In which there is a whirlwind of men

I went crazy this week, and I might now be done (full disclosure post ahead). I had two nights of heavy drinking, hooked up with two different men, regretted one, and suffered two days of hangovers.

Thursday night started with karaoke with a group of friends, including Special Friend, and ended with Special Friend naked in my bed. We didn't hit the homer but was well past third base. I now think back on the experience with fond memories, but we were both very stoned at the time, fumbled around a lot, and were both very paranoid that the other person was not comfortable. The next day, Friday, I asked if we could talk. He readily agreed, and we had a nice adult conversation about the whole thing. We laughed and agreed that we were actually both very comfortable with how things went, and that the paranoia came purely from being stoned.

He is however, worried about me rebounding, but since neither one of us have concrete expectations, we decided to just see how things go.

Friday night started with one of my labmates inviting me to go clubbing with him and a couple of buddies. Excited, I got all dolled up and met up with everyone downtown. Next thing I knew, Labmate and I were pounding drinks, grinding on the dance floor, rushing out the club to grab a cab ... and then I don't remember anything until I discovered myself naked in his bed with my clothes strung all over his floor. Still drunk, we had sex, which honestly was pretty disgusting. He wanted me to spend the night, but I had sobered up significantly by this point and preferred to wake up in my own bed. He insisted on walking me home, which was pretty sweet in retrospect. In front of my place, I realized that I had no inkling of attraction to him and couldn't even bring myself to kiss him good night.

Saturday night, I went on an actual date for an LTR (long-term relationship). I knew within 5 minutes of sitting down to dinner that I had no interest in the guy and was highly annoyed by his personality ... and he had theater tickets for after dinner so I was in for at least 3 more hours. He ordered a drink, but I stuck to my water, explaining that he caught me on a bad day as I was still nursing a hangover. He laughingly joked that the best way to cure a hangover was to drink more, and I laughed along. I realized he was serious when he called the server over to order me a Bud Light. A bit annoyed, but wanting to stay polite, I intercepted and ordered myself a hefeweisen.

When asked me what I planned to eat, I replied "fish and chips" - my favorite dish at the pub that we went to. He insisted that I simply could not get the fish and chips, and that I should save the fish and chips for when we go see a movie. I stared at him blankly, honestly a bit shocked, but trying to decide if this was also a joke (he giggled the whole time). He then very condescendingly said (though I'm sure he saw it as being a generous gentlemen) that I needn't worry about the *cost* of my dish since this dinner was on him, implying that I had ordered fish and chips because it was cheap (it wasn't, it was $14, kind of a ripoff actually for fish & chips at a pub).

Realizing this wasn't a joke, I remained cordial but firm, saying that I wasn't trying to be polite - I really do very much love the fish and chips at this restaurant. He wouldn't have any of it and proceeded to argue that if I insisted on ordering the fish and chips, he would have to take matters into his own hands and pick something for me. He then ordered me a meat-heavy entree consisting of every kind of meat imaginable grilled, the last thing that I wanted. I ate very little of my plate (too heavy, exactly what my hungover head did NOT need) and silently fumed through the entire dinner, lamenting the fact that I would have really liked to have been eating fish & chips instead.

I eventually finagled my way out of the second half of the play (he had lost interest by then as well) and met up with a friend working at a coffee shop to gripe. Special Friend was working late but finishing around this time too, so I made plans to leave the coffee shop and head his way, maybe grab a beer together. By the time we met up around 11:30, we both preferred something even more chill and just took a brisk walk around the neighborhood. Dropping me off at my place, he gave me a delicious good-night kiss. There is potential indeed in this Special Friend.

I also had a couple of other "dates" with guys who responded to a CL post I made asking for no-strings-attached (NSA) fun ranging from making out to whatever we felt comfortable with. I had lunch with one of the guys, who was a decently nice and normal person but completely not my type. I made coffee plans with another, but was honestly rather exhausted by men at this point, so I canceled it.

