Wow! CCYMan…that is some hardcore lurking!
Welcome aboard
[scoots over and hands CC some popcorn]
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Holy cow! That’s the coolest!
Talk about being a good listener, or read-listener, as it were.
Two weeks after the episode in the Irish Pub, finals were scheduled. Now, finals for the first semester of your first year in law school is an extremely stressful time. This meant that I had no time to worry over trivialities like my love life, which was actually a very good thing. For a couple weeks, I had very little contact with Cute Sweatshirt Wearing Girl, other than an occasional telephone call and a couple of study sessions. Nothing that wasn’t law related. Our Friday get-togethers at the bar were still going on, but they were almost all work. I was fine with that, and so was CSWG…
Finals were worse than I imagined, but luckily, there was an end of finals party on a Friday night. Since a friend of mine was hosting, I promised to help out with the party. I didn’t know beforehand, but found out when I got to my friend’s house, that Cute Sweatshirt Wearing Girl also agreed to help set up. Since it was the first social meeting we had since the “Irish Pub Incident,” I was a tad bit tense, but, to my surprise, that disappeared within 2 minutes as we talked about finals, set up the keg and cooked the cocktail weenies (insert phallic reference here). At one point, we were picking out which CD’s to play, and CSWG squealed “I love this song,” put in “Melt with You,” and began dancing, by herself, to the music. As I watched her, I felt a familiar little twinge in the pit of my stomach. Must be the flu, I figured. But watching her as she was dressed in black, dancing all by herself with her eyes closed, lost in the music, I realized I hadn’t killed that damn voice yet.
Well, the party was fun. It was your typical post-finals party with one or two people getting totally blitzed and making asses of themselves (only one got the cops called on him), one or two people drinking sodas (these people were referred to as “Gunners”) and talking about the tests. And people like Cute Sweatshirt Wearing Girl and I who were having a few drinks and just enjoying the fact our first semester was behind us. After the party had died down, a group of us agreed to walk CSWG back to her apartment. At one point, I was walking with Steve out of earshot of CSWG. Steve remarked that she looked very good tonight. I pointed out to him that he was married, and shouldn’t be remarking on her figure. Steve responded with “Don’t get me wrong, I love her like a sister… A sister I’d like to fuck, sure, but a sister.” Good Old Steve.
Right after his statement, I feel a weight being thrown on my back. I turn around quickly, and get a glimpse of a moderately intoxicated CSWG trying to tackle me from behind. I swerved away laughing, and took off running. She chased after me, and when I stopped, she leapt on my back, taking me to the ground. Now, if this were a movie, we would’ve become physically entwined, ending up face to face, and staring into each others eyes. Seeing as how it was reality, I fell down, cracked my knee painfully on the sidewalk, and fell to the ground while she slid off and stood laughing over me. I got up laughing too (it’s that infectious of a laugh), took a handful of snow, and proceeded to rub it into her face, maybe less gently than I should have. The other people in our group had caught up to us, and we all calmed down and walked back to drop her off. At the door to her apartment, she thanked us all, and went inside. Steve turned to me, shook his head, and just said “Dude.” Such a wordsmith that Steve is.
I went home happier than I had been in awhile. Of course, I put that was probably just because finals were over, and not anything else. Nope.
Dammit. I’m leaving work now, and won’t be back on here until Monday. May Og smite the city of Albany and all of her bastard children with the fury of habenero-infested donkey ass.
[sub]Excellent exposition though, Ham. You have more than a gaggle of us breathing their bait. Or something. Can’t wait 'till Monday.[/sub]
The next semester, CSWG and I continued to become very good friends. Sitting next to each other and writing notes in class (No, none of them were the “Do you like me, if so check Yes” or that kind of crap. Much more mature, sophisticated notes I’ll have you know. I just can’t remember any of them); hanging out and reading, occasionally going out dancing at a club, talking about almost everything under the sun. She’d still take one weekend a month to visit her boyfriend. I also had a few dates and had began a relationship too. I got to hear all about the trials and tribulations of her relationship with her boyfriend. About how much she despises long distance relationships and how hard it is to be in one. How her boyfriend was her best friend in college and they started getting serious in their last semester there. There was nothing we didn’t talk about. Except one thing. That damnable little voice deep inside myself. Couldn’t talk about that because she was seeing someone and talking about it would ruin a great friendship. Besides, it was slowly going away. So there.
Once, after not hearing from her for a weekend (which was quite odd), she told me about how her boyfriend came into town and took her away for a romantic weekend (I think it was to Albany or some horrible place like that). But she’d also tell me about the time where she went to visit her boyfriend and had a horrible time, and she’d say they fought alot more now, and how they might break up. I’d tell her about the woman I was dating, my past, and my hopes for the future. The more and more I got to know her, the less and less it hurt not to have her. Which surprised me. I began to appreciate her as my best friend, someone I could bare my soul to, and even harmlessly flirt with occasionally.
