Morning.

Woke up one snooze later, did situps, found that braiding the hair when wet doesn't do anything for tidiness, went to school.

Breakfast was typical. Darkside threatened me with the soda. Somehow, our hands found their way together, and we played Mercy. I eventually conceded when I got bored; Darkside didn't come halfway as close to my complete and utter defeat as he did yesterday (I was defeated in the first ten seconds, though it took me maybe six times as long or longer to concede, even though I knelt on the floor in front of him in general ouchiness) and that speaks well for my recovering pain tolerance. I made few moves to touch him, today, and was rewarded by his warmer attitude and his reaching towards me a few times.

Almost unprompted, Darkside brought the second of the Jerle Shannara books for me to borrow and read, with the injunction that he wanted it back in as near to the condition as he handed it to me. From his nitpicky way of adjusting the dustcover when I was holding it later on, I discern two things:

1. He's not kidding when he says he's fussy about his books
2. He must really trust me.

At around that same later point, Neighbor wanted to borrow one of Darkside's game manuals, and the way Darkside winced was classic, even though I'm fairly certain that Neighbor is more naturally careful with books than am I.

As Darkside and I prepared to leave the cafeteria, I glanced at my palmtop for my schedule. I was greeted with the notice that my batteries were low, and I needed to change them soon. I grouched, and said I was out of batteries. Darkside made an off-color joke. I followed him to his class and batted asswards with my foot; he tangled me up and we almost both fell over. I giggled off to my first class.

Environmental science class was interesting and fun. I kept Bird busy by peppering him with questions, and we had some nice, insightful class debates about genetic engineering, and gene pools, and why the potato famine may have been so damaging in part due to a limited gene pool of potatoes, given that the method for cultivating potatoes really is asexual. When was the last time you bought potato seeds?

Stopped into the lab before database. Darkside was there. Before I departed, I said, "Hug and kiss," rather than doing so. He still reacted. I'm trying to figure out how I can satisfy my emotional programming that I must hug my beloveds while not violating his emotional programming that only family or girlfriend (or Dawn) gets to hug him on a regular basis.

Darkside stood with me waiting outside speech class. Unusual, for him, to do that. When the room opened, he departed. Today we had some speakers with truly abysmal things going on; Ashford gently shredded their fond hopes of having been great. The first speaker was good. The second speaker was quiet and unrehearsed; the third speaker was audible and completely disorganized.

Darkside and Neighbor were discussing Jedi characters when I walked in the lab to them, and how someone's Jedi was nearly untouchable. I made a snarky comment about ten-foot lightsabers; Neighbor asked Darkside to hit me, which he did. Darkside and I walked to his class, talking about the disadvantages of a ten-foot lightsaber. "For one thing, no sex!" Darkside said gleefully, dodging out of the way of whatever blow he thought was about to come his way. He likes to say things like that when he knows I'm not expecting it.

I prepared images for my visual aid for tomorrow's speech in lab. After Darkside's class let out, I walked him to his car. It's very nice, spending time with him. All through OOP2, I was registering his presence with me. The book, of course. The air trapped between its pages smells like him.

Social?

Called Darkside. Talked for twenty minutes. He's getting used to me being social, and I'm getting used to him being asocial. We'll work together somehow. I found votania's new use of html (just the beginnings, just the things I started with once) so adorably cute, and called him giggling over it. Despite his best intentions to get off the phone, we did wind up talking about gaming also.

He rehashes movies to me. It's gotten so him starting to do that will make me get a particular grin. It's just sweet.