Two nights ago, Sophy and I were studying for our chemistry class in a library 24/7 room. Those feature large open areas with couches, tables with computers and some other, small desks behind cubicle walls. We were seated in the cubicle area. It was after 11pm, a time when the library rooms are usually deserted.

Suddenly, these five brolics come noisily into the open area. As soon as we heard them, Sophy and I exchanged a look where we asked each other, “Should we leave?” But we decided to wait and see if they’d settle down or stay.

There’s a native kind of white, frat **** I’ve encountered once or twice in my year at Yale. These men, usually upperclassmen, are big, rude, entitled and combative ***** who are positive they rule the universe. We derisively call them “scions”.

One time Leong and I were in line to buy snacks. Leong had just stepped up to the register and this scion walked up - cutting the line - to buy a drink. He reached out with his card almost hitting Leong in the face - like she wasn’t there, like the line wasn’t there. I'm sure the checkout lady just quickly processed his card to avoid a scene.

Now there were 5 of those jerks in one room - their inherent chaos introducing them. They were loud and bunxious (hello, can you say library QUIET?). One, in particular, had a very deep, grinding and irritating voice. He started truthing to his audience, crowing about a recent, violent, ******* encounter he’d had. Sophy and I looked at each other in shock, like “***??”

At the end of his explicit narration, he kept repeating “Bang’n it.. Bangin’ it.. Bangin’ it.. Bangin’ it..” slowly, rhythmically, grindingly over and over - he must have said it 80 times with various nasty inflections. While he was playing that out, the others were laughing and yelling encouragement and raunchy feedback over his “Bang’n it” mantra.

I’m sure they didn’t know we were there. But I turned a little and drew my feet up onto my chair, my knees becoming a small wall, in case the barbarians rounded the corner. I’ll admit that ******-guys like that scare me a little and there’s something in the tone of their voices that makes my skin crawl.

This seemed more than those “guy’s locker room talks” we’ve all heard about. The scene seemed oddly private and primitive, like a band of excited apes celebrating a ****. Perhaps something one was more likely to overhear in a dark fraternity basement than in a college library.

I guess I experienced a moment of gendered fear. Sophy and I both scrunched down in our seats a bit, exchanging “chagrinned, what now” looks. There just didn’t seem an opportune moment to reveal ourselves by leaving. Sophy showed me her phone - the app that summons a security escort if a student needs one was up - but I shook my head “no,” to mean “not yet,” and we decided to wait.

After about 15 minutes one of them said, “Let's get a drink” and they left. Thank God. I wonder what would have happened if we stood up and left. Hopefully nothing, but even now I shudder at the memory of that guy's voice. Those guys were way, way more than creepy.

It’s a Saturday afternoon worth waiting for. It’s 52°f and the sky is clear except for a scattering of popcorn clouds. I’m eating lunch with Sophy, Lisa, Anna (my roommates) and Peter (a friend) at one of the two residential dining halls that have the best pizza (yeah, you KNOW who you are).

We’re touching base before we scatter, shrapnel like, for the night. I’ll be hemmed-up by circumstance and in my most diligent work-mode. I have a presentation due Monday.

Sophy says, reading from at her laptop, “Research suggests that cat owners are seen as better looking and have more ***.”

“I have two cats,” I say, “at home.” I preen in my double-catness.

“I’m a cat owner!” Anna announces.

“My cat DIED.” Lisa reveals sadly.

“THAT cat did its JOB,” Sophy pronounced saliently, as if proving the studies validity.

“I grew up in a cat house,” Peter says.

“Ooo! YOU must have learned a LOT!” I say, batting my eyes seductively.

“Maybe we should get a cat HERE!” Sophy suggests.

“To cement our status!” Anna laughs.

The pizza was really good.

