thank you notes 4/11

i'm thankful that when i was running water in the bathroom sink this morning to heat it up for my neti pot and i walked away to get the bluetooth speaker i left in the bedroom so i could listen to music while i drained myself, i remembered how one time when i was a freshman in college, i left hot water running in our dorm sink to clear out the clogged drain (as my mother had taught me when i was younger) but how the drain was too clogged and i got distracted by something and when i came back, the sink had overflowed and spilled out onto the floor of our dorm room, revealing how dirty our floor was and soaking the edge of a rug. i'm thankful for the bemused look that my roommate b gave me when he came back to the dorm room and how he didn't get mad and left me to quietly sponge up the water. 

i'm thankful to remember b, who was a very good roommate to me (and a better roommate to me than i was to him, even though thankfully i wasn't that bad of a roommate (hopefully)). i'm thankful to remember how during orientation week, i came back to our dorm room one night after playing pool in the dorm lounge and the lights were out and when i opened the door, i heard a girl giggling form his bed and saw their faces looking up at me from under teh covers and i felt very awkward and closed the door and walked away. i'm thankful that i decided to make an adventure of not going back to my room that night and so, because it was august in tallahassee and lovely out at night, and after i got nicely kicked off the couch in the dorm lounge, i went out to the meadow in front of the library and laid in the grass looking up at the stars. i'm thankful that when the sun rose, i met one of my new friends on a stone bench and we went to breakfast at the dining hall.

i'm thankful to remember how later that semester, the girl that i was in love with slept over one night while b was out of town. i'm thankful that i remember playing "sunday morning" on my tinny laptop speakers for her while i took a shower in the bathroom we shared with our suitemates. i'm thankful to remember that before we got in bed but after i turned off the lights, i put on the dvd of amelie, which was my favorite movie at the time (i'm thankful to remember an earlier discussion with her about what movies to check out from the film school library to watch together and how when i suggested when harry met sally, she countered with reservoir dogs or full metal jacket, which i probably should have taken as a hint that we were not a perfect match). 

i'm thankful to remember how b and i had our beds stacked in bunk beds at the time (i'm thankful this was short lived) and i was on the top bunk and thankful that the girl, l, felt uncomfortable being on the top bunk and asked if we could just use b's bed instead. i'm thankful that this felt like a violation of roommate code but also thankful that i so didn't care because i was deeply in love with l and she wanted to share a bed with me. i'm thankful to have pulled back his dark red plaid flannel sheets and climbed in behind her as the light from a candy-colored fantasy of paris flickered over us.

i'm thankful that i'm pretty sure l wanted me to make a move on her and might have even wanted to have sex with me, but that, while being very happy to be in the same bed as her, i was, after being a total loser in high school and being a very anxious person always, also naive and inexperienced and terrified to really do anything. i'm thankful to remember the extent of my making a move, which was hanging my right arm over her stomach and nuzzling my face into the square of bare back above her nightie. i'm thankful for the revelation even from this tiny intimacy, which was that her back was covered with tiny white hairs, which was something i didn't expect after only ever seeing closeups of naked women in the plastic sheen of pornography, had backs  (i'm thankful for down). i'm thankful to remember having an erection that would not go away and how i was trying to split the difference between being close to her and yet not poking her butt with my erection, which seemed too intense. i'm thankful to remember being so nervous that i only slept shallowly, my heart beating like a hummingbird.

i'm thankful to remember how in the morning she got up and kissed me and told me to call her later and put on her clothes and went back to her dorm. i'm thankful that i lingered in the bed, luxuriating in the fact that i had just slept with a girl, but that eventually i got out of bed and remade it and got into my bunk. i'm thankful for the providence of my timing, since b came in five minutes later and was (hopefully) none the wiser. i'm thankful that i was supposed to call l later that day, but instead, because i was a loser, i instead updated my AIM status to reflect that i was spending the afternoon listening to a marathon of super furry animals songs on our dorm's shared itunes network, which for some reason (i didn't understand what! lol) did not entice her to return. i'm thankful for, even still, for "juxtaposed with u."

i'm thankful to remember the one other time we slept together, which was when one night near midnight out of nowhere i heard a knocking on my first floor dorm window (b was out again, as he often was, living a secret life that i didn't really learn about until the next semester). i'm thankful that it was l and she had a beautiful quilt and pillows and whispered, when i opened the window, for me to come outside with her, that we were going to sleep under the stars. i'm thankful that she took me to the same meadow where i had slept alone during orientation and laid out the quilt and the pillows and we got on them under a thin blanket and looked up at the sky as the night breeze slipped over us and we listened to the ambient music of the empty campus. i'm thankful that at that point it felt like it was probably the most special moment of my life.

i'm thankful to remember a few weeks later in the semester finding out she was dating a guy in gainesville (which i unfairly viewed as a betrayal, even though we hadn't really been "dating" and definitely weren't' "exclusive" and i was not making moves even though she was giving me very clear signals) and getting drunk for the first time on malt liquor with my friends to cope with this. i'm thankful to remember how in the early morning after getting drunk i woke up sick and leapt/fell/launched out of my top bunk onto the gray rug on the floor, which i promptly covered with vomit while miraculously not seriously injuring myself in the process. i'm thankful that soon afterward, b and i decided to unbunk our beds, for both safety and privacy.