The day Marshall disappeared

Me after a horrible, terrible night... my lord.... 

Well this evening had to have been the worst evening I can recall this year. Exceeds even the crappy writing assignment that I waited to do until the last day in my management class.

Marshall disappeared for about 10 hours. I thought he was gone for good and my stomach is still nauseous from the stress of the experience. I can't remember the last time I cried so much or felt so helpless.

So today actually started out a good day. I'm done with my midterms and think I did really well on my macro final. I studied practically all night for it. Marshall was of course sitting in the living room waiting patiently for me to go to bed until 3 am... After the hours I'd studied last night I felt okay, sort of like I could go in and get a C. For the night that was good enough after studying for about 3 hours just to get caught up on the reading and homework.

This morning I woke up earlier than usual to study more. Marshall was right on my pillow where he usually ends up by 5 am. I got up at 8 and got ready, went to two Subways (the first one wasn't the right one, apparently) and came back and studied more. Morning was as usual, Marshall went downstairs and ate when I went downstairs and turned on my computer and made a pot of coffee. He sat on my lap while I studied for the next three hours.

Like I said, I think the test went really well. I'll  tell you the exact score on Friday if Wassell finishes grading them. Ironically enough the only two multiple choice questions that really stumped me were the first two on the test. But I think I did really well on the essay questions.

After doing well on the econ test I decided to go to the surc and treat myself to some lunch. Today I happened to be wearing that batman jacket that I wore to the con because I need to do my laundry. I had noticed a really cute guy that seemed to be looking at me but I thought he could be looking at something else and kept walking. I got myself a cheeseburger (with the intention to workout afterward, gotta get that protein!) and sat down to draw for awhile.

I was working on my sketch of Connor C. when I looked up and noticed the cute guy looking at me again. I look back down. Look up again, repeat. We kept making eye contact. He was sitting with a group of other people-- a pretty cute sporty looking girl and another guy who at the time I thought could be either Mexican or Filipino (turns out he's Thai).

Get this, about 5 minutes after I sat down his guy friend walked up to me and introduced himself. He's like "I'm sorry I don't want you to think our table was like creeping out on you or anything but that jacket is awesome!!.."(referring to my batgirl jacket) I was so surprised I'm like "...Yeah, totally!.." and we started talking for awhile. I asked him how old "his friend" was and he said "24." (good, not 18). He ended up introducing us to eachother and we really hit it off today.

His name is Ben. He apparently started out as a music major but realized (like most people) how extremely difficult and useless it is to be a music major unless you want to teach and switched out. He's planning on being a middle school social studies teacher now. Anyway. When he was in the music major his main instrument was guitar so when I heard that I was like "I play guitar too!!!" and of course that led to lots to talk about...

I'm really excited to see him again, he seems interesting.

After I scarfed that delicious hamburger I hit the gym. Today was a good workout, nothing out of the ordinary.

Coming home I noticed Marshall didn't run out like always. He usually meets me at the door. I had noticed that today was especially beautiful and that it was likely he was still playing with Monkey. No problem. I went inside and started doing the dishes and whatever other little things I had to do around the house. After a couple hours of being home I started to feel concerned. It wasn't like Marshall to at least check in. I started pacing around the neighborhood calling his name.

Of course the neighbor kids were following me wanting to know what's up. My neighbor's sort of... erm... slow.... son Kamau kept saying "Emily...! Emily...! Did you lose him?...Did he run away? Is he lost? Did you lose him?"Making me even more nervous. At about 6' (5 hours since the last time I'd seen him) I decided to go make signs. I spent half my printing money in the library today printing "Missing!" signs and spent my evening posting them all over Brooklane.

A few strangers spotted me doing this and asked what was going on and each time I broke into tears. To me it felt like I'd lost a child. Living alone I feel like Marshall provides a lot of comfort for me and the thought of losing that scared the hell out of me. And the fact that I hadn't gotten him a collar and a tag to identify who he belongs to made me extremely angry and guilty.

Finally after posting the signs all over the complex and calling his name with no avail I gave up. I went back to my apartment and started practicing guitar to get my mind off it. My friend Jon called at around 10 pm and I started crying my eyes out again, saying it was so unusual for him to disappear like this. He told me everything was going to be okay and as much as I appreciated it I didn't believe it. I was expecting the worst.

Jon G. and my friend Daniel H. from my pre-calc class unexpectedly showed up to make sure I was okay... They actually went looking for him before they came over, too. I was so grateful they did that, I couldn't believe it. We all hung out for about an hour and a half watching family guy before all of a sudden, passed midnight I hear "Mew...! Mew! Mew" at the door and rush to open it without a second thought.

There's Marshall, he ran in around midnight.... I was so incredibly relieved and thankful. I realized how much I truly loved him but how mischievous and unpredictable he can be. First thing tomorrow I'm getting him a tag and a collar. Before he leaves his apartment again, I swear. Then if he runs off again I know I've done everything I can do to ensure his safety.

I'm just so relieved... God I haven't felt that awful in a long time.

peace.