12 (paper towel)

I spend three and a half hours in the same classroom on Thursdays and today, I arrived there early. Angers has warmed up since I left for campus this morning so I'm sweating under my wool polo. I can't take it off 'cause my white undershirt is (to make an awkward metaphor) a bench-warmer: fine in the locker room, but best kept off the field. So I open a window. And when the professor gets here, she closes it.

I have a coffee date after my block of education in the hotroom, so I'm detesting personal precipitation even more than usual. I'm temporarily distracted from my predicament by a stellar insight into the poem the class is currently handling. I decide that the whole thing (Le Cinéma by Paul Éluard) is a metaphor for the in utero infant and its birth. I know this has potential for major grade points in a largely lackluster class, so I get to work.

I map out all my points and check word pronunciations (Suprisingly, I haven't had much opportunity to use the French pronunciation of "uterus".) I skim the poem again and find a few more tie-ins. I make sure I have the proper vocab to explain each example. After my strategy's set, I wait for the professor to finish the class walk-through and ask for questions. She looks pretty tired of this poem and its begrudging audience. I'm worried she might call it quits early.

Anxiety. I start sweating again. I try to take notes but my hand's shaking. The left half of my upper lip starts twitching away from my lower lip, Billy Idol style. This normally doesn't happen save when I'm attempting to chat up monolithicly gorgeous girls. To calm myself, I count up two and down one (1, 3, 2, 4, 3, 5…) until I get confused.

The professor starts to close her book and my hand jets into the air. Somewhat startled she takes my comment.

Game on.

I'm intentionally humble, as if the metaphor I so laboriously dissected is merely something I stumbled into, the verity of which is unverified. My French is extra broken from concentration and nerves. I state the basis of my comparison, "I think…in general…the poem……There is a metaphor, like the fetus in the uterus." After twice asking me to repeat myself, a slow smile creeps onto my professor's face.

I know I'm in the money now, so I dive in. "Euh…some examples are like that it's black in theater like in the womb. And the light only is on the screen and the world is the movie." The disorganization of my notes suddenly becomes a pressing issue. The lawyerly-ordered point by point contention is in disarray. I scan my notes for something legible and spit out whatever evidence I can string into a semi-coherent phrase. Her smile's growing. In spite of grammatical barriers, she's with me. I say "And there's not imagery of eyes, not alot. But it's a movie! The imagery is a lot of to touch and to hear!" She beams.

Suddenly, I experience a miracle of the physics of public speaking, one requiring perfect body placement and condensation conditions: a bucket sized drop of sweat slides down a shock of underarm hair, narrowly avoiding my t-shirt to douse my second lowest right rib. I shiver and conclude: "And at the end, one is like the astronaut! Because it is necessary that astronauts learn to walk after a trip, like babies!"

She looks at me like I am the second coming of an immigrant Jesus Christ. I am her golden idiot savant.

She repeats in intelligible French pretty much everything I said for those less-versed in the verbal stylings of the agitated American. I wait for her to look away and gulp half a liter of water to replenish my lacking moisture supply. I black out for a good ten minutes.

When I come to, we're beginning a writing exercise. Also I am hosting the Great Salt Lake in my shirt sleeve. I finish my essay in record time and sprint to the bathroom. I empty the paper towel dispenser. My undershirt is tucked in, so I stick my arm through my collar to mop at my sodden torso. I do a spin and shoot two imaginary pistols in the bathroom mirror.

My breathing and temperature have reached regular levels by the time I reach the classroom again. I do the quick once over before entering: zipper up, shirt in, pants over tongues of shoes. I smile blithely and open the door.

It's at exactly that moment that I feel the forgotten monster wad of sweaty paper towel fall from my sleeve into the body of my shirt. I tense and my face drops. I hurriedly take my seat.

A couple things are at play right now: One, the mega-gross paper towel is hanging out with my belly button; Two, I'm really, really hungry. I didn't mention the latter before because a state of famishedness is a default for me. No one really knows why. The two popular explanations are that I'm constantly getting high unbeknownst to myself and thus suffer from severe munchies or I have a tapeworm.

