The first thing I do on school days is grab both the school newspapers on the way to class. I always sit in the back, usually on the right side, skim the headlines, then discard the crappy student journalism and then get down to the crossword puzzles. I wasn't sure if the newspapers would be ready on the first day of school, but there's nothing more boring than having the professor read aloud from the syllabus for 45 minutes, especially when there are matters of grave importance at hand; for instance a seven-letter word for what most bowlers aim for (KINGPIN).
With a class like Introduction to TV Literacy, grabbing the school newspapers is a no-brainer. I'm all about the class, don't get me wrong; I'm sure I'll be pulling something official and scholarly out of my ass when my grandparents ask me what classes I'm taking, but its an easy class that sounds somewhat interesting and shouldn't take up too much of my freetime, which will be spent drinking and working on my two senior theses.
I'm one of those jerks who sits at the aisle seat, even if there are empy seats further down the row. I prefer a lot of space to spread my stuff out, and I need the extra room for my long legs. Sure, it may mean getting up and letting other people through until class starts, but it also means that I get extra space, and I'm perfectly fine with everyone thinking I'm a jerk.
I sit down and spread out my stuff, and make a pile of the parts of the newspapers that I couldn't give a rat's ass about--the sports section, the student editorials, the classifieds--and get out a pencil and start in on my crossword.
A few minutes go by (I am eternally ten minutes early to everything) and I hear "Excuse me." I sit up and move my legs under my seat to let him through. I look up, casually checking out the guy who's passing me by, and lo and behold, I'm staring into Guy's eyes. (Guy is, of course, yet one of the guys I slept with once, developed an irrationally gushing crush on, and then was disappointed when it wasn't reciprocated. Except this one I like more than the others, and he's always been the politest towards me when we bump into each other at a bar or something.)
"Hey."
"Hey. I didn't know you were in this class." He's still standing right in front of me, with an 'I'm from Southern California and I have a causal sexiness about me' grin on his face. Goddamn I want to jump his bones, even if his haircut isn't doing much for him.
He moves forward and then sits next to me. Right there. If we weren't in class he would have just invaded my personal bubble. My jeans leg is touching his jeans leg! I can tell what flavor gum he's chewing. His friend walks past me and then sits on the other side of him and is making a big point of fixing her hair so it looks good with her sunglasses at the top of her head. There's a bit more awkward small talk between us: it turns out we're not in the same discussion section, and how I hate it when the professor is also the discussion leader.
He looks around and thinks he notices a friend sitting across the room, yells his name to get his attention, and then turns to talk to the friend sitting next to him, asking what discussion section she's in and what she did this weekend once they parted ways. I turn and continue working on my crossword puzzle, putting my elbow on the shared armrest, hoping that he'll brush up against it, remember how much fun we had that night, and then we'd start making out in the back row of the lecture hall. Or something like that.
Eventually, class had to start. The professor is cute, in a Matthew-Perry-first-season-of-Friends way, except with glasses. It's also very blatantly his first year teaching, and he's unsure about how to time things and is uncomfortable using the power-point, forgetting to flip slides, speaking too quickly and fidgeting. It would have been unbearable had I not picked up the crossword puzzle. I moved the crossword puzzle on top of my notebook and went to work, thinking of an ten letter word for a gold-digger's want (SUGARDADDY).
The professor was talking about how some people see misogyny in the fact that television is the bastard child of the performing arts and lowest in the pecking order (opera, theatre, music, film, television) and highest in controversy. Apparently, tv is the only one centralized to the 'domestic sphere' and therefore has always been seen as a lower status due to blah blah blah. My bullshit meter had gone off and I stopped paying attention, especially since it sounded like he didn't really believe what he was saying either; he was just giving examples of why some people consider TV to be a lower artistic form.
I'm working on the crossword, kinda stumped and playing with my pencil absentmindedly, when Guy leans over and starts writing in the answer for a four letter word for "golden circle" (HALO). To write it in the lines, his forearm is resting on my thigh, dangerously close to the 'danger zone.' I get a semi but he doesn't notice. He's leaning in close, and I can tell that he used Herbal Essesnces this morning. He has definitely invaded my personal bubble. He then sits up and starts to pay attention to the lecture again, occasionally looking over my shoulder at the crossword.
The lights go off and I consider making my move. While talking about something or another, he plays the first five minutes of "It Hits the Fan" of South Park to illustrate the fact that people consider TV to be in a decline since the "Golden Age of Television" in the fifties, and how TV is a bad influence. Mostly I just think the professor likes South Park, since he's probably only three or four years older than I am.
I move my leg over a little more, so that our jeans legs are touching. I deliberately but in a totally nonchalant fashion start bouncing my legs slightly, but he doesn't respond. He's not using the armrest at all, so I move my arm down closer and hope that the urge to rest his arm on the wooden bar hits him. It doesn't. I bump my knee into his on accident (it actually was this time), and he responds by moving his leg the other way slightly. He's too engrossed in the South Park, which happens. Or he's just unfamiliar with the fact that two boys plays footsie during a Comm Arts class is allowed, nay encouraged (demonstrated by my last Comm Arts class).
Class ends, he says something dumb like "Good bumping into you" and I respond with something equally dumb, while he heads in the other direction to say hi to that guy he thought he recognized on the other side of the room earlier. I get my stuff together and practically skip all the way home.