I suppose this was the whirlwind of singledom that I wanted, expected, and felt constrained from by HB, Broadway, and whatever other serious relationship. But, it's honestly not that fun. I really regret having sex with my labmate, beyond just the fact that he is my labmate and we have to see each other in lab every day. (To his credit, he came by to say hi to me today and really tried hard to made it as normal as it could be considering.)

There was no connection or attraction to Labmate (at least not on my end, he claimed that he'd always been attracted to me from the day he joined our lab 4 years ago). I love making out with guys, and I didn't even want to kiss him. Sex for the sake of sex was not the fun and liberating experience that I fantasized it being. It wasn't fun at all, and I regretted it the next day.

My conclusion is that meaningless hookups just don't cut it for me. The thought of having a stranger in my bed is extremely riveting and exciting, but actually having a stranger in my bed is disgusting.

That's a good realization to have, that sometimes fantasies are just fantasies. Trying to bring fantasies alive doesn't always work because reality gets in the way, and my reality is that I don't really want to sleep with a lot of people. So going forward, I'm not sure what I'll do. Maybe I'll still try CL every now and then (low commitment, easy), but posts for casual drinks and flirting with no path/expectations for more, emotionally or physically.

The night with Labmate was also the first time I've ever blacked out from drinking, not able to remember whole chunks of the night. I don't want that to happen again. I enjoy a bit to drink, and it is fun, but I need to be more aware and have more self-control about knowing when to stop. I highly doubt I would have gone home with Labmate if I were cognizant of my surroundings.

As for HB and Broadway, I'm starting to get the clarity that I've been seeking, but I'll save that for another post.

in which he loves me

HB called me this afternoon, having come home completely drunk after a night of whiskey with his boys who want to say goodbye in Beijing.

We said "i love you" back in July when we first started officially dating, but then I didn't feel it anymore so I stopped. It's been a long time since either one of us has said the l-word.

In his drunken state, HB told me "I fucking love you." We were talking about very unrelated things.

And then some point later in the conversation, he said, "Never fucking doubt how much I love you. Never."

I still think we have a chance together, but not right now. Right now, I need to go out and be unconstrained in this world, no matter how much he loves me. I kinda do hope that whenever I manage to figure my stuff out, HB will still be there for me.

In which things get better, then much worse

Chicago was magical. HB and I completely reconnected and found again in each other the joys of the strong mutual attraction that brought us together in the first place. There is just a naturalness between us that I've never felt before with anyone else. In person, we joke and laugh and can talk about anything. We're essentially the nauseating couple you want to punch because they are so nauseatingly in tune with each other.

His family was fantastic as well. I was worried about meeting them in the context of everything between him and me, but I had no need. I usually do really well with families, and his was no exception. His mother is a bit kooky, but I could appreciate her in the short interactions I had with her. I loved his dad, who is such a jolly old man in love with computers. We definitely connected over some nerdy talk about our shared dislike of C++, and he could truly appreciate my passion for hardware design over software development. HB has two older half sisters who are around 40, and a younger sister who is my age. His younger sister is my favorite, and I felt she and I connected the most, but I got along with all of his sisters. I could envision a future in which they would be my sisters too, and everything felt right.

And I wanted all the things that felt right. So I left Chicago asking HB to give us another shot. He was tired and exhausted, feeling like he was always trying so hard to keep me interested in him and engaged with this relationship with less-than-successful results. He was dubious why this time would be any different but did agree to try again.

A couple of beautiful happy weeks go by, during which he found a job in Chicago. We were so excited, and it felt like this long and hard road is finally coming to an end. He gave his notice at his current job, with his last day being mid-November, and booked flights to leave China permanently by Thanksgiving.

Then things started to get worse.

My birthday was last week, and Broadway surprised me with my favorite cake, tiramisu from a fancy dessert place. He left it for me in my office fridge, but not before taking a bite out of it first. When I saw it the morning of my birthday, I broke down in tears and cried in the bathroom for 15 minutes. I still care about him so much, and I kept asking myself why I can't just be happy with what I had. Why did I need to go and make things so complicated? Broadway loved me so much and made me feel so special. Why did I have to be so stubborn and selfish?

