Archive-name: School/indecisn.txt
Archive-author: Sarah Jahn
Archive-title: Indecision


I rolled the glowing tip of ash against the edge of the cup, and
watched the burnt tobacco and paper fall. I'd been smoking too much
lately. Funny how I could think that and keep lighting one damn
Dunhill after the other. Must be stress. Yeah. That was it. My hand
crept up to my temple and started to massage it lightly, then harder,
dragging strands of hair into my eye. I had found myself obsessing
today... I was lying on the still damp grass near the pond with a
friend of mine. 

We were watching the ducks swim aimlessly around, and the swan make a
general obnoxious pest out of itself; both normal activities for the
pond life at the University. And she and I both were shifting position
every so often to catch a view of the passing students, and to see
what the step sitters were up to over at the Student Union. Like I
said, normal. It was spring. The hormones were out. 

Today was beautiful. The sun was shining down, drying off
the last of the spring run-off. The wind was just cold enough to carry
the memory of winter. It hadn't taken much convincing to get her to come
with me and hang out. 

She flipped through her newly-purchased Cliff notes on Moby Dick, and I
stared up towards the south end of campus. So many people. It seemed
like thousands passing by. Maybe it was. Damn, this University had a
lot of students. I looked at them. A woman, dressed in a sheer skirt and
loose top that clung to her chest as the wind blew over her. The skirt
billowed attractively around her tanned calves as she went by, and I
smelled the faintest spice of perfume. A man, in faded green pants, black
sweatshirt, tightly-laced combat boots, long brown hair that curled
at the nape of his neck. The sleeves were pushed up, and I could see
the hard muscles of his forearm as he pulled his falling backpack up.
I looked further, past the immediate crowd that I'd already seen. Then
I realized who I was looking for, and sighed. This was getting pretty
stupid. 

I was graduating in a few weeks, and here I lay, looking for a guy I
hardly even talked to. Maybe I should get pushed back to freshman year
for being such an idiot. 

It had started... When? I wasn't sure. After I realized who he was.
That he was in my class. Of course, I was the second of us to realize
who the other was. One day he had seen me log into my account and
placed me. Not long after that, I had asked to borrow his notes from
our course together. I had been skipping too much this semester.
Sleeping in, or just being a slug and reading junk like "Macho Sluts",
or "Sandman" comics. Anyways, I needed to catch up in this lecture,
the midterm was coming up pretty soon. After I had taken them from
him, I didn't look at them, but just stuffed them in my bag and took
off. Later that night, I had opened the cover and caught a glimpse of
the name penned inside. Hmmm. I wondered if it was the same person
that posted those letters to the file. I started flipping through the
lined pages. No dates. He didn't bother with writing them in. Shit.
This was going to be harder to get than I thought. Screw it. I could
borrow them from some drone in the back of the class that went there
religiously. I looked at the doodles in the margins and grinned.
Universal. I put the notes back in my pack and dropped it under the
bed. 

I returned them the next class. He smiled and asked if I had been able
to interpret his scribbles. I laughed and said sure. So what if I
hadn't copied them, I could have read his writing. I got the others
the next class. She had the dates. Dates, and she had parts joted in...
I stared closer at the ink. Greek? Great. Oh well. If the professor
thought I could read and write Greek, if I remembered them verbatim
from her notes, could be brownie points in there somewhere. Yeah,
right. 

I was logged in the next day, seeing who was on the system, reading my
e-mail. I scanned the account names. Hurmph. Let's see if this is the
same person. I tried the naive approach: "Hey, did you ever take a
Classics class?" "Yeah, you borrowed my notes," the reply. Heh. I sat
back in my chair and smiled. Nailed. End of conversation. 

Next class I said hi, and sat back up in the front, my usual spot.
There was a small interval in between when I got there and when the
professor arrived and started his lecture. With the knowledge of who
the other was, we both just sat there. I pondered what to say, gave
up, and opened the college paper. He opened his notes. I started
reading the editorials. Rape sucks, racism is bad, the bureaucracy
here pisses me off, I'm graduating and am whining... The normal. "Ok,
class, here are last week's quizzes. Miss Bonivito?" I closed the
paper and stuck it under my notes, opened to a blank page, dated it,
and waited for the transcribing to begin.  

It went on like that. More letters appeared in the file - a public
mailbox of mine that received mail from about ten people and had a
couple lurkers as well. I had set it up my freshman year to discuss 
sex, pervert frosh that I was. 

It had passed from machine to machine as I got new accounts on each. Now
students with accounts, mostly those in a small clique I was in, wrote
in... I was glad to see new, well, aliases. His letters were
well-written, intelligent, showed he'd been doing quite a bit of
outside reading. Refreshing. Paganism, the occult, science fiction
television, tantric approaches to sexuality, feminism,
bondage/domination, gay curriculum in schools... The topics blew
through as the days passed on. I found myself writing in almost every
day. 

A couple days ago I had seen posters up around campus, advertising the
lecture by a visiting author. He wrote cyperpunk stuff. Being a
compu-geek, I was naturally interested. I walked into the graduate
research center, going in to see if anybody I knew was around. They
were, and as we stood around talking in the student consulting room,
the lecture came up. A friend of mine had decided to go... She asked
me if I wanted to meet her later in the high-rise after she taught her
discussion. Maybe, I offered, and went off to check my daily influx of
mailers. The terminal room was crowded, full of computer science
newbies, writing their low-level programs or playing dungeon games. I
went to sit down at one of the dinosaur terminals, a Morrow. Piece of 
Neolithic hardware. 

