wednesday night:
accidentally insulted a friend when i blurted out, "what the hell did you do to your nails?"
he said it's a condition of his liver.. psiriosis? [i'm not even gonna try to spell that right] and he said, "thanks for that."
i felt so bad. apologized a million times. since when am i so insensitive? but, literally.. what i saw was that the skin around his nails was all peeling and i thought it might have been from working with harsh substances or something.. and then he started showing me how his nails are all yellow and cracked and, well.. i hadn't even noticed that much.
but we were still cool because we insult each other all the time, all in good fun. but i still felt bad that i may have hit a soft spot, crossed a line. he reminded me in a "c'mon, you know me" kind of way that if he was offended or upset, that he would definitely express it and i need not worry.
i noticed him touching me a lot as he sat next to me and would talk to me in class. that always stands out, because it's not something i engage in so much. though, consciously when i remember, i will do it. because it's nice to touch and talk.
again, i felt him re-filling the role of aj.
i also noticed the way his green shirt showed off his beautiful green eyes. just the way green clothing would do for me. but i think it was even more startling on him. i had never even noticed his eyes were green before. i thought they were brown.
we have the same first name. well. he has the masculine version. and we work on class assignments together in the lab. i do most of the work. he gets answers from everyone else. just like aj.
he saw me start to put an "L" after "Daniel" instead of his "O" on our PERT chart. he made comments, like, what am i trying to say with that? and that he wouldn't be taking my name anyway; i would have to change mine. i told him, nope, i'm keeping my name. i like my name. and so he gave me my name hyphenated with his. his gift to me. my internal reaction to this was, 'what are you doing here?' is this flirting? harmless joking around? he has a girlfriend, i have a boyfriend. he doesn't know that i'm married anyway.
no, i'm not seriously analyzing this. but it was the closest the guy ever got to 'flirting' or some form of it, and i thought it was noteworthy.
and then his friend [named after a certain type of lettuce, it seems] touched me as he stepped out of the isle to leave class. a firm hand on each of my shoulders. he never got close enough for physical contact before and had barely ever said two words to me. and now this touch from someone i barely know. it throws me off. but i like it. i feel more connected whenever i am touched.
but i make this entry longer than i intended.
wednesday night, i did not sleep. instead i packed. because i was leaving on a jet plane early next morning. well, boeing 717. to see my baby.
LJ