That got me thinking a lot about what I want in a partner. I know that I won't find someone who is 100% perfect--that's simply impossible. So I will find someone who is 80% perfect, and whose 20% incompatibilities with me aren't a big deal. They're things that I would be okay with, and put another way, I'd be willing to settle on those 20%.

Broadway's 20% are completely different from HB's 20%. In fact, Broadway's 20% are a part of HB's 80%, and vice versa. If I could combine Broadway and HB, I would have a 100% perfect man. But individually, whose 80% is better? Whose 20% is worse? I couldn't answer that question, and that really shook my resolve to be with HB.

In parallel, I've been having this "thing" with a guy in my new friend group for a while now. We first met back in June (well, remet... I mentioned him briefly in this entry). We'll call him my Special Friend. Special Friend and I flirt, a lot, but nothing has ever progressed beyond flirting. I think we both welcome the attention, and on occasion, at the end of late night drinking sessions with the friend group, he and I will hold hands or have our arms around each other. While sober though, we've gotten lunch a few times, but they're always within the bounds of a friendship, and we never talk about the times when we are drunk.

Even without HB in the picture, I'm not sure I would pursue anything with Special Friend beyond flirting. He doesn't know about HB and so wouldn't know I am technically off-limits, and yet he has not made any moves, so I feel that he feels the same way: fun to flirt, but not enough interest to take it further. HB is insanely jealous of Special Friend (no surprise), but I always tell HB when I plan to hang out with Special Friend. Aside from our occasional lunches, Special Friend and I never hang out on our own.

A couple of weeks back, I found myself one of the last 2 people left at his house following a night of drinking. The other girl got up to leave, and I followed, except she left rather quickly, and I couldn't get my jacket and shoes on in time before she was already out the door. Now alone with Special Friend, who was drunk, he stood between me and the front door and tried to kiss me. I definitely wanted to kiss him back, but I was sober and knew better and resisted the urge. He said some nice and sweet things about me and told me that if ever I want a nice guy to hang out with, he'll be just down the street (we live just a few blocks apart).

The next tday, I nervously told HB that Special Friend asked me out (not mentioning his having tried to kiss me), and HB was happy that I turned him down. He was however, very unhappy that I wasn't able to tell Special Friend that I have a boyfriend. "Thank you for the interest, but I have a boyfriend." Yet it was something I was unable to bring myself to say, to admit that I was attached and take away future flirting chances with Special Friend.

Last night, Special Friend's friend circle (which overlaps with mine) planned a huge apartment crawl for Halloween, ending up at Special Friend's house. I found myself in the exact same situation again, one of the last two people remaining at the house at 3am. Except this time I was drunk. The other person got up to leave, and I followed. He left in a hurry, and I couldn't catch up and it became just Special Friend and me, alone. He stopped me at the top of the stairs leading to his front door, leaned in and kissed me.

Not being sober, I didn't have enough resolve to pull away. We made out for a long time, and he asked me to stay over. I did have enough sense to leave at that point, came home, drank some water and went to sleep. The full implications of what I had done hit me when I woke up this morning and realized that I, once again, cheated on my boyfriend.

I didn't want to tell HB, so instead, I broke up with him. It hurt to have that conversation, but he said he saw it coming. He's felt my aloofness all through the last couple of weeks. I told him that our being together was always a battle for me as I fought against my desires to be single and out flirting with other guys like Special Friend. He said that he knew I was always fighting that, and he's honestly a little tired of fighting for me and being nervous wondering about what might happen every time I hang out with Special Friend.

I haven't had enough time to process this breakup yet. I think I will be happier, just from the lack of obligations and constraints associated with being in a relationship. But I am devastated about HB and me. He has so many great qualities, and I've never felt as comfortable with anyone as I do with him. That will be so hard to find. He's finally moving back to Chicago, where we'll get to see each other so much more than we do now. I feel like I'm throwing something away right at the moment when it will start to get great. And I'm throwing it away because it's easier to break up with HB than it is to tell him I made out with another guy.

