So many, too many students had COVID two weeks ago. My parents were supposed to come for a visit, and midterms were on the horizon - so I decided to go ahead and get covid - to get it over with. I’ve been around a dozen people who later that day tested positive, but somehow I’ve never come down with it myself.

Peter caught it and was isolated in his suite (two of his suitemates had it). I went to see him, surreptitiously hoping he’d pass it on, but Lisa (the traitor) texted him and he Lysoled his entire suite and wouldn’t let me in - saying exposing me went against his “moral code.” rolling eyes

Now midterm season is on us and a lot of people I know are in crisis. That happens a lot in test times. This place is so cutthroat and competitive. You can get so deep in your own head that it becomes a ***** fish bowl of anxiety. The delightful cocktail of pandemic, WWIII and midterm stress gel, in some minds, to form a sweet, unhinging mix.

My major tests are over (good for me, yay for me!) but I’m not parking my study playlist just yet. I have a couple of papers due. While those don’t stress me like tests, they’ll keep me busy, like everyone else - there’s always a feeling of being behind it and frantically busy here.

We were trying to plan an actual, REAL spring break - that didn’t involve 11 hour layovers and 5 hour bus rides. Something NOT held in a parent’s apartment - someplace adult and private.

Then my Grandmère offered us an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris, saying I could bring three friends and stay at the Hotel de Crillon. A week in Paris with Lisa, Leong and Anna sounds delicious - of course, I told them how positively uncouth it would be to refuse -  we’ll see.

I’m over Siri-ous,
I’m over-charging,
My screen time is up,
My audio levels are up,
I was watching **** again,
I’m searching stupid things,
I’m not closing all my circles,
I haven’t walked long enough,
I don’t stand at all the right times,
I may be an online shopping ******,
I’m spending too much time on Tiktok,
My heart jumps around the wrong guys,
I’m looking at bright screens late at night,
I’m getting too many calories from cocktails,
I’m not taking full advantage of my subscriptions,
I need to upgrade my hardware, software and my attitude.

I’d just sat down for lunch with a tray loaded with pizza slices when an attractive redhead plopped down in the chair in front of me. “You’re trying to steal my guy,” she said, clutching her purse close, like it was in danger.

“I’m sorry?” I said, searching my book-bag for the small garlic powder I carry everywhere in case I encountered a pizza.

She inspected my tray, piled generously with a selection of pizza slices and said, “You know, you could just start with a couple of slices and then go back later for pieces that are HOT.”

I nodded thoughtfully at the idea but countered with, “Now I can just sit right here and eat them all.” Which was a lie because I was planning to take a few slices back to my room. Then I followed up with, “Your BOYFRIEND?”

“Peter,” she said, “he’s my longtime boyfriend,” she seemed excited to deliver this news.

“Well, Peter and I are just friends - so far - What’s your name?” I asked.

“Shirley,” she said, not offering her hand.
“Hhmm, your name hasn’t come up.” I reported.

“You need to pump-those-breaks,” Shriley said, becoming suddenly serious.

I thought I’d offer a distraction since she seemed to be winding herself up. “I wonder if Amazon sells a little, battery operated, heat lamp I could carry with me to keep my pizza warm?” I touched my phone, lying face down by my tray but decided looking it up now might be rude.

“It’s actually a whew,” Shirley noted, “being faced with the thing I’ve been absolutely hyperventilating over.”

“Peter and me?” I ask for clarification.
“Peter and ANYONE,” she clarifies and puts me in my place with one sweeping comment.

“Again, Peter and I are friends-without-benefits, but he hasn’t mentioned a wife.” I said, giving as good as I got.

“Peter and I are.. taking a break,” she revealed, “but we’re getting back together.”
“You should talk to Peter,” I said, my mouth finally full of pizza.

“You need to **** YOURSELF!” she snarls. I was shocked by her sudden force. I went into self defense mode, wondering if I was going to be physically attacked but I chose to disassemble and not give her any energy to feed off of.

“I’d LOVE to, but this lunch isn’t going to eat itself.” I said apologetically. “It’s not like I haven’t thought of THAT before,” I confide, leaning in conspiratorially, “my parents bought me an electric toothbrush when I was twelve” I entrust.

Shirley snarled like a panther and left in a huff. I noticed several people furtively looking at me, like I’d been caught in the act of something, and I felt besmirched.
“Nice meeting you!” I offered cheerfully to her back but I don’t think she heard it.

Lisa immediately sat down next to me. “You homewrecker,” she offered. “Who's arianna?”
“Ha! Thanks for THAT” I laugh. “I never had this play in prison.” I said, shaking my head.
“Better late than never?” Lisa offered.

It’s a beautiful day, like a hole in perpetual winter. We rode bikes around campus - everyone was out. When it’s cold I just go place to place but today reminded me that outdoors can be fun. Of course, it’s supposed to snow tomorrow night - just a few snow atoms, I think.

Lisa was laying on her back in the grass reading. She rolled over and smoothed the book flat. In the fleeting, golden moment between dusk and evening, the edges of Lisa’s gold hair looked almost green. I’m right there next to her - we’re sharing a towel-like blanket.

She takes up a pen and writes something in the margins - leaving stray thoughts like breadcrumbs. Then trades the pen for a highlighter and colors several phrases. We’re poking around the edges of our chemistry midterm. Her face has tightened in concentration. I could imagine her wearing a similar expression while taking the test.

Later, we’ll combine our little scribbles (her handwriting is awful) and highlights, class notes and charts into something collaborative and shareable. She passes me a note, like a riddle, which I read and hand back, annoyed. “That question doesn’t interest me.” I say nonchalantly.
“You mean you don’t know the answer,” she guesses correctly.
“Not yet.” I admit.

