If you’ve read any of my delicious, hand-crafted vignettes and listened to us talk, you’ll know that my roommates and I are critical thinking swifties who spend hour after hour talking about anything and everything, all at once. We’re full of niche feelings, lukewarm takes and sometimes, we’re in direct conflict with one another about pop culture, politics and life at Yale. I usually avoid the strikingly controversial - here - believe it or not.

There was an anti-Gaza-war protest encampment, briefly, at Yale. You could walk by it or sit, on early spring mornings and watch the goings-on with a cup of coffee. It wasn’t big. It was easily avoidable. They weren’t threatening and they didn’t tear things up (like Columbia). There were 200 students at most - the times I was there (out of a student body of 14,776). Passerby - students, professors, counter-protesters and casual observers would be asked to stop for a portrait - a quick picture taken against a white backdrop.

If you said “yes” there was packing tape and markers to write your own, individual message that you would affix to your clothing, temporarily. This went on for a few days. Many people I saw were apprehensive about being documented in that environment — fretting about the repercussions of being doxed — if so, they could turn their backs to the camera or covid mask their faces. There were well over a hundred portraits (my guess) taped up on walls, placards and tents.

I found the pictures to be a cross section of humanity - all races and ages. The messages were as diverse as the authors: The opposite of war is.. creation. Free Palestine. Everybody chill. There’s enough empathy for everyone. If we don’t protest genocide, our education is useless. Jews 4 Palestine. You admitted me, now accept me. Faculty for free expression. Let students teach you courage. We’re sitting on the lawn. Unsuspend my students. Divest from death. Do more. You wanted engaged students - I guess you have them. What does my 80k per year buy? Peace. Bring the 203 home.

The contrasts were fascinating and the pictures surprisingly moving. The people in those photographs, no matter the message, seemed beautiful. They stood taller and seemed prouder than normal. Free speech, like voting, is so American and so empowering. I found my heart going out to all of them - I’m proud of them.

I didn’t protest. Am I flawed - probably - but my work and volunteer-load is egregious. Were the protest subjects serious - yes, were the protestors serious - yes, was there an air of holiday excitement and escape from ordinary burdens - yes. I carried on as usual - so did my roommates. We're in scientific disciplines - we’re logical and surprisingly serious little-miss-Spocks - not easily distracted from our goals.

Every night, growing up, my family discussed and debated the particular issues of the day. The Israel/Palestine situation was seldom far from the headlines. It’s one of the most complex situations in world history. I ken this - there are no easy answers - the problems are un-TikTok-able.

In my family, you were expected to join the school debate team. You were expected to think. As the youngest, I was soaking it all up before I could participate. In high school, my debate specialty was extemporaneous speaking - so don’t get me started.
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songs for this:
A Man of Great Promise by The Style Council
Do You Realize?? by The Flaming Lips
That's Me Trying by William Shatner

Are you a football fan?

Are you into BIG TIME college football, where my
home town, Georgia Bulldogs are defending, two-time
national champions? Their season began last week
or maybe you’re an NFL fan (they start playing this week).

Ivy league college football starts next week and if you're
not excited about it, maybe you don’t understand it.

Before games there are parties with pizza and chicken wings.
Do NOT go to a frat house on a game day - just don’t.

If you’re going to throw a college football game
you’ll need two teams of players in safety uniforms
and at least one football (that’s what they fight over).

You need a crowd - two crowds really - and a stadium
where everyone could, in theory, sit. There should be
flags, banners, hats and jerseys in riotous team colors.

You’ll need two marching bands and school mascots.
A bulldog will do (Yale), or if you can’t afford that, you could
dress someone up as a huge-headed pilgrim (Harvard).

Of course, as with any big sporting event you’ll need skimpily
dressed girls to toss in the air and assorted food and drink to sell.
There will be lots and lots of cars, and police and ambulances
standing by in case it’s all too much or someone gets hurt.

Cheerleaders are there to whip the crowd into a vocal frenzy,
soon everyone’s yelling things like “DE-fense,” “push em back,”
“Harvard *****” and “No, really, Harvard *****.”

The ideal game should include a bitter rivalry like Yale vs Harvard.
While everyone knows Yale is better academically, there’s a small
chance that Harvard could win the game - which makes it scary.
We won last year and we’ll play them again this year, in November.

Anyway, whatever flavor of football you like:
It’s football season people!

I want to speak to you so badly
but I’m just going to sit here hoping
you’ll start the conversation.

Boys are so dense!

I even send an obvious signal:
I didn't pull out my phone and get all busy
the moment we were alone.

Duh.

They invented the word faith, when logic failed

Dissolve your genuine self
hide your natural traits
deny your heritage
forsake social interests
and embrace the darker side of love.

(fall break starts today (Yea!) so, a story)

Lisa, a freshman in our residential hall sister-suite, and I have become fast friends over the last couple of weeks. Before we began hanging out I penned a piece about her that she thought was hilarious. Last Friday night Lisa and I were supposed to meet people at “the buttery” (a café in the dorm basement) for another Friday night of pandemic-safe fun.

As she readied, I regarded myself in her full-length mirror. She came up behind me, Mephistopheles to my Faustus, whispering, “You’re quite pretty,” while rearranging my hair into different styles. “But you need to cut your hair.” She began to drape me in scarves. “I have a coiffeur, in New York (city), we could go there one weekend and stay with my parents.”

She turned solemn, “How old are you?” she asked. “18,” I answered. “Perfect, you don’t want to look like a schoolgirl - or a milkmaid.” She grinned and murmured conspiratorially, “You could be wickedly stylish.” And like that, it was decided - we’ll go on fall break together.

I want more than a change in hairstyle though, I want to learn her secret. It’s hard to describe - but there‘s a kind of density, an unidentified importance to her femaleness that I envy. Is it something I can learn, something she could teach or that I could osmose? I can’t help but wonder. I even told her as much. She looked at me, blank-faced, and then made a loud **** sound with her lips. It’s hard to argue with that kind of logic.