Oy.

Things that are on my mind (Part 1: boys & career)

1) HB

I leave for Chicago this Wednesday to visit HB for almost a week and for his sister’s wedding. We talked pretty extensively last night for the first time in seemingly forever. We laughed the hardest when we joked about how to introduce me to his relatives at the wedding. He might say something like, “This here is my friend. We’re just friends, and you may never see her again. But yes, we’re staying in the same room together at the hotel.”

I told him that I like him well enough as a person, but can’t manage to look past the things that bother for me to consider him seriously as my boyfriend still (I never did say boyfriend anyway, even at the beginning). He got a bit defensive again, asking why things like misspelled words and lack of tech-savviness would be such big deals to me.

So I finally broke it down: those aren't that big of deals, but they are just the symptoms of the underlying problem, which is a big deal. I told him that I can’t get past how differently our minds work and how he doesn’t measure up in the ways that I’ve always use to judge people around me. I told him that I've been trying to see his talents for what they are worth and to remind myself he is good at things that are unconventional to me, that I need to see value in new things that were never on my radar before. But I haven’t been successful in that quest and honestly have a hard time assigning value to the things that he considers himself to be good at.

I guess that was my euphemism for “I don’t think you’re smart. We don’t have to be smart in the same way, but I need to see worth in the ways that you are smart. And right now, I just see nothing.”

He didn’t understand my implied message, and I didn’t want to burden him with a blunt accusation right before he gets on a 13-hour flight. We both debated whether I should just skip going to Chicago altogether. I said that my reasons for still going are 1) to see if things would be different in person, but I don’t have high hopes of this being the case, and 2) honestly, I want to fuck. He said he understood that we’re not really together anymore, and he’s seen that for a long time, and he’s gotten himself to a place where he can “take it or leave it” with regards to the relationship. He’s sad that I see us as just friends, and he wishes that weren’t the case, but he also hasn’t asked me to not come to Chicago because he wants to fuck, and we fuck so well together. So, honestly, that’s great. I’m glad everyone is on the same page, and that we’ll be getting busy in Chicago.

2) Broadway:

I broke down and emailed Broadway mid last week. I’d been having more and more doubts about our breakup, especially as things with HB got worse and worse. (To answer GH’s question on the last post, no, I don’t generally have a pattern of going to a new man in order to escape from old ones). I think in this case, I realized that no one is perfect, that I will have conflicts with anyone I date. It’s a matter of how much I am willing to work with the situation and in some sense, how much I’m willing to “settle.” I’m not 18 and idealistic anymore that there is ONE prince-charming out there who is perfect for me. There are many people whom I can work with as long as the fundamentals are in place and I stay true to my values.

So in that sense, Broadway was good on many of the major fronts. I need someone I can consider my intellectual equal. I need someone I can count on. I need someone who doesn’t need babysitting. I need someone who will care about me no matter how hard I am to deal with. I need someone who can solve problems with me, and not create problems that I would need to solve. Broadway provided all of that. What he lacked were certain social graces (I was always embarrassed by how long-winded he could be, especially at parties when some unfortunate soul mistakenly asks him the slightest question about his research), social confidence (these two are probably related), sexual passion (he had a healthy appetite for sex, but just didn’t know how to show it and to effectively engage me sexually), and lack of optimism about life and the world. I don’t need someone to tell me everything is great about the world, but Broadway was full of cynicism and took that to the other extreme and thought everything was dark and grey.

I emailed him to ask how he was, and to give a rundown of updates in my life and how I’m working to improve myself lately. We’ve been emailing a bit back and forth, sometimes serious, mostly cute and jokey. I’m contemplating asking him to sit down and talk, where I would propose that we give things another shot, but with a greater emphasis on open communication and on going to couples therapy to work on the things where we clash. Visiting HB in Chicago definitely complicates this, and is partially why I haven’t asked Broadway to sit down yet.

