I want you to walk.
Saturday, 10.21.2017 - 11:56 am.

I finally mailed my manuscript to Madrid this week. It took me two days, since Monday until Wednesday, to do that: print the story and bind it, print elegant tags for the envelopes that counter my anonymity. Holding that book (it was finally a book!) in my hands felt like holding my newborn baby, though I'm not familiar with the latter feeling and thus I'm not sure if it's accurate. It felt like that, anyway. My babies. Time to fly away, go break hearts, make a name for yourself.

I kiss you, you're beautiful, I want you to walk.

I'm not even sure the publishing house will open my package, I'm scared about that. The package has my name on it. It has the publishing's house name, too, not the name of the contest. Only inside of the package is where I start following their instructions for manuscript submission. The package was for the mailing service, I was following their instructions so they could deliver the document safely. I have the tracking code, and I bet my book already crossed the English Channel, but I'm scared to check and read something like "sorry, the recipient rejected your package. It's coming back your way". Andrew said the publishing house can't do that. I said, they can afford to reject anyone they want. 

Besides my nervousness, to this day unresolved, the week was OK. Got a few participants for my study, thanks to my friend Eric, who's a social butterfly and is spreading the word. Speaking of whom. Yesterday, Friday, I thought of coming home after the weekly 1 pm Psych seminar we have every Friday (most of them a bore, neither relevant to my own research). Instead, I found Eric at the end of the seminar, and he came with me to a bookstore to buy a birthday gift; I didn't buy anything, but he did. Then I kept him company while he had lunch, and I had a coffee. Suddenly it was almost 4 pm, and I left him at the Psych Department and went off to keep looking a gift. I succeeded. I arrived home at 5 pm, nearly three hours later than I intended. Which was nice. 

Eric and I discussed the crushes we have at the coffee house where he had his lunch. This coffee house is one block down from the Department building so we go there often. He's into a guy that looks like Grey's Anatomy's McSteamy; I told him, I'm into someone to whom I'd refer as a guy, but oftentimes I wonder if I should ask what his pronouns are. Upon hearing this, Eric said "Sometimes I feel boring, being monosexual". Compared to me, he meant, a bisexual. Then I thought it's incredible how a single word has given so much meaning to who I feel I am. 

(And how it's done wonders for my bedroom-and-beyond life with Andrew. A year and a half ago, I could barely feel having sex as nothing but borderline rape, no matter how much I tried to work myself up hours in advance. I could have never envisioned myself being on a Saturday morning, like I was today, biting my own legs as I barked at Andrew to pound harder. Sorry, neighbors; good day to you, too.) 

Today, Andrew and I have this birthday get-together in the afternoon, for the boyfriend of a fellow PhD student; his is the gift I was shopping for. They're both from Mexico, and they're two of the people I hold close to my heart here. We're not that close, as in, we don't hang out frequently or know a lot about each other, but our Latin American cultures, interests, and personalities align pretty well, so we have lovely dinner get-togethers, the four of us. Then, after the party, Andrew and I are going to a hockey match! Also with people from the PhD. We've been making this plan for weeks, it sounds insanely fun.

I feel tired just thinking about these social commitments, though I'm looking forward to both of them. I just need to take a shower and stuff. And maybe I should go track my package, hoping it will end up in the hands of someone who will provide to it at least half of the appreciation it deserves.  

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