no, not really

A few weeks ago I helped Pat move into an apartment with two of his friends. Their names are Chad and Hunter, and they used to work at Pizza Hut. He asked me to keep his teddy bear in my room because he was afraid his roommates would see it. I told him that real men don't let teddy bears affect their masculinity. He digested that and then told me he would bring it inside. While he was inside, a group of kids drank beer in the parking lot and set off a firework. Pat was in the elevator at the time and didn't hear it, but Chad thought it was a gunshot. A man stepped outside in his boxers and surveyed the parking lot.

I had a nice conversation with his teddy bear. It sat in my lap and I rested my chin on its head, and I told it that someday I want to move away. Maybe to Canada or Japan. I whispered that I wanted my innocence back. So that I can sit in a parked car without eyeing the locks nervously, afraid I'm going to be raped.

Pat and I went to McDonalds after he had moved all the boxes into the apartment. We talked over cheeseburgers and fish filet sandwiches and Cokes. Pat said that when he was little, he had a stuffed Pound Puppy with sad round eyes, and he hardly ever played with it because he didn't want to bother it.

Di drove Greg and Resa and Nick and Matt and me to a creamery that sells flavored SoftServ, and I asked Resa to be my girlfriend so she would buy me chocolate ice cream in a chocolate-coated waffle cone. And then I told her I was planning on dumping her the next day. I never did, though, so sometimes we hold hands and mouth, "I love you, I love you so much."