maybe because you’re all getting older, she has more money of her own,” Grant guessed.

“Yeah—since she made me leave CFC and come here, she has more money, you mean,” I said.

“There’s nothing wrong with this place. Besides, you were nearly on a full scholarship there.”

Stupid logical Grant. Hate him sometimes.

“You’re not very grateful, you know. People sacrifice stuff for you and you don’t appreciate it.”

I just looked at him. “People?” What was this about?

“I totally sacrificed my A in Chem for you last year,” he said. “I went from an A to a B minus because of you.”

And then I knew. “Am I, uh, is our chemistry that bad?” I asked, trying to get him to lighten up.

“I failed my midterm because of you. You dumped me when I was ten minutes from taking my exam! Who does that? Who does that by
text
? I mean, come on.”

“I called,” I said in a small voice.

“Yeah, after I called you to ask what was going on, where you were, why we all of a sudden weren’t going to Cancún on spring break together. Then the second I turned off my phone for the exam, you call back and leave a message—a message? Like, a five-minute message about how you can’t go to Cancún, which was your idea, and the tickets are nonrefundable but you’ll send me a refund?”

Oscar started to whine. Not a happy whine. He, like Gerry, hates conflict.

Shivering. Cold, November wind.

“I really felt terrible about that,” I said. “Not sending you the money.”

“I didn’t care about that. I didn’t want a refund! It’s that you never even said why, where you went instead,” he said.

“I didn’t go anywhere, OK?” I said in this quiet, pathetic voice.

“Then why did you all of a sudden have to break up? I hated you for doing that. It was so weak. If you weren’t OK with going and you were with Wittenauer or whoever, why didn’t you tell me before it was the day before we were leaving and I had midterms, or didn’t you have midterms at that junior college you went to?”

“It’s a good school,” I said through slightly gritted teeth. “And I didn’t know what I wanted! I mean, I just couldn’t make up my mind.”

“Yeah. I know. You can never make up your mind and stick to anything. Vegetarian? Sometimes. Dairy? Maybe.”

“If I’m such a horrible eater, why are you even still talking to me?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know sometimes. I mean, I must be crazy, right?” He shook his head and walked up the sidewalk to his house.

“It takes two. To be crazy,” I said.

Grant looked over his shoulder. “Since when?”

Oscar was running from one of us to the other, back and forth, as Grant headed for his house and I headed down the street. He was trying to herd us together.

Grant slammed the door shut. On me, on Oscar, on the whole awkward, horrible night.

How long had he been waiting to say that? Since March, I guess.

Clearly, I haven’t apologized enough. I mean, I did send him a long email about it. Or did I? Maybe I forgot to hit
SEND
. Which you can add to my list of tragic errors involved with Grant.

11/11

Feel like crap about what Grant said yesterday. He’s right. What I did, when I did it, how I did it, is, like, unforgivable. So why has he even been tolerating me lately? Because he is the nicest person, kind of guy who visits his grandmother, helps animals, and doesn’t hold childish grudges. And what kind of person am I? The opposite.

Had to get out of the house, away from the neighborhood. Went to a poetry reading of Dara’s and other poetry students tonight. She writes morbid poems about failed love. Why am I not surprised? Still not sure who she is pining for, though. Someone in her past? Hopefully not Bryan.

Her final poem she dedicated to me. It was called “Snow Struck,” about trying to get to DIA that night. It was confusing as it had nothing to do with me.

“Snow Struck”

by Dara MacDonnell

Crystals

Falling

Whisper thin

Piling up

Into solid mass

Nothing can break you now.

No hurtling SUVs

Or skidding sports cars

You mock two-door Saturns, while

Smart cars disappear inside your

Fluffy

Warmth.

Like whisper-thin feathers

And squeaky packing peanuts,

You fall, quietly,

And we duck and cover

And find ourselves stranded on the beach of your massive indecisiveness.

To fall

If we fall

As you fall

There can be no forgiveness tonight.

I-25

Will your pavement still hold me

If I make a U-turn?

11/13

Dara’s poetry has inspired me.

OK, not really.

Still, at the Pyth, eating a sprouts sandwich and finally writing my blog about Smoothie Stop and its suckingness. Dara is opposite me, having plain grilled cheese.

Grant and his vet pals are here. However, Kelli is not with the group. I can’t think about that or about what I might have done to contribute to that. Am having a bad enough week as it is, consumed with guilt and self-hatred.

What was my problem? Why did I back out of spring break trip? Was it that I still hadn’t forgiven Grant for making out with Beth that one time? Maybe I need to talk to her about it. Or even better, Jane.

Tapping pen against desk while listening to iPod and attempting to write on laptop.

Just looked up to gaze around the room for inspiration. Caught Grant’s eye and we exchanged awkward waves.

Yeah, hi. How’s it going? Remember last time I saw you? Yeah. You yelled at me. Reminded me of what a crappy thing I did to you. So, I’ll just sit over here. Yeah, OK. Please don’t throw anything in my direction.

Impossible to concentrate when one is aware of all of one’s flaws.

“Holding Court”
by Courtney Von Dragen Smith

When Is Recycling a Crime?

By now, we all know the three R’s: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle.

Right?

Recycling is a great concept, but where does recycling end and where does copyright infringement begin?

A certain smoothie stop in town that shall remain nameless has recently been seen by this reporter to be copying a venerable establishment in Denver known as Truth or Dairy (Canyon Boulevard Shoppes location).

The setup is the same: Each offers smoothies, wheatgrass shots, and ice cream dishes such as sundaes and milkshakes. Perhaps that is not such a surprise, as other shops have tried this before, but let’s look at the names of smoothies, the menus, the sundae descriptions:

(Here is where I inserted photos, in a slide show, side by side.)

Only one of these shops is original.

The other is a copy, and should rightly pay for basically being a franchise with no original ideas of its own. Otherwise, recycling and reusing have become nothing less than hijacking.