With DJ Cummberbund playing in the background, she began humming and as we looked in the mirror she started dancing. “Can you do the whole shack shimmy? It’s easy.” Of course, it isn’t and soon we collapsed in laughter on the charmeuse eiderdown quilt of her bed.

Her room was a mess, clothes lay everywhere, satin, silk, chantilly and crêpe de chine - enchanted clothes that could turn ordinary girls into someone else - they were hung on chairs, the mirror, and littered the floor. I was admiring the fairy lights draped across her ceiling and wondering if her bed was cushier than mine when she turned serious. “This place (Yale) will get to you if you don’t have some fun,” she said, sounding very intense, I nodded.

She was suddenly bored and angry, a not-quite domesticated animal. “I wish there was somewhere to GO,” she said, “somewhere NEW,” she added contemptuously, “f--king pandemic.” I had to agree.

In a few moments though, we’d collected ourselves and set off to the buttery to see what fun there was to be had there.

I’m in the kitchen at Lisa’s. Her little sister Leeza enters, her pale, freckled face redder than usual. “Liza is the bossiest sister..,” Leeza says, slamming the cupboard door after grabbing a box of Fruity-Pebbles-cereal like she’s choking the life out of it.

Lisa enters from the hall, her jaw set with tension, she waves her “La Mer” makeup bag, wildly, letting its very existence, there in the kitchen, function as angry exposition. “YOU,” she practically screams and then shaking with outrage, she begins more calmly. “You can’t use someone else's makeup and ESPECIALLY not their brushes!!” She had begun under control but with each word her message grew emotionally.

“I didn’t hurt anything!” Leeza answered venomously back, giving as good as she got.

I lean with my **** against the waist high kitchen island, slowly letting myself slide down to where I’m not visible, into a sitting position on the floor, as the fight quickly escalates.

Have you ever been a guest somewhere, when there’s a sibling fight or other parents start yelling at a friend? All you can do is try and become invisible - or pretend to text on your phone like you can’t hear the turmoil.

I catch a motion out of the corner of my eye, it’s their mom, Karen, motioning me, with a side-bob of her head, into the living room. I quietly, crouchingly exit the kitchen - the fight reaching full, nuclear bloom.

I join her on a white sectional, breathing a sigh of relief. We’re far enough away from the action to feel uninvolved. I like Karen a lot. She's warm, open and always seems to be suppressing a smile when watching her girls. She’s a lawyer. “You’re officially part of the family,” she says, as she takes a sip of coffee, “they don’t fight in front of company.” I grin.

Somewhere just below the tumult, I hear a dad’s deep, male voice, “Excuse me?” he says, and the fight is instantly over. There is a moment of deafening quiet. “It’s NOTHING,” both girls say, a second later, in perfect, synchronized, bored-sounding unison.

Why is it so interesting when someone else falls in love?
Is our fascination purely voyeuristic, like the you-are-there of reality-TV?
Is it jealousy or some unwavering belief in lovers as heroes?

What is this relationship? We ask ourselves - and them - let’s take it apart and find out.
Like those YouTube videos where you’re shown how to do French-tip nails.

Is love an impulse, a one-time hookup or even a summer fling, or is it about finding ‘the one’ in the face of our own obligations and ineptitudes?

Love’s ‘high concept’ - it’s many things at once - it’s physical, emotional, intimate - maybe even ******.
Part of our interest has to be our affection (or dislike) of the characters involved.

A relationship isn’t a ‘performance,’ of course, but as friends we might be considered an ‘audience’.

Love is drama. There’s a cast - with their chemistry. There’s a plot - shot through with compelling incidents, difficult situations, tear-jerking agonies, and shocking twists.

The sweet moments, between the actual ‘wow, this is happening’ and everyone finding out. The time the secret belongs to the lovers - that’s their chance to privately define their ungainly new reality - but soon enough, the world finds out, and there’s interest.

At its best, love is the gentle handling of consciousness itself, to evoke the effective resonance of pleasure.

But has it ever truly been a private experience?
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Songs for this:
Me and Mrs. Jones by Michael Bublé (maybe the sexiest song ever)
Me and Mr. Jones by Amy Winehouse

A tempest night sky presses, my lattice windows shake,
as if someone’s being thrown against them, or worse yet,
a yeti's breaking in.  They lock with little levers that seem far
too flimsy to keep out the prying fingers of turbulence.

We watched a man plodding outside - obviously a student from Alaska. He was talking on his phone, his breath a continuous, cold white cloud. He slipped, careering drunkenly but managed to stay upright by assuming a surfer-like crouch.
“Where do you think HE’s going?” Lisa wondered.

Forget fall’s polite, amuse-bouche of chill, we’ve been smacked,
full frontally assaulted by the gigantic, cold-fist of winter. “Go on,”
I said, to the weather gods last fall, like an unlucky gambler on a
losing streak. “hit me!”

Now I’m searching Amazon for “flannel underwear”.

I babysit the daughter (Ivy) of a doctor at the hospital where I volunteer (to accumulate ‘clinical hours’ for my med-school applications). According to my mom, the purpose of my current existence is to get into med school.

That may sound crazy or theater-mom-ish but she has strong arguments - like Aristotle (all things strive toward full potential), stoicism (there’s a role for all living things) and vitalism (there’s a purpose, in life, beyond survival) - so, who am I to argue?

Straight brag, I’m a certified, Girl Scout Safe-Sitter®. Little Ivy and I will be eye to eye (metaphorically) for three hours today - no phones, TV or Internet - just paints, swings, barbies, a Montessori math game and a new toy called “MyFirst camera” which lets her take pix, and then print them, low-res and smeary, on ultra-thin paper.