Rumor has it that Putin will attempt to salvage his reputation by saying his ill-fated invasion of Ukraine was an attempt to stop the new season of “The Kardashians.” While we can ALL embrace THAT goal, I think it’s just an excuse (politics).

I love classes - the ideas that we’re exposed to, like Agential Identities or Nominative Determinism Hypothesis - ideas, some ½ stupid, some profound but things I wouldn’t have thought of in 200 years. I constantly find myself thinking “Who THOUGHT of this?”

It’s been a week - things have been happening - I’m going through it. I’ve become nostalgic for two weeks ago. I got screamed at, I lost my AirPods case and I cracked my iPhone screen, so I’m several levels worse - I’m a sad human. I’m writing this at the Apple Store while a friendly Apple person renders me whole.

The Ukraine situation has everyone unnerved. Draw a card - Pandemic or WWIII? Please, protect my peace. So there’s a level of “*****-it” now.

Friday night, I’m in a bad mood and when someone says “Come-on let's go clubbing!”
I’m - “Let’s GET THIS.” Later, we’re at a club, and it’s INSANELY crowded, like a moshpit. It was ABBA night. It did not escape me that this is exactly the type of milieu I’ve been avoiding for years. Did I mention the WWIII level of “*****-it”?

Ok, moshpit, you could hardly move, you definitely couldn’t hear, and Anna dropped her phone - we were sure that it was gone forever but 30 minutes later a hole opens up and there it is - like it’s just been sitting there waiting - so, there ARE miracles.  

The list of life’s demands grow by the moment - reading, homework, laundry, dinner, upcoming midterms. I had a rock solid plan for a Saturday night of fun but assignments and necessities destroyed its integrity.

After a heroic effort and completing everything, I felt a fast-metastasizing boredom, so I wandered outside my room, hoping for company and distraction - it was 00:30 AM  - and for for once - no one else was there! Where was everyone? Hello zombie apocalypse.

So I did what anyone would do in that beat - I cued-up ”Miraculous,” because Ladybug’s always there for me.

It’s a Monday. Capitalism and school have given Mondays a bad rap and we need to take it back. That would require a movement of some sort, too much, I suppose, with a WAR on.

I have the jitters. This morning was, well, Monday and I had a midterm - sort of. So it would’ve been irresponsible for me to take the time to straighten my room - I’m nothing if not responsible. But Peter’s here. It’s his first glimpse of my room and it’s a mess.
“There’s an underlying order” I assure him.
“There always is,” says mr. physics.

Anna had taken a (photo) burst of us - the modern equivalent of those childhood, cartoon flicker-books - to celebrate his first visit to our immaculate suite. Now she’s screen-sharing them on the huge common room TV. “You’re cute,” He says.
“Hurray for me, hooray for that,” I reply, “But I was thinking YOU’RE cute,” I say as I snuggle closer to him on the couch.
“We all love the sound of compliments slapping together,” Leong says, sarcastically.
“Find a communist,” I suggested to Leong, “they all study philosophy, I think.”
“You come into MY house..,” Leong begins.
“You come into MY house..,” I responded.
“You come into MY house..,” Anna says from the kitchen.
“You come into MY house..,” Sophy yells from her room. This could go on all night.

“The four reactions,” Peter says.
“He’s starting to talk physics again!” Anna says, narrowing her eyes on him, like a cat catching sight of a squirrel. Leong, yawns excessively, “Ugh! Make him stop,”
“All the forces that we experience every day..,” Peter begins. At first, I moaned as if I’d been told I was about to be waterboarded. Then I take action, rolling over and climbing on top of him, messing his hair and beginning to tickle him, “There must have be an off switch somewhere!” I exclaim.

Now everyone’s screaming and laughing, “Ok, Ok, I give up.” he says, then he pins my arms to my sides at my elbows - but before he can swing me off of him, I lean in and plant a sloppy wet lick on the side of his face. “H-Hey!” he says, wincing like someone avoiding a wild puppy. He was all askew by the time he swung me off onto the couch and fixed me with a concentration that suggested that nothing else mattered. Time seemed to stop and that moment was the first time I thought about kissing him.

Over his left shoulder Anna vibe checks me by making a moony love-face  - throwing in several puckery kisses. I’ve never seen myself in action, but a sharp, stinging sense of recognition told me that her impersonation was more accurate than not - and I snapped out of it. “What are we doing for dinner?” I asked, and the tension broke.

Peter is joining us for lunch in the cafeteria. I met him on a crowded Saturday morning at a coffee shop. He’s from the flammable, paper-dry, sagebrush hills of Malibu and grew up overlooking the hazy blue pacific ocean. He says Mel Gibson’s drunken **** rant, when a cop pulled him over for a DUI, put them on the map.

Poor Peter is fashion challenged. He’s 25, too tall, and too thin. Reading glasses hang around his neck. His too loose-fitting clothes are all variations of brown, like tawny, penny and wenge. He’s wearing a battered tweed coat, brown corduroy slacks and tortilla colored mock turtleneck. He’s adorably shabby-fancy. If he fell in the dormant, straw-yellow grass, we probably couldn’t find him.

Peter has a serious aura of experience about him. His cheek bones are sharp, his hair is an explosion of uncombed black, his skin is pale - bleached - by over exposure to library lighting.

He lives in a different world - the prosaic, laissez-faire universe of research - where students are left to their own devices and expected to self-manage.

Right now, he’s being vetted by one of my roommates, Leong. His student lanyard marks him but she wants specifics if he’s going to hang around. “What’s your major?” she asks, her eyes squinting like the Chinese lie detectors they are. “I’m a doctoral student in applied physics,” he says.

I pat his knee, “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” I say, reassuringly.