New

A couple of firsts yesterday.  Syracuse’s first snowday in 12 years, and my first snowday ever!  I actually called home to tell my mother that we were having a snow day, and she didn’t know what one was!  That’s what I get for growing up in LA, I suppose.  Anyway, all classes and rehearsals were cancelled, and I had the whole afternoon to work on cabaret stuff.  By the way, I don’t think I wrote in here about the first time I worked cabaret material in class — Rodney gave me a huzzah and asked whether I’d been hiding for four years.  So I was very pleased.  It doesn’t mean, though, that I can now sit back and relax…there is a TON of work yet to be done.

Also, I think yesterday was my first Valentine’s Day date.  Certainly my first with a guy I wasn’t actually with.  Alex and I are still trying to sort out where we’re going, I think.  Sometimes I think he’s absolutely not interested and sometimes I think there’s just no way he isn’t interested.  He’ll say things like, our relationship is perfect, or, I’m so sad we’ll never be roommates.  But then he’ll also flirt with me and have me over really late at night and wait for me to walk out of class and take time he doesn’t actually have to make me tea or go to dinner with me.  He slept on my sofa one night last week, possibly even the week before, and it was quite wonderful knowing he was there.  Last night we went to see a movie, Venus, which was very interesting and a good choice for us because it’s filmed in London and we sat there and thrilled in the familiar locations.  After the movie, we went back to his house for some conversation and in theory to watch King Lear, but it turned out that he had left it at home in Boston.  So we were going to go back to my house and sleep here, so he could walk with me to Voice/Verse this morning (he lives a loooooong way away), but the last bus failed to turn up, so I stayed there instead.  Around midnight or shortly before, he went to brush his teeth and I went to the other side of the apartment to get my own toothbrush, which I had brought with me just in case I wound up stranded out there (always a possibility, especially with that much snow), and I was thinking, "Alex, where will you have me sleep?  Can I sleep in your bed, Alex?"  When I got back to the kitchen, he came out of the bathroom and said, "I could hear your thoughts."  I said, "What?"  "I could hear you thinking at me.  I couldn’t quite hear the words, but I could hear you thinking at me."  And we joked for a moment about how we were going to practice our telepathy with each other like those Sprint commercials, can you hear me now?, can you hear me now?, etc.  And then I asked him, "So, what was the answer?  To what I was thinking?"  And he said "Yes.  The answer I was thinking was yes."  And then I pretended not to remember what I had been thinking in the first place, who knows whether or not he was fooled.  But the next thing he said was, "So, for sleeping arrangements, we have an inflatable mattress, the sofa, the couch, or you could share my bed, whatever you like."  And I figured, since he’d offered, and he’d already sort of said yes, I’d go for it, and I told him that I wouldn’t mind some company if he wanted some.  And he said sure.  So I slept in Alex’s bed last night.

Telepathy?  Who knows.  Coincidence is just as possible.  But it was really freakin’ cool.  But then to go back to our mysterious confusion, we slept in the same bed and he didn’t even touch me at all all night.  He did gradually move closer and closer to me in his sleep (or possibly he woke up as many times as I did and inched closer, but I think he was asleep), so that when the alarm went off at 7:00 we were just about touching, but it wasn’t a deliberate touch.  Well, whether or not, it was pretty wonderful.  To wake up next to him.

We had a nice breakfast together and made our way down to the theatre by bus.  I put my head on his shoulder and he put his head on top of mine.  We agreed that it had been really, really nice and we should do it more often.  Thursday nights, we said, since neither of us have classes on Fridays, or Saturday nights so we can go to Sunday brunch.  Talking about having regular sleep-overs.  I still don’t know what’s going on.  He confuses me.  But he also makes me really, really happy.

The next time he sleeps over here, I’ll offer to share my bed.  Mine is a single and his is a double, though, so it’s not quite the same thing.  We’ll see what happens.  It always comes down to that, doesn’t it?

In Voice/Verse today, Lizzie somehow released a block in me and I sobbed for a bit.  I don’t think I’ve cried in an acting class yet this year.  It felt great.  We’re all bloody crazy, but I love it.

This is only the second time I’ve ever shared a bed with a man, the first being Tyler.  It’s nicer to sleep with another person than to sleep alone.  Even if he never touches you at all.  Even if he never touches you at all and it’s Valentine’s Day and you’re in love with him, more or less.  I hope we can repeat this sometime soon.  Something out of a fantasy.  (An incomplete fantasy, but a fantasy still.)  I just like looking over and seeing him sleeping there…I like it being real.

–Stephanie