I met Ivy when she was 4, now she’s on the edge of 6. She’s got large chestnut brown eyes that match her hair - which is cut in a shoulder length angled-bob. She’s about 3½-feet of cuteness, in her pink ballet-flat shoes. I’d describe her clothes, but she changes about every hour. “What are you wearing now?” I find myself asking the princess or jedi. “Can I help you officer?” I ask the business-like cop in a ballet tutu.
We’re old hats at this babysitting gig.

When Ivy picked up her camera, I asked, “Can I take your picture?” reaching out to take the thing.
“In a minute,” she said, lining me up in the viewfinder. “No,” she said, suddenly turning into a photographer highly critical of my look, “(pose) Like a model,” she directed, before striking, for a brief moment, a perfect, indifferent, hands-on hips pose herself. Kids pick up on everything. I took her direction and struck a pose.

Later, as we painted dragons that looked like flowers, she asked, “Why’s the sky blue?”
When Ivy asks questions, it’s like she’s getting a second opinion or testing to see what I know.
“Blue?” I asked, acting like I was confused. “The sky is GREEN.”
“NNOOO,” she said.
“You’re colorblind!” I exclaimed in alarm, “Does your mom know?!
“The sky is BLUE,” she said, with the seriousness of certainty.
“We’ll see,” I said, like a doubting thomas.
I held up five fingers, “How many colors am I holding up?”  
She looked at me, side-eyed for less than a beat, then said “No.”
We had hours of fun.

Later, when her mom came home, she asked “How’s it going guys?” As she set down her purse and keys.
Ivy looked up from her work, gluing a collage of the day's photos to poster board and said, “Ok.”
“We had fun,” I reported, “I’ve been teaching her some comedy things.”
“Like what?” her mom asked, nonplussed.
Ivy eyed me suspiciously.
“Like when she falls, she should wait for the laugh. She can’t just - hop right up.”

A roommate shows me this hookup app - the consensus favorite.

“Call me crazy,” I say, “but if we’re reducing *** to something
cheap and cynical, wouldn’t **** be safer and easier?”

She frowns, as if I’ve espoused an unpopular political position
so I make a show of putting “join the app” on my to-do list
- which is like sending it into outer space.

Sleeping with someone you don’t like - or even know, seems impolite, even seedy but there’s a power to it as well - knowing I could if I wanted to - I quash that thought as it rises, like heat.

Besides, factoid: I have an imaginary boyfriend, And although my thoughts are free to roam far and wide, I’m nothing if not faithful.

I think I might be
addicted to exercise -
I’m a street walker  =]

I walk in the dark,
every morning - I even
have my workout gear.

I don’t go alone
- heaven forbid a 17 year old
go frikin’ walking alone.

At five am, my "to
be named later” partner is
where we assemble.

And off we go. Even
writing of this makes me want
to go "lace-’em-up."

But no, I am NOT
addicted... quivering hands
- I’m stronger than that.

By a clear mountain stream an enchantress sat skywriting.
Her bracelets seemed to jangle a melody as her arms moved.
The wind stopped blowing lest the clouds corrupt her work.

The knight, dressed in black, wore a mask and intended damage.
His knife was clenched between his teeth, as he moved noiselessly closer - breathing shallowly for stealth.

The birds suddenly stopped chirping. “Go home boy,” the enchantress whispered.
The knight blinked and froze but the enchantress did not look around.
She pulled a half-penny from a pouch, kissed it, and lobbed it into the stream.

The knight went from certain to vague - he sheathed his knife and wiped his lips.
“Come, drink.” the minx motioned to the stream.
As he sipped water from his cupped hands the beautiful woman
said, “Your love will bear you two strong sons if you’re home before dark.”
The knight wiped his hands on his trousers - nodded - and ran for his horse.
The enchantress smiled to herself as she finished her unearthly poem.

Lisa and I wrap and rap for Christmas.
Can you imagine the two of us doing that?

We’ve got Christmas playlists going
Christmas scented candles glowing,
a tinctured but milky hot-chocolate flowing.

“Stir the marshmallows with the candy canes,”
Lisa says, like that’s something she had to explain.

We’re humming, singing and laughing,
and dancing because we’re happy.

We’re dashing to finish our wrapping,
we can’t have our suitemates catching
us executing the plans we’re hatching
to surprise them with gifts, enchanting.

The paper’s exotic, delicate and glittery
bought at Boyars Gifts, in New York City.
Why do the scissors keep getting lost?
Getting low on scotch-tape - we’ve used a lot.

We’ll be putting them, sneakily, under the tree
where they’ll add glamor and tease to our festivities.

I love the lights of the season - I love giving gifts.
For me, playing Santa is as good as it gets.
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(BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: tinctured: mixed with alcohol)

Leong squirms up to me at breakfast, in the cafeteria.

“May I ask..,” she said, looking around like a secret agent getting ready to make a dead-drop, “what contraceptives do you use?”

I thought this an odd question from someone who just broke up with her long-time boyfriend but, hey, I’m an open book.

“Isolation and despair,” I replied, which got me an eye roll.

“You’re never serious!” She admonishes me.

I pound the pillow, curse the clock and mock injunctions to rest.

The sun finally rises and its rays slantwise fall through the curtains as I dry my hair.

A meal, like a forced dose, we soak ourselves in wasted, nervous time.

Finally! We arrive at the competition...

Tension is here and tireless pressure.

The players waiting stiff as straw, tongues playing over dry lips.

Teachers and coaches unapologetic in their pallor.

Music drifts behind us and occasionally gasps as imperfections play like daring circus tricks.

The sparkling prodigy returns disappointed, grimace of a smile, stricken, he stares away as we search for words, oh! clumsy, unrepairable prince!

Suddenly, its time and I wonder why we are hurrying, feeling weak, momentarily frightened to go there.

On this stage in this great, hushed hall, enormity suddenly dawns with mass enough to crush me.