The paper towel: Because it's slimey, sticky and salinous, I am trying not to let my belly touch it. I suck in my gut to create space for both my abdomen and the wad to coexist peacefully. But because I'm so skinny, I don't really have any gut to suck in (damn you, tapeworm) and can only hold it for a second or two before it rushes back out. I'm not so much keeping the wad away from tummy as I am pummeling it with my abs.

The combination of ravenousness, grossness and this convulsive belly dance I'm doing are making me nauseated. So on top of that stuff, I have to try and mask the fact that I'm repeatedly gagging.

I don't know really know how long all this went on and I don't really know what the rest of the class did for the remainder of the period, but I do know that I was ready to bolt as soon as possible. So when the professor said we were finished, I threw my books into my backpack and zoomed for the door. I was almost through when I heard someone ask me to hold up. My head turned and stopped to survey the super cute girl I had been crushing on while my body kept going. I hit emergency brakes. My sneakers squeaked on the linoleum as I stopped. I immediately dropped the urgency and twitchiness which had consumed my being seconds before and shifted to hit-on-girls-mode. It was time to put away childish things and look really, really cool.

"Hey, are you going to the party at Soft tonight? Tomorrow's the last day for the three-week students, so a bunch of us are getting together."

I decide to make a non-commital response, something to make me sound really busy, like I had a couple parties to go to that night, but I would consider fitting it in if she was going, not that it was a huge deal, but I certainly wouldn't mind seeing her later if that's what she was into. Of course, this all had to be expressed through subtle nuances of tone and inflection, since I wanted to keep it as brief as possible. I say

"Maybe. What time?"

"Mmm, in half an hour, I think."

I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to meet a girl downstairs right now so we can go get coffee. No! I can't go on two dates at once. (Yes, i was counting this as a date, shut up. Cute girl wants you to go to a party with her? Date. She asks to work on a class project with you? Date. She gets hit by a car while crossing the street and you kneel next to her unconscious form dialing 9-1-1? Date. Date. Date.) I vaguely recollect an episode of the Flintstones where Fred tries to fulfill a promise to take Wilma out while also taking part in an event at the Water Buffalo Lodge. He gets caught when he wears his big furry horned hat to the restaurant.

"I should be able to make it. How late will you be there?"

"Until eight or so."

I'm a busy guy. Got a lot of things to do. Cool things. Yep, I got a lot of things going on. But I'm willing to be a little accomodating for a chick, if she's cool enough. No big. I'll be a little late, but oh, I'll be there. Sweet thing.

"I'll be there by seven-thirty."

"Cool."

Marry me.

"Cool."

I vault down the stairs to meet my coffee date. She's talking to another girl whom I don't know. I ask her if she's ready. She says yeah and invites the other girl to come along. What? I don't know if that's cool or not. It is cool to be that chill about dudes and etc. But, I mean, bringing a third party negates the dateness of the date and this was clearly a date. I should know. Man. How disrespectful, to turn our romantic rendezvous into a gathering of friends. You know, I might be really annoyed if I weren't bailing on this thing early to go meet another girl at a party.

So coffee was pretty good. Well, not literally. I don't drink coffee. Or tea. Or any beverage that costs money that's not at the supermarket. So that made things a little weird, since she had specifically asked me to go out for coffee and I said I'd love to. But hey, it would have been weirder if I had asked her to go out for chairs. Or sitting. Which is really the point anyway. Or conversation, I guess. I shoulda just gone for the gold and asked her to make out. Oh and also, she made it weird when she made it three people. That other girl's drinking coffee. When all's said and done, two people drank coffee here tonight and who cares if I'm one of them?

I made an awkward exit at 7:30 and walked up the street to Soft. Before sitting down I made a quick detour to the restroom. I was starting to sweat a little bit so I untucked my shirt in preparation for an under-arm patdown. A wad of paper towel fell onto the floor.