3) Job search:

Started seriously job-searching a couple of weeks ago. It’s taking a lot of time and just overall causing all kinds of stress due to the general vagueness and uncertainty of looking for a job. I’m plagued a lot by not knowing what I really want to do. I know I don’t want to keep doing research the way that I’ve been doing it in grad school. Understanding basic science is not enough incentive for me on a daily basis to be motivated enough and to be productive. I need to see more immediate real-world applications in my work. So I thought I might enjoy science policy and went to Beijing for 6 months to do climate change policy (science policy AND the environment! What’s there NOT to love?). But in the end, it was a ton of fun to be in Beijing, not so much fun doing the policy work. It was a lot of report-reading and report-writing, and at least in the environment I was in, not a lot of teamwork. I need more hands-on, field work type of work, and in the absence of that, I need to be working with a lot of people. I honestly felt claustrophobic in front of my computer screen all day, every day, and none of the excitement I thought I’d be feeling working on something so important and so relevant.

So I went back to looking at careers in science industry: pharmaceuticals, consumer products, startup biotechs. The problem with science industry is that I don’t have the science credentials. I don’t have pages and pages of publication records to show off what I’ve done in grad school (in fact, what I’ve done in grad school is to avoid my research as much as possible). I do have a lot of pretty substantial leadership experience and of course all my policy stuff (I also interned in a prominent Senator’s office doing healthcare analysis at the peak of all that healthcare reform stuff). My advisor claims these provide an image of a well-rounded scientist, good for my intended trajectory of a managerial path in science industry. The recruiting company reps whom I have talked say similar things. However, when it actually comes down to granting me interviews, nobody does, and that's really upsetting.

They tell me this is what they are looking for, that so-and-so company hire the *whole* person and not just the scientific experience/training. But then, why can't I get interviews? I feel like they look through my resume and still can't see past the relatively sparse science credentials and decide they would rather go with a "safer" candidate who excelled in grad school. So now I’ve also added consulting to my list of companies to pursue. They claim to value leadership and soft skills and really only see scientific training as analytical training. I feel like a sell-out, applying to consulting firms. I don’t like trying to talk-the-talk in a suit, and I'm still a nerdy scientist at heart. But I’ve gritted my teeth and gone through with it, written the coverletters, submitted the resumes. Lo-and-behold, the first firm I submited a resume to granted me a first-round interview. I have to do it over the phone because I'll be in Chicago later this week, but that's better than any of the science industry positions I've applied to. I’m just sad that I can’t get past the screening process to get interviews and be the scientist that I came to grad school to be.

4) Graduating:

This has been a hard hurdle for me all along. I didn’t think hard enough about the types of projects I wanted to be working on when I started grad school (and not sure I thought hard enough about whether or not I actually want to go to grad school period while in college). So I’ve been stuck in a rut for a long time, for maybe as long as the past four years. I recently met several times in near succession with my advisor, who is great at extracting the big picture from things. We managed to come up with something that could salvage the work I’ve done so far into a thesis. I have one last set of experiments to run to test a set of hypotheses predicted by some computational work I did after getting back from China, but I have maybe 20% faith that the hypothesis will test out to be true. I’m not sure what will happen the other 80% of the time.

I’m now entering my 7^th year in this PhD program (granted I took off those 6 months to go to Beijing), and that’s just demoralizing in general. I’ve been doing the SAME THING for 7 years. I need to get out of here and move on. Despite that feeling of panic and of needing to get out, I can’t seem to wake up in the mornings with enough motivation to get myself to lab and thaw cells and set up assays and run experiments. My motivation needs serious help.

Other things I’m thinking about coming in Part 2 (frisbee, friends, my knees, groupons)

gaaaaaa

I've been thinking about Broadway a lot lately and wondering a lot of "what if I had stayed" types of questions.