Dylan Klebold (17)... Senior.... September 11, 1981- April 20, 1999
Eric Harris (18)... Senior.... April 9, 1981- April 20, 1999
Cassie Bernall (17)... Senior.... November 6, 1981- April 20, 1999
Lauren Townsend (18)... Senior.... January 17, 1981- April 20, 1999
Rachel Scott (17)... Senior.... August 5, 1981- April 20, 1999
Corey DePooter (17)... Senior.... March 3, 1982- April 20, 1999
Daniel Mauser (15)... Sophy.... June 25, 1983- April 20 1999
Daniel Rhohrbough (15)... Sophy.... March 2, 1984-  April 20, 1999
Dave Sanders (47)... Old ****.... October 22, 1951- April 20, 1999
Kelly Fleming (16)... Junior.... January 6, 1983- April 20, 1999
Steve Curnow (14)... Freshmeat.... August 28, 1984- April 20, 1999
Matt Kechter (16)...Sophy.... February 19, 1983- April 20, 1999
Isaiah Shoels (18)... Senior.... August 4, 1980- April 20, 1999
John Tomlin (16)... Junior.... September 1, 1982- April 20, 1999
Kyle Velasquez (16)... Junior....May 5, 1982- April 20, 1999

It’s 6:15pm. Peter, Anna, Sophy and I are studying in the common room of our suite.

“We need to get serious,” Peter whispered, but there was no subject in the declaration, so I was left confused and uncommitted, “about getting serious,” he clarified.

“I’m not sure I can get serious about a guy who doesn’t separate whites and darks in the laundry,” I say, gently.

“No,” he said, shaking his head in brief vibration, “we need to get serious about DINNER.”

“Oh!” I said, maybe a little too relieved.

“Ha!” He chortled, “YOU overthink everything!” He said, nodding his head up and down to prove it was true. “And speaking of laundry,” he continued, seeing me start to open my mouth, “the other night YOU asked me if your pastel purple ******* should go with the whites or darks - so I must be an EXPERT!”

I laughed at the idea of his laundry expertise, sailing in from out of the purple like that, it was haywire. “Well,” I said, becoming introspective, “I didn’t know you’d hold onto that question like a grudge,” I said, in quiet, wounded accusation, “from now ON, maybe you should stay as far away from my ******* as possible.”

“What are you two grousing about NOW?” Anna asked, looking up from her computer. “You guys are like an old married couple.”

“True THAT.” Sophie said, like a judge right before knocking her gavel to finalize a ruling.

“We weren’t arguing!” I said, looking around confusedly. I looked at Peter, who was smiling broadly, “Were we?”

“Nope,” he said, wrapping his arm around me in a bearhug, “we were flirting.”

Most of the girls (Anna, Sophy, Sunny, Bili, Leong and Lisa) are in the kitchen eating breakfast. “Where’s Anais?” Sunny asks, spooning some eggs onto her plate and taking 4 strips of bacon.

“She’s out by the pool, feeling sorry for herself.” Leong whispers, distractedly, reading the “Fruity Pebbles” box and poking the multicolored flakes with her spoon. “These are good.”

“She was cantankerous.” Sophy adds.
“Aungery.” Anna adds.
“Stevening.” Lisa contributes, competitively.

The front door causes the alarm system to chirp as it opens and Kim calls out, “Morning!” from the foyer.

“What’s going on?” Sunny asks, frustratedly and looking around in concern.

“Charles told her she couldn’t invite Peter this summer.” Lisa said, half whispering. Bili and Anna look up from their plates, like interested bystanders, to check Sunny’s reaction.

Sunny looks shocked, “Really - he can do that? Why?” she asks, almost confused. “He’s usually such an invisible figure.” she notes, quizzically.

Kim comes into the kitchen and hangs her purse on a white coat rack - out of habit - like she’s done for years. “Charles tells her what to do,” she says, giving Bili a hug. “and the girl obeys.”

“Yep,” Bili confirms, bobbing her head offhandedly, like it’s a done deal.

Sunny nods thoughtfully and putting a napkin under her plate, heads out the double-French doors toward the pool to find me. I’m sitting by the pool, watching the water, one leg crossed over the other, which is in the water, slowly kicking, making deliberate waves that ripple across the light blue surface.

“Hey,” Sunny said as she approached, “mind company?”
“Nah,” I reply, “I’m over it.”
“I heard,” Sunny reported, taking a seat next to me, “sorry.”
“Just a disappointment - and a little social embarrassment.” I said, chuckling self-consciously.
“Did he say why?’ Sunny ventured.
“He just said, “It’s a bad idea,” I repeated, shrugging.
After a moment of silence I added, “He’s probably right - I’m glad I hadn’t asked Peter yet - THAT would have been lethiferous,” I cringe physically at the thought.

“Besides,” I disclose, “that might have been weird, me with someone and no one else??”
Sunny gives a “maybe” nod.