I heard music behind me as I turned to sit and saw he was
there. It had been raining outside, and I was in a black jersey dress.
Well, a damp black jersey dress. Wet, I corrected myself. I felt
odd... The water had beaded up on the fabric like silver beads. I
greeted him, and sat. More and more of the beads sunk through, meeting
my skin. I logged in, and checked my mail, checked the file. Nothing
new. 

He asked me, or I asked him. It was the class. "What were you doing for
your paper?" "Not taking that final right?" "Oh, Dionysian orgies?"
"Man, I thought I had to do... " I moved and turned to sit sideways in the
chair, letting one arm hang over the back. He didn't look directly at
me during the whole conversation, I thought. Maybe a flick of an intake
with his eyes but that was all. I asked if he was into the "whole
cyberpunk thing", knowing his reply. At a yes, I followed up with if
he was going to the lecture that night. "Oh, really? Cool". Skipping a
class to go even. A friend ran in then, to ask me about a concert we
were going to the next day. After that, I got back into my account.

After wasting about a large chunk of time, I figured I should go get
something constructive to do. Maybe a paper... Yeah. When I came back
in, I ended up across from him. As I tried to write an analysis of _The
Aeneid_, failing miserably, I kept catching myself wanting to look up,
over. His hair, thick and glossy, curled over his head in onyx
waves, over his neck. Dark lashes, brows. Stubble a clean shadow,
clear brown eyes. He laughed at something he was reading off the
screen. That smile. I forced myself to turn a page in the book and
look at it, and start typing. 

Later, I asked him if he was still going, my voice light. "Oh, what time
is it? Shit, thanks, I would've been at that all night if nobody
stopped me." We walked together out into the rain. None of us had
umbrellas. The rain fell coldly, I wrapped my arms under my breasts
and shivered. Once inside, I felt the warmth start to dry my skin and
hair. Sitting, in the dimness of the lowered lights and the heat of
the dark, I listened to the author speak, laughed at his jokes. He was
good. I'd have to get his book. The shoulder next to me moved against
mine briefly and I found myself focused on that small space of
sensation, through layers of fabric. To imagining more, like the
warmth of his skin, the scrape of his rough face on my lips, smell of
his hair. My heart beat hard in my throat as I eased myself back in
the seat and recrossed my legs. I had ideas of being blunt then. Just
asking him straight out what he thought of me. But the incredible fear
of rejection kept my mouth silent.. and me stuck in a world of banality. 

It ended, and I was entrenched in a group of people I had just been
introduced to when he brushed past me with a goodbye. I caught him in
my eye, holding his olive-green bag, then he was gone. As the talk
went on in front of me, I pushed the image away, and put on a grin. 
Flicking away my hair, I laughed at one man's joke, watched his eyes
as he looked me over. Here was a guy, perfectly blatant in his
appraisal. I, on the other hand, was being a complete coward about the
whole thing. 

"Though I've tried before to tell her/Of the feelings I have for her
in my heart/Everytime I come near her/I just lose my nerve/As I've
done from the start..." I refolded the lyrics and put them down beside
the stereo, turning up the volume. 
 
I stripped off the clothes, and put on a robe. I stared at myself in the
mirror. Black kohl around my eyes, dark lipstick, two pairs of gold
hoops in my ears. They'd gone well with the grunge look today. I
pushed the long bangs out of my eyes and took out the earrings. The
sweatshirt lay crumpled on the floor. I kicked it out the way as I
passed by, going to the shower. Nothing like your own cowardice to
induce self-pity. My mouth turned down in aggravation as I flipped the
water on. As I watched the rivulets run down into the drain, I
thought. Contemplating what to do, how far to push this, an
infatuation. Pros and cons flashed briefly past in my mind. 

Graduating in a very few weeks. So was he. He was heading off to
grad school, in physics, in Pittsburgh. He listened to industrial
music. He was from Chicopee and commuted here. Sources had it as
unknown whether or not he "seeing" anyone. Did it matter anyway? All
this information I had learned and did I give a shit. I had not dated
anyone since my last boyfriend and I broke up... in late 1991. Almost
two entire years. Sex between then and now had been sporadic. It was
pretty unfeeling on both sides. Superficially sastifying. I was tired
of emotionless couplings. Passion would be nice. I didn't need love
now. 

I kept having these pictures come up at the oddest moments in the
day, from my imagination. Thoughts of possible sensations and words.
Even as I typed in these words, I wondered at my motivations. A friend
of mine had suggested I was writing it in on Unix, in Emacs, only to
post it or send it to him. I denied it but it nagged at me. Maybe it
had been the reason, subconciously lurking, and he had exposed it.
Because now it was a thought to me... send this to him? Post it to the
net? Delete it? I wavered between all.

I rinsed the final traces of soap off. It was like a weighted scale
tipping back and forth in my head. At first it swung back and forth
quickly, slowing as the loads evened out. I grabbed the towel and
started to dry myself. It clicked back from one side to another. No
resolution. Jesus, even mental props didn't help. I laughed and
stepped out of the stall, put the soaps away. 

20 days left on this campus. No matter what, there would be something
decided, whether on purpose or simply through my own dreary
inaction. I'd have to see... I had watched so much. How sick was
I of it? The wallflower role was wearing thin. 
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