"Have you started your college hunt yet?" he asks me out of the blue.

I blink at him. "What? But I'm already back in college."

"You'll be twenty-four in just a little over a year from now. That means you'll qualify as financially independent, and you'll be able to apply for financial aid without a parental co-signer. I looked into the details after you told me how that worked, because things have changed a little since I was in college. I do remember it took me the better part of a year to look for graduate schools, though, and longer than that when I was searching for places where I could get my bachelor's degree. I know you've only been attending classes at the university here for a few months, now, but have you thought about where you want to apply the credits you're earning here?"

"No. I haven't thought that far. I could just stay here, couldn't I? That might be easiest."

"You could. You could go full-time and then apply to be part of the honors college; if you are a part of it, it would look good on your record when you send off your grad school applications. You would have more opportunities at a different university, though. A wider selection of classes in the humanities, since the university here is geared more toward practical degrees than degrees in the liberal arts, which I'm sure you've noticed; you'd have better professors in a private college, also better name recognition, both of which improve your chances of being accepted into a good graduate school. I don't think you'd need to worry about cost - there are scholarships everywhere, as well as grants for people who show obvious financial need. And it wasn't so long ago that you were telling me how much you were looking forward to searching for a new college where you could get a fresh start."

"But why can't I just stay here with you?"

"You like the idea of living with me indefinitely, now?" He smiles. "I would have thought I'd be impossible to live with."

"This comes as a surprise? I love you. I am yours. Yes."

"Oh, eromene! That you want to be a part of my future, and not just my present, is a delight. We should talk about this, though, because I am not sure that what you envision for a future with me meets my vision of a future that contains you. Were you... were you asking about making things more formal, more permanent?"

His face is either glowing or blushing. I'm not sure which. Meanwhile, I'm not sure whether seeing his hopes bloom delights me or makes me uncomfortable.

"Maybe. I don't know. I hadn't thought about it. I just know I want to be with you."

"Ah. Of course."

Great. Now we're both confused. Also, I might have just broken his heart. And maybe broken my heart, but I'll determine that latter bit when I'm not confused.

"I don't want to go away. My first girlfriend and I didn't work out because it was long distance and it hurt too much to never be able to see each other."

He sighs. "Did it occur to you that, unlike your first girlfriend, I have a car, and I can visit you on weekends if you're only an hour or two away?"

"Uh." That actually hadn't occurred to me.

"If you want to stay near me, an Ivy League university is out of the question. However, I can think of at least ten colleges and universities that are only about an hour away, at most," he says, "some of them quite prestigious. It wouldn't hurt to start ordering admissions brochures and looking through them now, to get a better idea of what might be a good fit for you. Also, perhaps now would be a good time to think about whether you want to live off-campus if you go off to college somewhere a little way away from here, or if you want to live in a dorm. If you don't mind my visiting your dorm, I won't mind. Although I think it would be better to bring you back here for our dates, all things considered... At any rate, it's in the future. There's plenty of time. But it doesn't hurt to do a little research in advance."

There is now a box of college brochures taking up space near the futon in our bedroom. It's packed to the gills with course catalogs and prospecti. Once I've narrowed down my choices to fewer than ten institutions, I'll put the literature from each place in a folder and keep my folders in alphabetical order, but for now, it's a jumbled mess.

I have tentatively put my former college plus seven other colleges and universities aside as top choices. Most are about an hour away if you drive on the highways or take a Greyhound bus.

There are two public universities in the pile, one of which, the university where my one ex-girlfriend has probably graduated from by now, assuming she hasn't decided to also get her doctoral degree there, is only about ten minutes away by car; the other of which I won't be visiting unless I have an admissions interview, because it's in the state capital and is too far away for my visiting it to be convenient - it's a good two and a half hours away, which Magister nevertheless says is close enough that he would be willing to drive there to visit me on the weekends. Ordinarily, I wouldn't even consider that one because it's too far away, but the course selection is as huge as the student body, and the university itself is a "public Ivy."

I'm hoping all the options I'm looking at, whether public or private, have good departments of financial aid. My former alma mater probably still doesn't, but it won't hurt to apply for a full scholarship after submitting my financial aid paperwork. At worst, my request will be turned down, and I'll have to go somewhere else. Mostly I'm considering it as an option because I had a high grade point average when I was there, so simply getting accepted back into the college and into the honors program should be fairly easy.

Limiting myself to a relatively small geographical area that I can access on my own using the local interlinked public transit networks, or failing that, a Greyhound coach, means I won't be able to consider several small but excellent rural colleges, due to their lack of access; and I almost wish I had a car of my own, until I remember that for me, my financial priorities place having a roof over my head higher than having transportation, if a choice must be made, which, so far, it invariably has. I probably shouldn't even be considering rural colleges at all, but the two I have set aside for future consideration, my former alma mater included, both have music conservatories, and are at least both on Greyhound routes. I miss singing. I miss studying music. It would be so nice to belong to a campus that has its own conservatory of music. And again, my former college is likely to accept me again if I apply for re-entry, so there's that.

Neither of the rural colleges is well-known for having a proactive department of financial aid, though, and they're both incredibly expensive. There's no way I will be able to afford to enroll in either if I don't get a completely free ride.

Further narrowing the field is my need for room and board. I won't be able to afford to rent an apartment and commute, especially if I'm living in a city. Cities are more expensive than small towns. I could probably afford a furnished room or a small apartment in a small town, but all problems with the financial aid departments of the rural colleges I short-listed aside, the thought of living in a small town again makes me nervous. I'd feel safer living on campus if I'm in a small town, even if I can afford to rent off-campus housing. Visions of next-door neighbors with shotguns, and of pick-up truck drivers who yell "fag" at me as they drive past me, dance in my head.

(I have no idea why the locals did that, when I was living in town near my former college. I don't think I look like a man. I'm tall enough, okay, and I don't have much of a figure, so from behind I might look like a scrawny fifteen-year-old-boy, maybe, but I'd be a fifteen-year-old boy with almost hip-length hair, which I have a hard time imagining being an expected sight in a small, conservative town in the Midwest, especially one where the locals all seem to know or at least recognize each other. Once, when I got yelled at this way, I even felt compelled to call back, "I'm not a fag, I'm a dyke - get it right!" Lesbians would take exception to that self-description on my part since I'm bi, but correct grammar does require correct gender. Fortunately for me, correcting my harassers did not inspire them to stop their vehicle, get out of it, and beat me to a pulp on the sidewalk. I really ought to watch my mouth).

Although I have no idea which one it will be yet when the time comes, I think I want to apply to a single college via early acceptance, rather than simultaneously to several colleges and universities later in the academic year. I'm more likely to get approved if I show my keen interest in the institution, and it would give me a chance to get a jump on setting up financial aid. Besides, if I only initially apply to one college or university, and that place accepts me, I will only need to pay for one copy of my standardized test scores and transcripts from every institution I've attended, rather than for several copies, and I'll only have to pay one application fee. If the college or university of my choice turns me down, I'll worry about coming up with several hundred dollars for necessary multiple copies of documents, but hopefully, it won't come to that.

The local university here will be a perfectly good fallback if none of my top choices both admits me and gives me adequate tuition assistance. Magister thinks I'm selling myself short, especially since there aren't many course selections in philosophy, and attending college here full-time will require me to consider changing my major, but it never hurts to have a safety school as an option. For that matter, I'm not as deeply and profoundly attached to my declared philosophy major as I could be. English, Classics, art history, and music history are just as interesting. The former can be studied cheaply pretty much anywhere. Most colleges and universities offer English courses.