At last I sit before this odd Steinway music machine - my dearest mechanical friend.

A tremble resisted - the reward of mortal afternoons - endless practices fruit.

Eyes closed I prepare my best self - pushing all fear, all doubt, to the margins - and begin.

I hope, to recreate, one note at a time, Chopin's ancient impact - with hands flying, like tethered birds, I hammer out his timeless melody explosions, his streams of crazily exact math exam fiery semiquaver motions.. then, almost suddenly, I'm done.

I stand, joyously, nearly crying.. The world hasn't ended.

Remember Christmas shopping?
I mean in stores full of shoppers
- there was music in the air and
some shops had free hot-chocolate
while others offered hot cinnamon
apple-cider and ginger-reindeer cookies

Parents would have to wait outside stores
because the whole expedition was surreptitious
- you shielded your gift bags from prying eyes.
Siblings would offer to help you carry your loot
- as if any respectable kid would fall for THAT.

School choirs competed for applause, caroling in food courts.
A line of excited children would spark my older brother,
Brice, to smirk and tease, “Are you sitting on Santa’s lap this year?”

There was a dazzling neon candy-cane roller-coaster
on the roof of Macy’s called “the pink pig” that we’d
squeeze into - even though it was made for little kids.

I was always in charge of checking the calendar so we’d remember
when my sister would be flying home for college break.

Have a careful Christmas - holly jolly as it can be.
Make memories that will last forever - like favorite songs.

What stands guaranteed?
The moon's drifting away, oh
inconstant cosmos.

Gravity fights us,
taxes come due, boys will ******,
some things are certain.

What about love? We
need extended warranties
for consumer faith.

Permanent pressed
love - no crumpled hopes
- investor safety.

“Love bonds”, or "emo-
care?” No worry, we’ll find a
marketable name...

Donald Trump’s on trial - the first of many.
It’s a cold feeling, being judged
- with your future held in the balance
(Ok, that sounded SO much like college life).

We all hope for greatness, I believe.
As kids, we see ourselves winning Wimbledon,
or standing on the gold medal podium at the olympics.

Donald Trump was a controversial president
I think that’s fair to say - some saw greatness,
others - not so much - but I think Mr. Trump
has what it takes to be a great prisoner.

First, he’ll eat practically anything
and he’s used to both paying for ***
and working with criminals.
I think he’ll have greatness ****** upon him.
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songs for this:
Secrets (Your Fire) by Magdalena Bay
POSE by MICHELLE
Hi-Fidelity by Lava La Rue
Leave it on the Dance Floor by Hope Tala

Ignore the roses' glory, lass -
for this purpose you were born!
****** princess - you are needed
to catch the elusive unicorn!

I stumble as if to music -
for I know the sordid truth.
That abstract love burns brightly -
in the hearts of maiden youth.

I’m a secretly broken angel -
so this magic I can’t perform.
I was seduced by boyish powers -
by clownish fumbling I was transformed.

I’ve been avoiding hateful mirrors -
for unwelcome truths they seem to know.
I can but join this dull adventure
and a hunting we will go.

(inspired by Mike Burch’s poem “Almost”)

We almost loved, in the sudden heat,
of ham-smacking lust for forbidden treats.
What made us stop - what got in the way?
If we’d just let go, at love’s buffet,
exchanged sweet fluids and DNA
would we still be the friends,
that we are today?

Here’s a playlist, Mr. Ex President:

'I Fought the Law' by The Clash
'Chain Gang' by The Pretenders
'Locked Up' by Akon
'My Own Prison' by Creed
'Prisoner' by The Weeknd
'Famous-in-A-Small-Town' by Miranda Lambert
'FatMan on the Run' by Paul McCartney & Wings
'Jailhouse Rock' by Elvis Presley
'Prison Grove' by Warren Zevon
‘Who’s Sorry Now’ by Connie Francis
‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ by Cher

If convicted, Trump should claim to identify as a woman

An app on my phone says they’ll be snow tonight - we can expect .2 inches in New Haven. I can’t wait because where I come from snow is an event.

In Georgia, the mere suggestion of a snowflake in a weather report results in businesses closing, the freeway being blocked-off, and the entire city being evacuated.

Reports of “snow” can provoke vicious, panic shopping for essentials, like Totino's Triple-Meat-Pizza-Rolls - known for keeping teenagers alive in weather-pocalypses.

As the snowflake is tracked-in by radar, wooden furniture is chopped up for strategic placement by the fireplace and beloved family pets are evaluated for their fur and nutritional values. Has Grandma really been pulling her weight lately?

These New Englanders seem completely nonplussed by snow, like republicans facing unnecessary death or the loss of American democracy. I think I’m going to video this.

Interesting fact: Snow actually falls from the sky. I know, it’s terrifying

What a small room - my finger traces dust across the plain table.
What did Grandma DO here? I glance around for electrical sockets - none to be seen.
Her life was spent staring out the window, at 3D life, but only seeing memories.

I go to the wall and test the switch
a bare light bulb illuminates an area with a hot plate.
"Jesus", I mumble.

Why would she live in this shabby room?
Was this a punishment? Like a place where a nun would live?
No, I self correct in my mind Gramma was the sweetest person on earth.

I walk three steps, twirl and flop on my back, on the bed.
Dust explodes off the bare mattress in the sunlight
slanting through the grimy, half-open, shadeless window.

I wave and blow the dust away and now I'M lost in memory..
She was ninety-three - I never heard her say an unkind word
In that tiny, sand-papery whisper of a voice.

She always wanted me to sit in her lap, she wanted to brush my hair.
From 10 on I was bigger than she was and afraid I'd break her.

"Don't you worry over ME", she'd say with a chuckle, "I'm an old piece of leather."
Her cheeks were pink and wrinkled like old rose petals. Her hair a white bun.

"I miss you Gramma", I whisper.