The image I have in my head is from the last scene of The Breakup with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. The two of them run into each other randomly on the street, and you see the care and love that they still feel for each other in their eyes. The exchange is casual and lighthearted, and Aniston's character cocks her head with a sly smile while saying "Hey," almost as if she's more surprised at how happy she is to see him than the actual chance encounter. They exchange genuine pleasantries and mention how great it would be to hang out sometime. They then walk away from each other as the end credits roll up playing "I Can See Clearly Now That the Rain Is Gone."

I remember watching that movie in bed on my computer not long after I moved out of Broadway's apartment back in June. As the credits rolled, as tears flowed down my face, I wished that Broadway and I would eventually come to our own version of that scene. But that only made me cry more because at the time, the positive energy between Aniston and Vaughn seemed so far-fetched for me and Broadway.

Now, a few months later, it doesn't seem like such an impossibility. At the time, I just wanted out of the situation with Broadway because I felt so constrained and unhappy and daydreaming about HB. HB was the escape. But now, I want an escape from HB. Given how many warm feelings are conjured up when I think of Broadway, it seems that I now want to be with Broadway as an escape from HB.

This isn't the first time that doubts about leaving Broadway have popped up. In the past though, I think about things that make me unhappy such as what sex, or rather the lack thereof, with Broadway would be like. It was unbelievable how just that one thought would completely derail any inklings of reconciliation with Broadway. I guess that was the escape that HB, and our phenomenal physical chemistry, provided.

In a way, I feel that HB and I have already run our course. We'd always had a very physical connection, and while we certainly connected emotionally during the two weeks that he was here in Boston, there wasn't enough depth to sustain us through the past two months of being 7000 miles apart. We knew then that we would see each other again in October, when he comes back to the US for his sister's wedding. In fact, I booked flights so that I could be in Chicago for about a week to maximize the time we would have with each other.

But I fear that our time together will just be more of the same as our phone conversations recently. I will get easily annoyed. I will question his intelligence. I will wonder whether or not I actually respect him. The latter two were never issues with Broadway. Broadway and I were always intellectual equals (yes, I know I am horrible for feeling this way). So really, I am just going for a 1-week long booty call.

And yes, that is basically my motivation for going through with this trip. Honestly, without this trip coming up, I am very ready to tell HB that it is time we go our separate ways, call it quits, take some time to heal from this whole situation that started back in January and then decide what to do about Broadway.

HB feels the change in my attitude. He has asked so many times why things are different now. Why can I no longer tell him that I love him? Why do I sound so distant over the phone? He sees the week together in Chicago also as a chance to re-evaluate where we are, and if he still feels the same emotional detachment during that time, then he will have to think hard about whether or not this is the right road for him.

So maybe this will all come to a mutual end in just a short few weeks.

Things that annoyed me today

Things that annoyed me today

1) Playing tech support for HB.

Yesterday morning, HB called and had a question for me. The night before, we'd been talking about his internet connection. It's been rather flakey, and despite calling the service provider several times, the connection hasn't improved. While talking about it the night before, I happened to ask him if his roommate was having similar problems. He thought it about it a bit, and replied, "no."

Um. So why have you been calling the service provider? Obviously, if your roommate who uses the same internet has no problems, the internet's not broken. Something's wrong with your computer. That really annoyed me. It's such a simple and obvious concept that he just didn't get. So I told him to look into updating the driver for his ethernet ports and controllers.

So that was the question I woke up to yesterday, "How do I backup my existing driver before I install this new one that I downloaded?" First of all, I don't know, I'm not tech support. Secondly, I don't think you can backup a driver that's already installed. You can only back up the install file. And last but not least, I kinda doubted that he'd even downloaded the right drivers. But I wasn't going to mention that and be roped into a 10-minute conversation helping him to find the right driver. So I said I was late for a meeting (which I was), and hung up.

This morning, he called with a new question. He got a domain name and host and wants to make a webpage. Red flags immediately go up in my head. Ugh, new issue for me, his non-tech-support-tech-support. He asked what I use to make my page.

-Wordpress.

-But I don't want a blog.

-Okay, but wordpress can do pages too, and it has an easy interface.

-But it's still blog-based.

