Highlights from Love Week

I warned you that the love-cocoon might swallow me for this week, and indeed it did. I had trouble returning my calls, answering my emails, and updating el bloggo. There's no easy way to sum up everything Elliot and I did this last week in Austin, so I'll just have to hit the highlights. I can't do it all at once, so we'll start with our good times at the pool for this entry and I'll keep posting as the days go by:

Swimming at Barton Springs. Remember when Z and I took this 68 degree natural spring inch by freezing inch? Elliot's not that kind of guy, and of course I won't let myself be a wimp in front of him (the old tomboy in me), so yes, I jumped right in. Okay, okay, maybe I danced around on the edge of the pool for a good ten minutes, whining, wringing my hands, and trying to force my shaking legs to propel me into the Arctic. But in the end I did it, and you know what? It was every bit as horrible as I had imagined. Courtney used to do this to me at Grand Lake; just like Elliot at Barton Springs, she'd dive right in, surface with a smile, and tell me the water felt great. Then I'd jump in and scream profanities for a few minutes before crawling back to the warm deck and rolling back and forth in an attempt to defrost my cold, sluggish blood. Court and El would be a great match; they both love cooking, cleaning, and hypothermia.

While we were lying on our towels after the swim, E-licious and I had the dreaded Marriage Conversation. It all began the day before he arrived, when Z and I were walking around South Congress for the monthly First Thursday event. She asked what grad schools I wanted to go to, and I listed them dutifully: UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, Stanford, NYU, Duke, Cornell, and UNC Chapel Hill. After I rambled on and on about literary theory, cultural studies, and Vincent B. Leitch (que Dios le bendice), she had to be a pest and ask WHEN I was applying and WHEN I was planning to take the GRE. I then had to tell her that I didn't know quite yet. You see, Elliot and I decided that we really couldn't do a plane-ride relationship; this Austin-Norman thing is hard enough, believe me. This means I'm forced to choose between love and grad school, at least for now. The first one I know I want, the second I'm less sure of, but both are potential futures, and it seems at this moment in time those futures might be mutually exclusive. I don't mind waiting for grad school, especially since I feel I'd like to live and work in the real world for a while, but should I calculate that beautiful blue-eyed boy into my future plans if this relationship isn't going anywhere?

And thus, the Marriage Conversation. El was squeamish because he's managed to avoid marriage for 33 years (much like Jesus), and I was squeamish because I don't feel I quite fit into the role of the "what are your intentions" girl. I've never been foaming at the mouth to get married, as many of you know, and since my introduction to feminism, marriage seems less about love and more about consumerism and compulsory heterosexuality. At the same time, I don't see how living with someone is much different, except you get no federal benefits and your mom disowns you, plus it seems pretty daft to start planning your life around someone who won't even share a bank account with you. The point is, while I see that marriage is problematic in many ways, I know that I'll never rearrange my future plans just so that I can date someone for 4 years and then break up. In this cynical time, I find myself holding on to that outdated notion of unconditional love, and for better or for worse [wink], I won't settle for less. So...we had the talk. And it went surprisingly well. Don't worry, we're not engaged, but let's just say after our conversation I told him I'm going to wait to apply to grad school. Call me a Third Waver and a pathetic fool, but I'm not willing to just give up the one person I love more than anything else in the world for something I'm not even sure I want to do with my life. After we finished the Marriage Conversation, we walked back down the icy depths to take another plunge. This time, we held each other's hand and I said we would jump in together. "Are you serious?" he asked, remembering my previous water-splashing-cursing-screaming-shaking pyrotechnics. "Yup," I replied, looking into his eyes. "This is symbolic." Splash!