This is an age old story
it could be a country song.
Some may find it enchanting
while others say it’s wrong.

I like home automation
and the feeling of control
the response to simple voice
commands seems to satisfy my soul.

I got into it slowly
but it soon got out of hand
when on a cold black-Friday
I bought an automated man.

His physique wasn’t all that defined
and I wouldn’t have called him handsome
but soon I was trolling the aftermarket
for jail-broken enhancements.

He can’t take his eyes off me,
his omelettes are the best,
and when he puts his arms around me
- he never needs to rest.

My mom appreciates him,
his work ethic has her impressed.
She has no idea how handy he is
as he helps me get undressed.

My friends say, “Wow, you look HAPPY!”
I feel I’m blooming like a flower.
I anxiously wait for him to fully charge
and we have unscheduled hours.

It’s both a bitter funeral for freedom
and the birth of new crime.

Ex-President Trump had a near miss recently. That can be traumatizing.

We know how it is, our old republic survived a near insurrection recently.

At least Trump's assailant was killed, he can rest easy.

Thanks to faux-jurisprudence, our felon is still out there - on the loose.
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Songs for this:
Run On by Elvis Presley
Use Me (feat. Cynthia Greene) by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
Order My Steps by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

We have to write a lot of essays
and I love it - the twisting of words,
the molding of nouns and verbs until
thoughts are clear and paragraphs
sit symmetrical and idealized.

I’ll write a paper, and scowling,
write another version and another
- lavishing them with attention
until every word is perfect.

I miss handing in papers though
- paper is substantial, not virtual
and even if a paper wasn’t well received
at least you took a tree down with you.

In numerology twelve has special meanings - they’re twelve days of Christmas, twelve months in a year, and Taylor Swift’s had twelve number-one albums. All we care about at Yale, are the twelve days until Thanksgiving break. This semester has seemed as long as waiting in line at the DMV, or holding one's breath under water.

My roommates and I are like family, heck, we spent last summer together. The combinatorics of eight girls bonding as tightly as we have are redorkulous. We’re not Disney-family, of course, at times there seem to be too many noisy, unruly, competitive and occasionally combative kids in the car and university life has its unforgiving undercurrents too.

Success can seem fleeting, to students at the top levels academically - as fleeting as the last quiz - and in this environment, where every paper is expected to be unique and brilliant, the stresses are multiplied. We’ve been told, since we were six, how important grades are, we’ve slaved tirelessly to master our numbers and letters and we’re continuously and rigorously evaluated, as we ascend our various academic ladders.

All the while, ticking and bomb-like, is the knowledge that there are only ‘X’ number of seats in med-schools, law-colleges and associates hired on wall street. The result is, we can be wounded, deeply, by a red pencil mark or the most casual, conversational inflection of a professor.

We’re told that there are general subjects to avoid - like money and religion - I’d add grades to that list. While there’s nothing like the euphoria and pride that comes from being effective, the truth is, universities are elaborate competitions where winners, losers and future opportunities turn, to a large degree, on grades.

I’m in my dorm-room, hunched over my laptop like a miser counting her gold. I’m going over my grade spreadsheet and giggling, quietly, with delight. Lisa comes up behind me, like a ninja, “What are you giggling about?” she asks, leaning over my shoulder to see my laptop.

I jumped, guiltily, like a teenager caught surfing ****, and pressed the screen-lock button, in mindless reflex. “JeeSUS!” I gasped, turning towards her in laughing irritation, “don’t DO that!”
“Oh,” she said, “you HAVE to show me now,” moving in even closer.

I unlocked the display with a sigh and my fingerprint. She scooped up my laptop - not waiting for permission or explanations. Her eyes swept the spreadsheet like a bitcoin miner and after a second, she asked, “You made this?”

“Yeah,” I said, with pride, adding, “‘Melon’ helped,” (lest I lie and take all the credit). Melon’s an ex-roommate of my bf who’s got several PhDs in math (One in ‘computational mathematics’, a second in ‘mathematical modeling’ and he’s working on a third in ‘decision sciences').
“Clean,” she said, scrolling it up and down and chewing on her bottom lip. “Why were you hiding it?” She asked, handing the computer back.
“I don’t know,” I shrugged, “grades can be radioactive.”
She nodded, understanding and asked, “Can I get a copy?”
“Sure,” I said, saving it and forwarding a copy to her. The little Mac made a ‘whoop’ sound.

Roommates should share everything.

It’s Saturday morning at about 9am. I’m in the chemistry lab, a sterile looking room with 12 workstations that are like multi level kitchen islands with sinks and various lab gear. It’s the most fluorescently lit environment on earth and everything looks to be either white, stainless steel or glass.

I’m one of the two students in the lab this morning, so I’ve taken two stations at the far end of the room and I’m performing two experiments at once, I mean, why not get ahead?

Before I start a lab, I do a ‘cutsheet,’ It’s something I learned from my sister, Annick. The cutsheet lists every piece of equipment I’ll use (like a magnetic stirrer), every step I’ll perform (control the atmosphere), every safety measure I need to take (fume hoods), every chemical I will use (for instance alkyl halide in 0.1 concentration) and what my results should be. This is all more-or-less textbook - but I still hand-write it out myself.

It’s a quiet environment, I have my AirPods in and I’m listening to cello music - it’s relaxing. I’m performing two variations of nucleophilic substitution reactions - creating new carbon-carbon bonds. It’s Pretty standard stuff and I’m at the stage, in both experiments, where I combine reagents. When suddenly, a TA (teaching assistant) is stooping over my hunched, left shoulder.
“What do you have there?” He asked - let’s call him Lewis. I flinched. Ok, I jumped.

Lewis’ breaking the silence was sudden and intrusive. I hadn’t noticed him prowling about and for a moment I was flummoxed. I tapped my AirPods to stop the music.

