22:02 - September 03, 2002
belly laughter
Moppy haired boy lives two floors up from me and down a hallway. When Stephanie talks to him, she ends every sentence with 'and your cute curly hair.', messing it up as he smiles behind the blond curtain of tangles. At least she assumes he's smiling, though we can never really tell. The only sign of anything is the faint curve of lips peeking out from between the strands. I don't think he likes people touching him. When Stephanie laid her head in his lap, he gave the top of her head two short strokes with an index finger and then hopped off the bed. 'I think I'll finish up that homework now...' trailing through the door before anyone can even say goodbye.

He likes ska, and has lent me a CD that I just finished listening to and thought was only so-so, and when I tell him that he'll probably pretend he didn't hear me. He pretends he doesn't hear me a lot, or else he just doesn't get my humour and doesn't pretend to, which I appreciate. I'm sick of the indulgent empty laughs that people give me when they've no idea what I was trying to get at. He'll just stare straight ahead or drum on his stomach or flip the channel, silent until the next thread. It's disconcerting and I love it. I love the challenge.

He and his roommate are going to teach me to snowboard when it snows. As of now, we're going to climb and sit in their room and watch CNN and listen to obscure ska bands and wander around the dorm visiting people and fall asleep on the broken couch and mess with my sound equipment and discuss breaking the sprinkler system with the kid who's a mechanical engineer but we would never actually do it.

As of now I'm projecting, of course. As of now Moppy Haired Boy is still at the intriguing stranger stage rather than the typical boy with manipulative tendencies stage. Although I haven't spotted any yet, and I usually would have by now.

He and the kid from Baker tickled each other until they were tipping over weak with belly laughter.

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