While being "Scrabulous"

(Pardon the clumsy writing. I am in the middle of a game of scrabble).

Well, I don't really want to talk about the debacle with my department chair because it will put me in a bad mood. Besides, I don't have to meet with him until tomorrow, so who knows how all of that will turn out.

In terms of the Narc story? On Friday I went to the movies by myself-- I went to see No Country for Old Men. (I didn't like it as much as I hoped to!). In any case, Narc had not responded to any of my texts while I was sick. I was feeling sad and a little lonely, but also a little strong and so I decided to change his name in my phone book to "Rejection." That way, whenever "Rejection" called, I would have to make a decision whether or not to answer and take full responsibilities for the emotional consequences of answering "Rejection's" call.

Rejection did finally text me while I was in the movie. He answered a "how are you?" that I had posed two days earlier. I wrote him back that I'd give him a call when I got out of the theater.

We talked on the phone for a little while after that while I poked around in Old Navy. He asked if I wanted to come down and spend the night. I agreed. I think I got to his place at around 10:00 PM. We watched the third Indiana Jones movie. He wasn't feeling well-- he caught the cold that seems to be going around NY. He had a hacking cough that night, and a fever and chills. He woke me up in the morning to go to Duane Reade to get him some cold medicine.

When I got back, we hung out for the rest of the day and watched movies. He wanted to watch Kieslowski's Red because he had a dream a few weeks before that he met a young ingenue and her name was "Irene Jacob." At some point, I had to start working on my syllabus, so I did that for a few hours while he played some Zelda.

At around 8:00 I left to go to Hammer's party. I was the first one there. She and the Alaskan had cleaned up the apartment and made it look so pretty and they had such pretty food out on display. Hammer even made a paella. It was a fun party. I got to talk to No-Eyebrows, a girl that Hammer and Bezoukhoff and I had classes with our first year in the program. Velma was also there, another former classmate... and two more guys from our program-- one that Hammer and Velma call "the Niii-rd" and a guy called BeardFace. I mostly talked to them at the party, even though Hammer had some other interesting friends there too!

I was still a little run down from being sick all last week, though, and so I couldn't stay that late. Besides, Narc texted me to come back to his place. But this is where I went a little crazy. When I opened my phone to check his text, it said that it was from "Rejection V---l" ("V---l" is his last name.)

My stomach completely dropped down to the floor and my knees felt weak. Obviously, at some point, he had looked in my phone, he saw that he was listed as "Rejection" and he changed the entry by adding his last name. I was mortified. And I was shocked that he had acted "normally" all afternoon, not letting on. I didn't know what to do. I tried to explain to Hammer what had happened. She said to act "normal" myself. So, I did. I just wrote back and pretended that nothing was wrong. He asked me to bring ice cream over. I agreed.

So, it was back to his place at around 12:30 AM, in massive denial about the weird dynamics between us. We watched a little more TV and then went to bed.

The next day, I didn't plan on staying there all day, but somehow I ended up not leaving. I went back to Duane Reade to buy myself some underwear and to get him a humidifier and some more medicine (and red bull for both of us). He made me coffee. Then we hung out, ordered in food, I worked on my syllabus some more and it was a nice day... He was finally starting to feel a little better.

It was that night while the SAG Awards were on that I got the crazy email from my psycho department chair. I felt a huge cry coming on, so I called my mom. Then, I couldn't help it-- sitting right there on his couch, I burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably. My mom managed to calm me down, but I don't think Narc had any idea why I was crying. After nearly an hour, I finally hung up with my mom. He asked if he could see the email that prompted the downpour.

"The guy's a dick," he said. "You can't care what people like that say to you."

We watched the rest of the awards show and cuddled and went to bed.

On Monday afternoon, I finally left there. It was like leaving some magic space, some secret bubble, and going back into the "real world." I hadn't even been to an AA meeting in all that time. But I had to get home and back to myself and I had my first class of the semester scheduled that night.

Unfortunately, when I got to class there was a sign posted on the wall that the teacher would be out until next week. So, I came back home, collapsed into bed after an amazing shower and got some sleep.

Yesterday was my first day of teaching for the semester. It was fine, except for the fact that I was running around all morning last minute photocopying my syllabus and then I had to try to dodge my department chair, as I don't want to see him before tomorrow. I forgot to eat all day and by the time I was done teaching (at around 5:00) I was a little woozy. I went to the diner and then went to AA.

Last night, the last Tuesday of the month, we were celebrating anniversaries, so Pixie's parents were at the meeting. I had already met them a few weeks before at her play, but it's nice that they came for her.

Later that night, I talked to Anxious on the phone for a while and then to Brick.

"I'm obsessed with you right now, Hyde!" Brick said.

Aww... nice to know that someone is thinking of me. It's so weird that everyone's in LA all of a sudden...

Anyway, today I had to go have some blood drawn for my six month post-op check up next Wednesday. They took 16 tubes of blood-- again, I was left feeling woozy. It was okay, though, because I had lunch with B soon after. Now I'm home and playing Scrabble online with Hammer. She says she's addicted. I hope it doesn't happen to me. I just have no time for another addiction this semester!

Anyway, wish me luck in my meeting tomorrow. Hopefully I'll survive to tell about it.

love,
h