This was irritating. See, anything I would say to him would sound like a child talking to an adult. He’s a doctoral student and to him what I’m doing is stupidly simple, like stacking blocks, but he’s put me in that position.

“I’m doing both variations of (problem set/homework) problem 5,” I motioned to the other station, “and I’m ready to introduce the Grignard reagent,” I couldn’t help a note of cringy defiance creeping into my tone, like a child expecting to be reprimanded.

“Are you..,” he started to say, I’m sure he didn’t mean for it to sound like an interrogation.
But I read his mind, adding, “I’m using anhydrous conditions and an ethereal solvent,” this time I said it like it should be obvious—and again I sounded childish and brittle (like an ignoramus)—to myself anyway—but I was at a loss. ‘God, I really need to be less defensive,’ I thought, mortified. I hate looking dumb.

He nodded his head, he’d been looking over my cutsheet. I gave him an upturned, sideways glance. Was he going to stand around observing or worse yet micro-manage me?
“Very good,” he pronounced, tapping my cutsheet lightly with an index finger, “carry on.”

He walked away, off to bother the other student, I hoped. Better him than me. I had work to do. I tapped my music back on, looking at my cutsheet.
Where was I?
.
.
Songs for this:
Havana by Brooklyn Duo
Carnival of the Animals: XIII. The Swan by Yo-Yo Ma & Kathryn Stott

In my family, a convent in Lucerne, Switzerland loomed legend large.
Its name is “La Madone Noire” (the Black Madonna) and according to my mom, it is a “finishing school” where captious girls, who lied or who wouldn’t behave, were sent to live with and be schooled by nuns.

It was, from all reports, a terrible and stern place where there was never any ice cream or bedtime stories and the toys, when there were any, were made of straw.

Most of the time it was my older sister Annick getting the dark Poe-like lectures, but I was there, in my high chair, listening wide-eyed. The very idea that Annick could be snatched up, for some infraction, and sent off to the nuns horrified me to the point that my heartbeat seemed to come through my whole body.

Eventually, as we grew, “Lucerne” became a shorthand for “shape up or else,” and oddly,  it never lost its potency. Hmm, you know, come to think of it - there was no equivalent monastery for my brother.

Across the years, 400 plus, my stories endlessly play out their parts.
I played not on painted stage, but I knew the human heart - 
I captured, with quill and scratch, the passions of laughter and tears.
I held up a mirror, in doublet and verse, to things unbound by years,
like the weight of grief, the lightness of love and the serpents of ambition.
The music of verse, the lilt and fall of words, hold a strange enchantment,
brief spells where fools, princes, witches and kings shared a selfsame planet.
Though my bones lay in hallowed ground, the stories I spun linger yet.
They've played out, in age after age, on a thousand, thousand stages.
It’s well done, if I say so myself, to live on, in millions of minds and bookshelves.
.
.
A song for this:
Just Like Romeo and Juliet by The Reflections

With silly smile, playing laptop keyboard
keys, I relay tales of brief, college bliss,
where days, like dry martinis, swiftly pass
lips that pucker for life’s capricious kiss.

My roommates bring joy and warm delight, like
late night Cheeto-fights to break-up study
drudgery - some chaos can counter stress,
though it makes a powdery-orange mess.

While we whirl and preen, when on party scenes,
we've embarked on the classic scholar’s quest.
We're earnest lasses, who pass-up passes -
well, some capitulate - we are human.

But I'm tempered by shame, and remembered
love's flame - and nightly I whisper his name.

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.

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?”

A shadow crossed the room
in the corner of my awareness

A cloud outside somewhere, probably,
but for an instant, I thought that motion was you.

Thoughts of you are casually intrusive.

Maybe you’d crawled into my luggage - and hidden.
There’s a complex birthday-candle wish.

Desire owes no deference to logic

When I think of you, my tummy becomes warm satin and I know,
that in your hands, I could be boneless and lusciously obedient.

For a while, anyway.

I remember us at the beach, lounging in deep parasol shade,
how your tanned skin glistened with tiny beads of sweat
and your endless legs stretched out like a centerfold’s.

Or you pulling me up out of the pool, one-handed, effortlessly,
with enough force that I briefly flew, and how you’d gently guide me down.

“What are you doing?” I’m virtually slapped out of my ****** fantasy, by Lisa, who’s standing, exasperated, sandaled toes tapping, purse in hand.

“Daydreaming,” I answered weakly, as I jumped up to get myself ready.

Has it only been four days since I left you?
I already feel tragically underheld.
.
.
A song for this:
Ain't it a shame by The B-52s
Locked Inside by Janelle Monáe

We were (Leong, Peter, Anna and I) eating at a popular Italian eatery (outdoors) and the check arrived - I swooped across the table and grabbed the check from the waiter. Peter whispers, “You can’t pay for everything the entire weekend.” “Why not?” I say, “It makes me happy.” “There’s no reason to,” he says. “I need a REASON??” I snort, which always makes Leong laugh. “Have you MET me?” I say, shaking my head dubiously. “I’ve met you,” he pronounces, “and you’re a NUT.“ “Thank you,” he says, indicating the check exasperatedly.

Peter’s transfinancial: a rich man trapped in a poor man’s body. He has taste but he exists on a grant and a meager stipend. We’re just friends but I’m holding a bag and he’s not. Besides, he needs a new laptop - badly - and shouldn’t be squandering his grips on me.

Greek-life is on the rise. Maybe it's because those groups offer planned social events or because, with COVID winding down (covid smovid) there’s more going on. There’s a pressure here - to be your most authentic self - to be top academically, socially - to have your calendar filled out. There’s a frantic nature to it. I’m being lowkey rushed for a fraternity (for next year) but I love my roommate situation and I think I’d druther stick with this set I love.

Which begs the question about social time. Should it be methodical, relentless, super planned out? Super planned interactions can seem transactional and not easy going and natural. College social life is so different from high school. College life is so much more charged in every way. The range of people you meet, the broader perspectives, the available options for activities.