But still…
Lou (CSWG) went home to work over the summer, while I stayed in town and worked. We were about 2 hours away from each other, and we didn’t see each other at all that summer. The length and frequency of the telephone calls between us greatly decreased. My other relationship ended, with no hard feelings from either of us. I worked. I went out. I played. I discovered a great little bar that had excellent alternative music night on Monday nights, and told her we needed to go there when she got back. I knew she’d be there if I ever needed her, but I also figured I’d see her in the fall when classes started again. And I did.
Is this going to end on St. Valentine’s Day like it should?
Hamlet?
Hamlet?
Ah, we still got a couple hours…
I’d like to see things step up a notch involving kung fu fighting and slow motion car jump chases.
And some gunplay. Yep. Gunplay.
Oh, and some gratuitous boobie shots.
Carry on.
[ul][li]If you want Hamlet to kill her current boyfriend, go to post #3924-a.[/li]If you want Hamlet to confess his love to her, go to post #4589-h.[/ul]Come on Hamlet, where is the user interaction?
I was just exiting the law school when a brand new, fire red Ferrari pulled up. I saw Cute Sweatshirt Wearing Girl in the passenger seat, but she had a gag over her mouth and was tied up. The driver was her boyfriend. He pulled out a 9 mm and tried to shoot me, but I went into slow motion and dodged the bullets as they flew around me. I leapt into my Mazarati and gave chase. As we flew down the steets, barely missing old ladies and fruit stands, bullets flew in all directions. As we fled past a beautiful topless coed, his car jumped a curb and went flying and crashed. He jumped out of the car and came running over to my car with his fists flying at superhuman speeds. I countered with Monkey in the Thrushes, moving seemlessly into Cobra from Basket and Drunken Prince Falling. As good as I was, he landed a couple of lucky blows when I stopped to save a baby from falling to its death. He stood over my body with the Dagger of Maznic. He said “It’s over. She’s mine” as he brought the knife down.
Suddenly a single shot rang out, the ex-boyfriend dropped the knife, as blood flew from his chest. He fell heavily to the ground. I looked just past him, and saw the face of Cute Sweatshirt Wearing Girl. She smiled and said “I belong to no man. Best you remember that.” She then helped me up, we went to the nearest 5 star hotel and made wild, requited monkey love all day. Fade Out.
She came back to school a week early, and it was like she never left. We started going out every Monday night to the bar with the great music, and we’d drink, dance, and talk. Sometimes our friends would come, sometimes it would be just the two of us. We filled each other in on the summer and what was currently going on. I told her about playing smoochies with a date over the summer and she talked about her boyfriend, her family, and some new books about Foucault she was reading…
As a general rule, I’d give her a ride home from the bar, say goodnight, and I’d see her the next day in class. However, one particular Monday I wasn’t feeling so well, so I called he to tell her that I wasn’t really feeling up to going out that night. Using her Jedi mind powers and a special logic that I never truly understood, she convinced me it was in my best interests to go out. That night there were about four of us at the bar. I wasn’t drinking because I wasn’t feeling great, but Lou certainly was. At the end of the evening, I agreed to drop off everybody at home. For some reason, unknown then to me, I dropped off everybody else first. When I pulled up to her apartment building, CSWG said, “Thanks” and then paused. She then leaned over, and kissed my cheek. Before I could do anything at all, she hopped out of the car, shouted “Bye,” and ran, faster than a hopped-up Ben Johnson, into her building.
I was left there wondering what the hell just happened, and, more importantly, what the hell did it mean?
Hamlet…that was swell of you to amuse the masses with the witty-yet-provacative narration of a bad “B” movie I refused to see once.
Now, knock it off, quit caving to adolescent peer pressure, and get back to you everlovin’ “Gonnna-be-a-lawyer/should’ve-been-a-writer” self…
Thank you
[Auntnut jumps up during intermission to go potty, feed the cat, and whip up some more popcorn and margarita’s…]
P.S.
It’s okay gang…I washed my hands before making snacks.
Lou didn’t make it to class the next day, and, rather than, oh I don’t know, show some spine and screw up my courage and ask her about it, I didn’t mention the “kiss and run” episode. Life went on, as life is wont to do, and I began to wonder if I the kiss meant anything at all.