-Fine, most of the themes are blog-centric. You can try Dreamweaver or another editing program.

-Okay, I'll go download Dreamweaver.

-Umm, Dreamweaver is not free like Wordpress. You'll have to either buy it or pirate it.

-Oh.

I just don't have the patience to sit there and walk him through making a webpage. He claims to know simple HTML. Yeah, I bet he knows the bold tag or something, which is obsolete. I didn't want to even start getting into FTP or stylesheets or tell him that back in the day, in the age of static pages, I coded my own site. I don't want him asking me any more questions about webpages.

Funny thing is that if I were actually there, his internet connectivity problem is one that I probably wouldn't mind figuring out for him (FOR him is the key, not WITH him). I'd spend an evening or something looking up drivers and screwing around with his network settings to see if I could improve anything. (But I wouldn't do the webpage for him, unless he wants to pay me).

Ultimately, I am repulsed by his general lack of tech-savviness. It really really bothers me. I have to constantly remind myself that he is different from the people around me here in grad school. He has other talents that I need to learn to appreciate, like being able to pick up a musical instrument and pretty much pick out an ad-hoc tune. Actually, that's the only talent of his I can think of right now. I'm definitely entering negative-HB mode.

And damn it! He's the guy! He's supposed to be MY tech support, not the other way around. Broadway was always so good at that.

2) Being told "I wish I could pull off short hair."

My labmate came up to me and said, "Man, I wish I could pull off short hair." My response: "You can." To which she said, "no way, you have no idea."

Umm, have you ever chopped off your hair? You probably haven't, in which case, you have no idea whether or not you can pull off short hair. Stop saying that to me just because you don't have to guts to go short.

I've gotten that a few times since chopping off my hair about three weeks ago. My friend buzzed the sides of my head (not completely, maybe left 1/4 inch or so), and we left the top at about 3 inches so I could spike a mohawk. But day-to-day, the longish hair at the top just sits, and I look like I have a punkish boy cut.

I like it. It's different and actually kind of empowering. But I get really annoyed at comments like the one my labmate made.

His cities

San Francisco will forever be his city. I won't be able to visit Dolores Park without thinking of him, canvas bag slung over his shoulders and hanging low below his waist, overlooking his city. Maybe he's thinking about his childhood home. Maybe he's thinking about me. Maybe he's thinking of which coffeeshop to visit for his afternoon espresso. Who knows? He just looks peaceful.

He already knows that I will leave two short months later for an internship in Beijing, but he's trying not to think about that. He is lost in the moment, in the city he loves, to celebrate his newly-acquired "doctor, but not the kind that helps people" status with his new(ish) fiancee. He doesn't yet know that Beijing will be the beginning of the end.

In a way, Boston is his city, too. He grew up here. His went to school here. Twice. He met and lost his love here. Twice. The second times, both times, were much more difficult than the firsts.

But Boston will never be San Francisco. Boston is where things are broken, where the world beats him, where he remembers the corners he retreated to because he had nowhere else to hide. San Francisco is where things heal, where the world embraces him, where he can hide from the pains in Boston without hiding from the world.

There are many other cities along the way, too. Some, he will always associate with me; others, he might only have the kinds of memories that fade easily because they struggled to imprint heavily on our minds in the first place. A gourmet burger place in downtown Hollywood might cause him to pause a second longer than usual, triggering a vague pang that he finds hard to pinpoint, but that which suddenly brings my image into his conscious thoughts. Or perhaps a dolphin's glide in the waters of a coastal city conjures up the sounds of uncontrollable laughter from a different time (and perhaps even a different city) as he pulls out his aviators to cover up the glint of the water. Similarly, a pickpocket in a foreign country might remind him of a story told on grassy fields amidst a group of giggling frisbee girls whom he tried hard to capture on camera.

Three years of cities. Three years of memories. Three years of promises of faraway places we will have to visit during the rest of our lives.

Three years became just three years, and three is not forever.

But San Francisco, San Francisco will forever be his city. To him, and more importantly, to me.