I find myself in a search for balance. Private time vs social time. Before covid, you’d go to school and then you’d come home to your room, where you could just hang out. It was a self care place.

At university, a dorm room is less of a “home” where you can be alone and spend that healing time. You never know who's going to be in your living room and what they’re up to. I get claustrophobic when my door is closed so I rely a lot on noise-canceling technology.

A dorm room can seem like those covid lockdown days - there’s little or no separation between academic and private space. I’m just unpacking some thoughts. *shrug

Thou hast my love and I desire thine.
Dost thou know or knowing, care?
I keep the nymph's lonely station.

But my impatience grows savage.

If thou carest not, my love,
the stars will keep their motion,
flowers will still need water,
I will learn stillness,
and the feeling will rust.

Some old movie plots
can't happen now, with changes
in technology...

You know, in a movie
when someone texts everyone
at school by mistake?

Who has EVERYONE
at school on their contacts list?
No way that happens.

Parent-less parties
where scores show up - with modern
surveillance systems?

or ditching class, heck
my parents are texted my
quiz scores real-time.

"why'd you get an 88
on that Calculus test, I
thought you studied?" Argh!

You’re so HOT when you lie to me
young republican
I love your insurRECTION
I prefer my men dumb and dishonest
so come Lie with me
give me your BIG one
about how Trump won and
how the big steal couldn’t be stopped
ooo, slower, yes,
Tell me what a strong-man Putin is
with truth in abeyance
Yeah, uh huh, like that
Oooo.. uh..
restrict me, control me.
take my choice, my privacy
Ummm.. yeah..
right there..
impede my vote.. yes, yesss
Keep, keep, umm..
nothing’s wrong
don’t stop, oh,
don’t stop now..

Trapped like Napoleon on Elba, cursing himself 300 straight nights.
There's no escape from MY desolate coast so I longingly wait nights.
The moon comes and goes on restless, disenchanted, chaste nights.
Will I be an old maid before the next dear and playful date night?

I’m listening to a song,
that’s captured my mood.
What’s the singer saying?
If it knew, I’d sing along.
but the slurry words elude.
It’s an artistic choice, I suppose,
and I don’t require deeper meanings.

A squirrel stands defiantly in the middle of the path,
A tiny, furry-tailed, usurper - quite out of the routine.
“Hello fluffy rodent,” I baby-sing, as it watches me,
“What an odd meeting, are you hoping for a feeding?”
I try to pass but it jittery-scampers and cuts me off.
"I have a test, get out of the way, you crazy nut-thief”
I glance at my watch; l might really be late to lab.

So, I leave the path to the possibly rabid rat.
if it comes at me, on-God, I swear I’ll kick it,
launch it ballistically into the evergreen thicket.
How I long for a coffee, hot and sweet,
or a sandwich and salty chips - that would be nice -
but then I would be late for class. I sigh in defeat.
It started to drizzle. This afternoon will be miserable.
.
.
*Songs for this:
Out of Myself by Bebo Best & The Super Lounge Orchestra
Jettin' by Digable Planets
.
Oh, and a Christmas playlist because—it’s December!
https://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_15.mp3

Earlier in the week I was pretty sick and Peter was pampering me. One night, as Peter was taking away my tea tray, I took a selfie to send to my mom - as proof of life.
He looked at it from the side, “Ooo, no,” he frowned, “too slutty.” He put his hand out for my phone, “May I help?”
“Can you hear yourself talking?” I asked. My mouth was incredibly dry from the steroid meds. The entire world seemed an unnecessary irritation.
He gently tied my robe, straightened me and my pillows and took a new version. “Better?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, a little more crossly than I meant to, “you’re always right.”
“It’s the world we live in. Get used to it,” he muttered.
When I tried to pick up my iPad and go back to work, he gently took it away, “Stop,” he whispered, “It’s 12am, you’re done for the night.”
I groaned, relieved really, then he took a small eucalyptus stick and dabbed it on my temples. “Gaa!” I said, “That’s cold!”
Who knew grown up, Californian men were so into homeopathy? After a moment though, it felt amazing.

The next morning, a cat appeared in our suite! It was a solid gray kitten with deep, brown eyes. At first, we stared at it like it was an alien (where’d that come from?) until Leong came in from the cold and said, “Cat.” Then it was welcomed.
About the time Sunny ID'd it as a British-shorthair, there was a tiny knock on our door and a little girl asked, “Have you seen..,” only to squeak “Cirrus!” when she saw her kitty. I’m telling you now, **** the rules, we would’ve kept that kitten.

bye Google. All Google’s been doing this semester is feeding me into CAPTCHA traps, Argh!
How, in 2023, can Internet searches be getting harder? One of my roommates, Anna, is helping me test alternative search engines.
Anna’s a wiry, freckled, 5’4” farm-girl from Oregon, with wavy, shoulder length, dark-brown beach-hair. In our first semester, Anna was a firecracker tossed into my life. She’d bang on my door at 2am (I didn’t even KNOW this crazy farmgirl) with her problems, klutziness and bad boyfriend stories, but she won me over with her vulpine-braininess, her impertinent straightforward secrets and laughter - all delivered in her exotic, western twang.
“Ok,” Anna suggests, getting way into my personal space to see my screen, “try - headache after ***.”
“Sure, GET me on odd shopping lists,” I snark.
“Black mole on armpit,” she countered or “intimate dryness.”
“Big help!” I laughed.

I’m publishing my poetry telepathically today.
So, if you think of a particularly clever rhyme - it was me.

