And limitless are leaves, stiff or drooping in the fields

Thursday, while I was hurriedly getting ready to meet up with friends, I noticed a letter on the table addressed to me. I was expecting something (in addition to the usual notices from DSW and Borders that I should go buy more things) but I wasn't expecting what I got.

Inside the envelope was a hunk of grass (I was later informed is genuine Radford grass, from in front of Russell Hall) and a little notecard with my name on one side and this on the other:

Loafe with me on the grass—loose the stop from your throat;
Not words, not music or rhyme I want—not custom or lecture, not even the best;
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.
-"Song of Myself"

Admittedly, I'm somewhat of a cynic when it comes to things like this.I'm not very good at being wooed. I've never liked chocolate, I prefer to pick out my own jewelry, I think it's silly to send someone dead plants (regardless of how pretty they are), and I have been unnerved by displays of genuine human emotion on more than one occasion. Usually, I make inappropriate jokes that make the other person disinclined to act that way again. When people tell me about the great new guy or girl they just met and how they have magically found their other half--I'm dubious. I don't know why, I just don't think much of this stuff.

Notes like this make wish I could turn down the dube. It was unexpected and sweet and wonderful and I'm completely smitten. I'm also confused. The longer we go on like this, the more confused I will probably get. On the one hand, he thinks to send me leaves of grass. On the other, during our conversation last night he told me how great it was that I was also in graduate school because it means we both get how dating is impossible right now. I have no idea what that means or how the one even relates to the other. Frankly, in the last couple weeks he's gotten more time out of me than my ex-boyfriend did and he didn't have to share me with graduate school. I would argue that the distance makes the dating impossible. But that's the obvious argument.

I guess I'm just worried that I am going to screw this up because I have no idea what it is how how to approach it. I suppose, as before, I'll just have to wait and see.