this is thesis writing:

Though we both own full-size beds, his seems wider than mine as I stack and spread my books across the entire width of his mattress. Some books are open, some books have folded page corners, some are bookmarked by articles with unintelligible notes in the margins.

I sit in the top back corner hammering away at my computer, rotating from book to book to article to writing again, desperate to achieve a degree of coherence and continuity in this argumentative mess. I know he’s watching the Celtics game because every few minutes he yells at the TV and promptly apologizes for the disruption, neither of which really register because I’m chin-deep in thesis writing and approaching my April due date.

“Hey,” he puts his hand on my bare knee. I look up from my screen and he smiles. “I asked if you were hungry.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t hear you. But no, I’m fine, thanks.”

“Are you sure? Because I can heat up the chicken from last night or make you something new.”

“You’re sweet to offer, but I’m really okay,” I say and resume typing.

He picks my hands up off the keyboard and asks one more time. “Are you positive you don’t want me to make you something to eat?”

I chuckle at his persistence and say, “Yes, I’m absolutely positive. Thank you anyway.”

He kisses my forehead and begins folding a clean t-shirt while my fingers punch the keys of my MacBook.

“I only ask because you’ve been gnawing at your collar all morning.”

And before I can be offended by this animalistic word, “gnawing,” I look down at my white Iowa Western t-shirt where my central incisors have chewed a hole clean through my collar.

“Piss.”

passive aggressive:

My buddy D only calls when he's reeling from a break-up. He's more-or-less aware of my romantic track record and counts on my consistently catastrophic first-date stories to cheer him up.

"Your love life is like the first half of a romantic comedy," he has said. "All horror and no payoff."

I usually shrug it off because it may or may not be true: I've had bad luck in dating, which I don't usually mind because they make for great stories, and truth be told, I've not been interested in dating for quite some time--too demanding, too stressful, and I've got important shit to do. Which hasn't kept me out of the game entirely. I still go out, but I usually come home with puke on my shoes and a new aversion to goat cheese.

So when D called, I knew he'd just broken up with a girl, probably one he'd fallen in love with. Again. We hadn't spoken in nine months, and I quickly learned that I was correct to couple our radio silence with the duration of his relationship.

His story was familiar: he fell hard for an edgy Mormon who, like him, loved to drink and party, but also liked to attend church and was a tiger in the sack. I listened attentively and asked what went wrong, if he was okay, if there was anything I could do.

"You could come visit," I suggested. "Maybe you need a getaway, and my couch ain't so bad."

He said he'd check his finances and continued, "Your turn. Make me feel better. What's the newest horror in your dating life?"

I told him I had nothing to report.

"So you're one step closer to spinsterhood? You're just going to dry up and start buying cats now."

"No, ass. Things are...going well."

"No they're not," he snorted.

"Okay..." I said.

"Are you being serious? You met a guy who's not a rapist?"

"That was only once. And yes, I met a nice guy."

"Well he's probably gay," he said.

"Suck it, D. He's not gay."

"You have a history, that's all."

It wasn't a "history," exactly. A friend of mine had been grappling with his sexuality and asked if we could date, as I was, apparently, "his last best shot at a normal, heterosexual life." I told him not to marry the ideas of 'normalcy' and 'heterosexuality' and that he deserve to be himself with a (or many) nice gay boys. He's since found several nice and not-so-nice gay boys.

"I don't have a history," I said.

"Still, I bet he's gay. Totally watching gay porn while you're asleep or hitting up gay bars on the weeknights when he says he's working. Imagines dudes while you're making out."

"Thanks for your support," I said.

"I"m just trying to prepare you for his big 'coming out.'"

Because we don't talk often and because I'm usually a spineless rat, I didn't tell him that his remarks had upset me. Okay, I didn't tell him I was pissed and offended. Instead, I changed the subject back to his break-up.

"You going to be okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, I guess," he sighed. "I mean, there are other fish in the sea, right?"

"Yeah,"I said, and I should have stopped there. "But you're in the desert," I said, "all alone."

"signs of the times" pt. 1

Been writing for a class of mine. Below is an excerpt of a longer piece about Mormonism.

On September 28, 1992, I was baptized in the Provo River. Kids are traditionally baptized in a font at a local church, but I’d seen a picture of John the Baptist holding Christ’s wrist, both standing in the currents of a tranquil river just before a dove descended from heaven, so I begged my Bishop for a change in venue until he agreed.

Dad had suggested a lake, maybe Deer Creek at the top of the canyon, but I reminded him that Jesus hadn’t been baptized in a lake full of windsurfers. Mom agreed that the hum of ski boats might “hinder the spirit.”

We settled on a grove above Nunn’s Park where the aspens and pines cleared enough for the family to gather. Earlier that summer we’d spent a few days there playing catch and grilling hamburgers. Dad had yelled when I lost the baseball in the river and when Claire, only five, dropped her hamburger bun in the dirt. Still, I liked the changing leaves and the smoothness of the river rocks.

Mom slipped off her shoe and dipped her toes into the water. “It’s going to be cold,” she warned.

“I don’t care,” I said.

We left at 7:30 am and arrived at 8. I sat in the back watching the kaleidoscopic flutter of autumn leaves as the mountain shapes shifted in the morning light.

My grandparents and siblings stood at the banks of the river as Mom, eight months pregnant and sweating in the near-October chill, zipped up my white baptismal dress. The Provo River was swifter than the Jordan, and as I waded out to Dad, dressed in all white and in the center of the churning blue water, I looked back at Mom who nodded, assuring me to continue.

Dad took my wrist, as John had taken Christ’s, and said the scriptural prayer, a prayer I’d memorized so I’d know when to plug my nose before being submerged. When Dad said “Amen,” I took a deep breath. The river rushed through my hair and in my ears and between my toes, all the places sin hides. As Dad pulled me out of the water, I gasped for air and watched my breath, like my sin, dissipate into nothing.