I do foolish things
when I'm blue
when I'm sad
and missing you

I do foolish things
like dancing all night
foolish things
drinking everything in sight
foolish things
shopping til I drop
foolish things
somehow, I cannot stop

doing foolish things
when I'm blue
when I'm sad
and missing you

I do foolish things
watching ‘parks & rec' all night
foolish things
drinking coffee until daylight
foolish things
dragging friends on crazy romps
foolish things
somehow I cannot stop

doing foolish things
when I'm blue
when I'm sad
and missing you

I do foolish things
acting like spring breakers
foolish things
*****-dirping strangers
foolish things
acting like some whack-job
foolish things
but somehow I cannot stop

doing foolish things
when I'm blue
when I'm sad
and missing you

I do foolish things
making badong decisions
foolish things
I'm in an awkweird position
foolish things
I've begun precrastinating
foolish things
a change is indicated

so come back soon
cause when you do
there are foolish things
I want to do with you

foolish things
foolish things
crazy foolish things
foolish things
.
.
Songs for this:
We're All Alone by Kennedy Ryon
Another Man's Jeans by Ashe
.
.
A Christmas platlist - because there's 12 days til Christmas!!
https://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_16.mp3
.
.
slang
badong = bad / wrong
*****-dirping = saying silly or outrageous things to strangers for effect.
awkweird = combination of 'awkward' and 'weird'.
precrastinating = procrastinating before procrastinating

I’m toey this morning, we’re getting a test back. I was all right or all wrong. I’m early, the first one here. I’m hoping the TA will early-bird and return my test before anyone else gets here. That way, when I run and jump out the 3rd story window, no one else will be traumatized.

I’m trying to have-sac but I’m keyed-up and quivering like a ******. My chair seems all hard angles. I didn’t sleep much. My mind is replaying the test in a loop, resisting the unreliable seduction of hope. I've decided my score depends on one variable in question 3.

This semester I feel like one of those Cirque du sloeil acrobats that spin ten plates on a pole while riding a motorcycle. I realize I’m biting my fingernails and the parental voices that live in my mind spring to life. I shut them down with a shake of my head, they’ll have their say later.

Oh, great, another student’s here, Clint, I think. He’s a stengo from someplace tropical. I’ve never talked to him 1-on-1 but we were in a lab group once, where we had to synthesize a coordination complex and characterize it. He’s smart, polite, and forever chipper. He settles into his seat and slouches like he hasn’t a care in the world. I don’t like him this morning.

If he’s wrong, he’s going to have to throw himself down the stairs, I’ve got dibs on the window.

I’m Imagining a place where we make sense - the hot-chocolate
safe-house where we’ll tongue wrestle, watch Gossip Girl reruns
and cuddle - sustained by love and Cinnamon Life cereal.

This dark, coffin-like clock in the corner whirrs, mechanically.
Suddenly a little yellow-clock-bird bursts, jumping-jack-like,
through a tiny door on a blue, tongue-suppressor diving board.

“Cuckoo!” it shrieks, to mock me. “Shut up!” I say defensively
but it repeats, “Cuckoo!” like an oracle - an unfeeling instrument
of adult logic.

The sky is a cloudless crystal blue
with a breeze to chap your lips
I’m grateful for it, it’s heaven-sent
the dawn was a celestially stamped, angry red
sailors take warning

It’s going to get feisty cold,
I’m told
about the time we go back to school.
A polar-bear vortex with all its features
will spread its icy paws

What jumps out at me first
is how it could be worse.
if unapologetic nature
pounced sans disclaimers
with a cold worth semi-Shakespearean verse

What follows, star-crossed
is a week storm-tossed
a winter holocaust
with heaven-kissed frost
that only madness would call a judgement

We’re steered from harm
by precision alarms
stay warm
sweet friends
wrap up, stay in
.
.
Songs for this:
Come In from the Cold by Marc Broussard
World's A Changing by The Bingtones

The earth is twirling,
oh, God, make it stop.
If it keeps on spinning,
I think I’ll throw up.

The way Earth orbits the sun,
it's dangerous and thoughtless.
Can we just knock it off?
It's making me nauseous.

It was dark and cold night. Looking back and up, the moon
was a thin and useless crescent, barely visible.
‘What a wasted moon,’ I thought.
“A stupid moon,” I mumbled to myself as if to finish a conversation.
It looked deflated, artificial, soulless, and cold. Not poetic at all.

I’m coping with tough decisions
a victory and perhaps one martini too many.
Peter (my bf) called, when I was at Toads (a local bar).
We usually talk on Tuesdays at about 11.
It was noisy in there
I was a little tipsy.
He became a little irritated.
It didn’t go well.
Martinis and authority don’t mix.

I handed my thesis in today, 80 days early.
I've been working on it obsessively.
finger to lips, like a secret  I can be obsessive.
It’s a 60 page ‘first draft,’ theoretically.
“Can I turn in a first draft for your review?”
He looked surprised, “Sure.” I handed it over, and that’s that.
Every ‘first draft’ I’ve ever handed in has gotten an A.
“You’re CrAzY,” Sunny chuckled, “We gotta celebrate!”

“Please don’t hold the door open,” the librarian said.
I jumped, I hadn’t seen her sneaking up on me.
How long had I been standing there?
I’d been lost in thought.
I focused on her now.
She was 50 maybe, or a hundred—who knew?
Her face needed moisturizing badly,
her wrinkles were like cracks in marble.
She looked frowny.

Why is everyone frowny tonight?
“Sure,” I said, facetiously, throwing my arm up like the door was hot.
The door was now free to close.
And the world was a better place.
Once I’d turned and stepped into the library,
I decided It was too bright and too hot there.
So I left.

The second I was outside, in the refreshing cold, Sunny appeared.
“There you are,” she said, like she had lost something.
“You walk too fast,” and the girl with her laughed.
Sunny can always pick up a girl—it’s like she’s magnetic.
"Let's go home,” she added, “we’re going to pay for this tomorrow.”
She hooked my arm in hers and we followed the path,
the three of us, like the yellow brick road.
.
.
A song for this:
Drunk On Love by Basia
Data & Picard by Pogo