A couple of weeks later, Lou gave me a call and asked if me and my roommate would go out with her for a couple beers. Seeing as how that was much more inviting than actually cleaning the apartment, we went. When we got to the bar, Lou was already there, and she quickly informed us that she broke up with her boyfriend. After the voice I tried so hard to shut up quit doing the dance of joy, I commiserated with her and offered her a shoulder to cry on. She told me how it was impossible to make a long distance relationship work, and that they had grown too far apart. Her boyfriend wouldn’t understand that law school was very important to her, and she couldn’t just visit him every weekend. So, that afternoon, over the telephone, they had broken up.
Seeing as how she was my best friend in the entire world, I carefully avoided dancing, shouting, or jumping her bones. Of course, all three of those were on my mind, but so was the friendship we had built up. I kept my mouth shut as Lou proceeded to get well and truly drunk. I wanted to be there for her. Good Hamlet. Give me a goddamn gold star.
Cute sweatshirt wearing girl threw herself into her studies then, but we still talked almost every day. Her boyfriend had called her back and wanted to come out over Christmas and see if they could talk it out and make it work. Being only concerned for her well being, I told her that visiting him was a bad move and that she should just quit cold turkey. She said she needed to think about it before making a decision.
Now that I had what I wanted so long, a Cute Sweatshirt Wearing Girl without a boyfriend, I had no idea what to do. I spent a couple weeks in a tug of war with myself about whether to ask her out or not. Anybody who has thought about turning a great friendship into a romantic one knows what I went through. Add to the mix that she was still considering going to see her now-kinda ex-boyfriend over Christmas, and I was concerned that the timing would be off.
It all came down to one Saturday night. Lou came over to our apartment to watch movies with my roommate and I. About halfway through the movie, my roommate got a call to go out and took off (I always suspected it was a cheap ploy by my roommate. Remind me to thank her). Just me and CSWG. It took me another hour to decide to take the chance and ask her out. Finally!
As the movie ended, I took a deep breath and called out to her “Lou.”
She turned to me, and said, “My God, you look horrible. Are you sick?”
“No, but…” I stammered, trying to change the subject.
“Get some sleep, I’m heading home.” She got up, put on her coat, and left.
ENOUGH ALREADY YOU SPINELESS FREAK! I’ve had it with the patient waiting. I’m taking action. I’m going to run outside and tell her how I feel, dammit! It’s about damn time. So I head out the door at a run, just in time to see her drive off.
But that would not stop me! I waited 5 minutes, and called her. She answered the telephone. I have to say that, since the first aborted attempts outlined in this thread, I had developed some skills at picking up women. But this was different. This wasn’t somebody to date and mess around with. This was serious. This was (gulp) what? Love? So I called:
“Hello?”
“Lou?”
“Hey Hamlet, you feeling O.K.? You looked a little goofy all night.”
“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks”
“Good. What’s up then?”
“Ummmm. I was thinking… Maybe … If you wanted to…”
I waited for the dreaded “Please don’t even ask.” interruption that some women give their friends who are guys. It wasn’t there.
“Well, Lou. I thought maybe you’d like to go out sometime.”
“Sounds great, Hammy. We can meet up on Monday like most every week.”
“Ummmm. No. I mean. Yes, I mean, Monday is fine. But I meant something more like a “date” thing. Maybe tomorrow?”
Silence.
More silence.
I lived a lifetime of desperation in those 2 seconds it took her to reply.
“O.K.”
“GreatIthoughtwecouldgotodinnerandthenewmovieIwantedtoseeandI’llcallyoutomorrowbye.”
I hung up the telephone and didn’t sleep a wink that night.
Damn. I’d hoped I’d come into this thread late enough to watch the whole shebang in one sitting. 
If it’s any consolation, I think this is an actual relationship-arc-psychological behavior thing and it needs it’s own syndrome.
Cause by changing a few major details, (I was an engineer to be, not a lawyer to be) this is spookily close to how I found my wife.
Only it took us 6 years and I nearly got married in the middle there. Oh yeah, and her boyfriend was my roomate and it wasn’t a long distance relationship.
Well, okay, it wasn’t anything LIKE your story. Just hurry up man! (Unless you’re not a man, then WHEW did THIS story take a turn! 
)
Is this thing scheduled to end NEXT Valentines day?
Hamlet!
Ye Gods, man, this is slow and exquisite torture! Now I had kinda figured this was going somewhere good, being as it was written on Valentine’s Day and all, but now that’s long over and I’m beginning to think Pezpunk may be right about this thing ending next year.
And jeez, look what you’ve got me doing.
- Posting my second post in two days.
- Checking in FROM HOME! AT MIDNIGHT EST! On a 28.8 Modem!
- Hi…(wrestles with moral dilemma) …naaah, I just don’t know the history of that one enough to use it.
Oh, and thanks for the popcorn, auntnut !