That first day, we hadn't had any assigned reading, of course, but it seemed that most people had read the first chapter of one of the books—or so I thought. But I learned something&mdashwhich someone might have told me sooner! Most classes had web sites, and this one had assigned for us to read the first chapter of that book. Of course, I had read that much carefully, and also quickly read the rest of that book, and the same for the other two, and thought about them and made some notes, so I was ready. Philosophy of Mind interested me, too.
I'd put a lot more energy into the textbooks for my history classes, and I was disappointed with those. I learned some things, and plainly would learn more, but mostly the professors merely summarized what was in the textbooks. This allowed for questions about points the students didn't understand, but not much more.
I was continually thinking of questions that my high school instructors would have asked the students, taking for granted that the students would have studied the text material and thought about it. I took to occasionally asking these. Of course, I was asking the professors, not the class, but some of them proceeded to ask them of the whole class. And of course, I couldn't really provide whatever answers I'd thought of. I could sometimes put in thoughts during the discussions. I hoped I wasn't being disruptive, but the classes really didn't seem to be calling for much thought.
In the two o'clock history class, Kelly sat next to me. I was kind of aware of her presence all the time, but I did my best to pay attention to the class, and she seemed to be doing the same. We both had three o'clock classes, so at the end of the class we talked for just a minute before heading in different directions. "See you in the morning," she said. She was another really nice one, and I had no designs whatever on her body, which actually helped me feel easier with her at this point, but I was very aware of her as a woman friend.
At four I headed toward home, but with a couple of stops on the way. I had shopping lists. I stopped first at the resale shop, looking for specific things. They did have a few microwaves, and I noted that with interest, but right then those would have been too much to manage. Laundry bags, two mismatched ones. A few more plates, a little more flatware. A couple of plastic cutting boards. A stapler. I checked that the staples that were in it moved and fed freely, then tested the action. A smallish metal canister with a screw lid, for carrying powdered laundry detergent down to the basement, enough for just a few loads. A measuring scoop to go inside that. A few more hand tools. Aha! A plumber's snake, not a very good one but maybe adequate for Elise's drain, pretty cheap. Clothesline. Clothespins. There was a drying rack I'd rather have than clothesline, but light as it was I couldn't carry it and my other stuff—too awkward. And clothesline was always good to have on hand, even if I later got the rack.
At the counter, after paying, I nested the laundry bags and put everything else inside.
I went next to the little grocery, and bought ingredients for the next two nights' dinners and some fresh fruit. I also got some laundry detergent. I wanted spices, but decided to wait for the next trip to the supermarket, where I would find a better selection and, I thought, better prices.
I got everything home and put away. I washed the dishes from breakfast and swept and tidied. I needed to get dinner going, but first I walked over to Art's apartment. He was there.
We chatted generally for a few minutes, and then I told him, "I pointed out your door to Kelly, my running partner. I told her you're really nice. She had a really bad experience with a boyfriend who wasn't. I think nothing's likely to come of it, but I'll say a little more in praise of you. We've told her kind of a lot about school, and I told her a little about that session in sex ed. I tend to get going and talk too much—you may never have noticed, of course." He laughed. "I'm going to mention that you were one of only a couple of other guys there who was really pretty considerate, and what Sam said about you later.
"But the issue is that she's sort of a Christian. Not strong or well-founded, but I do think sincere. We're going to talk more about that. But she really has figured out that the Bible says Christians should only marry other Christians, and about sex being for marriage, and I think you won't get past that.
"This is something I'm dealing with anyway. Sam may be on the verge of becoming a Christian herself, and if not that close to it I really think within a few years. And I'm not comfortable sitting on the fence where I've been, any more, so things may change for me. Probably less soon, but who knows? And there are reasons to think Ellen also may be heading for decisions in that area. This last is kind of for you only, at present."
We talked about our first day of classes for just a couple of minutes. He felt somewhat the same as I did, that even courses for upperclassmen seemed to assume that students really wouldn't try to learn much beyond of what was presented in class. Well, we had only seen one day's worth.
I went back and got started on dinner. Ellen came in a bit later, and wonder of wonders, I was at a point where I could put things down and kiss her for a couple of minutes. I told her what all I had gotten. She was very pleased.
"Give me all your quarters!" she said, and measured out some detergent into the canister, got my dirty clothes—which had just been in a pile and were now in a laundry bag—and went off to see whether she could at least start most of our dirty laundry. Including my sheets, she pointed out.
"No, I can manage it all. You get dinner ready." In a little while she came upstairs, even more pleased. "Three washers were available, and everything fit into them. I'll have to run down in a while and get them out and hopefully be able to get them drying. And I hope we have enough quarters. If not, we'll rig that clothesline somehow. Phil, you're wonderful! I was almost to the point of washing underwear by hand in the bathroom sink. Thank you!"
Dinner was to the point of dishing up, in fact keeping warm, so we sat down to eat. It was spaghetti, in a commercial pasta sauce plus some additions. I sighed. I needed to remember Saturday's leftover. It would be fine for a few more days, but we needed to eat it up, and it would mean not having to prepare a main dish for one dinner. But the most time-consuming part of preparing that night's dinner hadn't been the spaghetti—even with cutting up onion and mushroom and sausage—but making the salad.
I didn't have any kind of dessert, not even ice-cream or store-bought cookies. No big deal, except that I really liked dessert. But I sort of got one anyway. Ellen came and sat in my lap and kissed me for five minutes before going down to the laundry machines. I cleaned up and did the dishes while she was gone.
We sat down to study when she came back, having left things in the dryers. After a few minutes, though, she needed to go down and check things, and empty lint traps and probably put in more quarters, and I went with her, taking our study things. So we sat and studied together until things were mostly dry, putting in quarters as needed. We kept track, so that we'd be able to have enough quarters on hand in the future, as well as for budgeting purposes. I needed to come up with a suitable container for quarters. Ellen took care of most of the sorting and folding and putting into laundry bags.
We went back upstairs, and I unpacked my clean clothes and found places to spread or hang the things that were still damp, while Ellen studied. Then I sat down and joined her again. It really didn't take much time before we were both done. There weren't any assignments except reading, so we'd reread and thought about and discussed somewhat.
"Today everything worked, but I really need to find places I can study between classes, during the day. And we may need to study during lunch." We'd been able to eat lunch together, and we would some days, but not every day. I'd packed some of the leftover sandwiches. They'd been fine, but I had forgotten to look for refreezable ice packs on my way home. Never made it onto my lists. I wanted to get some, to avoid having packed lunches risk spoiling.
We went to bed early to try to catch up on sleep a little. First, though, we took Ellen's stuff downstairs and got it put away. She had made her bed after stripping my sheets off, so nothing took very long. We slept in my apartment, though. We made love at leisure, since we were pretty early. The wide bed was a luxury, letting us sleep more soundly, but I missed the closeness. Still, just having Ellen in my bed for the night was an amazing, joyful luxury. I made it through the night without waking.
Wednesday morning when my alarm went off I was up instantly, heading for the bathroom. As I was washing my hands, Ellen knocked once and barged in without waiting and sat down on the toilet, apologizing. I turned my back and didn't watch, knowing she had a stronger sense of needing privacy than I did. When I was done, I went on out while she finished up. When she emerged, I was sitting on the bed wondering whether I should lie down for a minute or just get dressed. Ellen settled that pretty quickly, but it took more than a minute. When we got up again, I looked at the time and felt a little rushed about getting to the gym.