BF

Yesterday afternoon I drove up to visit Penn for the night. When I got there we took my crazy dog for a walk by the river and then when we got back to his apartment he surprised me with a dozen roses. And while the roses were awesome, I was more impressed with the look on his face as he gave them to me. He just looked so excited to surprise me. It was so freakin' endearing.
And then he surprised me (again) by taking me to Chocolate World for the Hershey's chocolate tour and the best chocolate milkshake ever in the universe. Seriously, my Hershey's syrup milkshakes come out nothing like that at home! [I'm so taking my sister there for chocolate milk the next time she comes to visit. She's a chocolate milk addict and this would be her best fix ever.]
And then we drove back to his hometown and went to a Mexican food restaurant and I was wary because I'm very picky about Mexican food and finding anything approximating authentic Mexican food has been difficult ever since I moved to University Land. But this was the real deal!
And then to temper the potentially overwhelming romance factor of roses and chocolate and a quest for my favorite food all in one night, we went out with a couple of his friends and engaged in some petty vandalism. Yes! It was like being in high school all over again [Admit it, at some point in high school or maybe early college you had nothing better to do so you stole a traffic cone or a stop sign or something. It was a right of passage.] We strolled the streets downtown until we found the sign we wanted on a long-abandoned bar with the same name as their friend whose birthday is tomorrow and who demanded that they steal the sign as a gift. So the guys used the crowbar to pry the letters off the side of the building as I stood in the alley watching for cops and chatting with all the friendly gay men making their way to a different bar across the street. As a side note, its amazing how ABSOLUTELY NOBODY batted an eye at a group of people walking down the street at midnight in a crowded bar district with a crowbar and a hammer in plain sight. Hello, can you think of a single purely innocent use for a crowbar (in the middle of the night, I mean)? I sure can't. And yet nobody said anything to us at all. Perhaps its because nobody wants to mess with the guy carrying a crowbar?
Anyway, after our illicit fun Penn and I headed home. We had planned to continue the night with some bar hopping with his friends but it was pouring rain by that point and the couch in his apartment sounded more appealing to both of us. So we were sitting on the couch watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force and laughing and out of the blue he looked at me and said, "Are you my girlfriend?" and I said, "Am I?" and he said, "I want you to be," and I said, "Then I am." And then I was joking about how I was going to make our status official by putting it on Facebook and we were laughing at all the options there are and I said, "My favorite is 'It's complicated,'" and he got this kind of stricken look on his face and said, "But I don't want this to be complicated." and I said, "Oh, I know, I know, neither do I! Don't worry." And in my head I was thinking, "Wow, how did I manage this one?" Because A#1, he brought up the whole relationship status thing without me having to do it. And B#2, he actually wants to be in a commited relationship. None of this 21st century girlfriend-not-a-girlfriend-we-just-sleep-together-but-I-don't-do-commitment stuff!

It's just so...easy. Uncomplicated! I'm still waiting for disaster to befall this whole thing of course, because that's just what I do. But for the first time in like, oh, six years I can just say, "I have a boyfriend," without having to hem and haw about how it's complicated and we are kind of together but not really but I don't really feel single but...For once I can just say "Yes, I have a boyfriend." Period. End of story.

Really, this is the icing on the cake of what has ended up being a good first year. Now if I can just make it through all of my final papers and grading and the last two and a half miserably hectic weeks of the school year without being horribly jealous that this boyfriend of mine is gallavanting around Europe without me. He'd better bring me back something Greek and awesome.

Oh, and P.S.-Remember Recorder Guy? Well, you can tell summer is on the way because he's baaaaaaack! I haven't heard him give an evening recital since sometime in September, but tonight I was sitting on the couch reading and from across the parking lot I heard the unmistakable sound of his halting version of Amazing Grace. Yes! It has been more than six months and apparently he can still only play Amazing Grace. It's going to be a long summer...