“Like when one of us brings someone into our dorm room for the night,” I continue, “and you have to walk through the common room - where everyone’s studying - and they know what you’re doing, and you know, they know, what you’re going to do. It’s SUPER awkward.” We both chuckle in agreement.

My pose is gathered this Saturday morning because I made a pancake and bacon breakfast. We're listening to a Britney Spears song, off one of Leong’s playlists. “I remember when I was about 8,” I say, “I was drawing and singing a Brittney song and I got to the line - “I make no apologies, I’m into phonography,”” and my mom sharply says, “Don’t say that!” And I’m left trying to figure out what I said.”

“People are harsh with her, but Britney is timeless,” Leong says.

“Everyone at Yale fancies themselves a music critic,” Lisa says. There are numerous vocal agreements. “I’m like, “Ok, Pop-off then queen, go complicated,” but in my opinion, you need to have fun with music - that’s the main purpose - just to have fun.”

“That’s like the difference between Cardi B and Niki (Minaj). You can just stroll a Cardi B song, you don’t have to interpret,” Anna adds, “but with Nicki I feel I have to listen to see the point.”

Lisa, surfing on her iPad asks, “Did you guys see that Jojo Seawall wasn’t invited to the kid’s choice awards - because she came out as lesbian?”

Sophy says, “Nickelodeon’s been trying to seem MORE accepting, working in more black artists.”

“Yeah, but they’re fake.” Anna pronounces. Everyone nods agreement.

“He hasn’t called all WEEK,” Sophy moans, holding her iPhone up to her ear like she expected to hear ticking, “I made a ghost of him,” she says, flopping the phone on the couch.

“Should I call the Po-po?” Anna asks, distracted as she searches the kitchen cupboard to be sure the pancakes were gluten free.

“I had a dream,” Lisa begins, “I was a child in a family I don’t know. We were criminals. We stole a car and robbed a store. My dream mom ran the operation. And wouldn’t let me watch TV until I emptied the loot out of the car. Then the police arrived, we saw the flashing red and blue lights through closed venetian blinds, then there was a banging on the door, in the dream, that woke me up.”

“That’s way off track but It’s fine, so fine, I see how it is.” Sophy said, “I’m bleak and no one CARES.”

“Is love something you find, or something you believe?” I ask no one in particular.

“That’s a coffee-cup inscription.” Anna pronounces.

“Aaggh,” Leong says, “An email from my professor - it’s TLTR.” We think it's a policy that professors at Yale have to send incredibly long emails - almost too long to read (TLTR).

There’re only three weeks left of our freshman year, so emails are flying and everyone’s trying to nail things down for a smooth ending.

It’s midnight on June 24th. We’re returning from a “Hot Wax” concert - they were wretched. We’re heading back to Paris tomorrow, so we decided to just stop at the (Kube Hotel) lounge for nightcaps.

Everyone was stirred-up and tight as a violin string when we heard that the “Extreme Court” threw out “Roe vs Wade’s” constitutional guarantees - the latest signal of Americas ascendant entropy.

Following that, was a ruling that threw out New York’s gun restrictions. “Republicans wear compassion like a costume,” Anna pronounces, “what “right to life” IS there, if every nutcase can walk around with a machine-gun. Haven’t they been watching the news?”

Leong, who’s always willing to discuss the superiority of the communist system, susurrates, to no one in particular, “Abortions are legal in China and unless you have a hunting license - guns are illegal.”

“Maybe we should move there,” Lisa says, ingenuously, holding up her drink toastingly, her face tinted a gleaming, bourbon gold in reflected light.

Returning to our suite, 3 hours later, Sophy’s adopted a mode of travel involving swerves and leaning heavily on things. Which Leong, who was not doing much better, finds hilarious. “Use your signals!” Leong says after barely dodging one of Sophy’s flailing arms.

“Two loves I have - of comfort and despair.” Sunny quotes, in her richest, Shakespearian voice.

“There’ll be no uncomfortable beds tonight,” I say, searching my bag for my phone, which has the suite key in an attached card-holder. Charles’ room is directly across from ours and I see him shaking his head as both of our doors close.

We’ve adopted a motto, “live to exhaustion,” and I think, to myself, that we’re living up to it, as I flop onto my bed and the world goes dark.

My roommates and I congregated in our suite's great room and we’ll head out for dinner soon.

“Have you ever eaten dog food?” Leong asked Anna.
“No,” Anna answered, “it smells like chicken - it’s got chicken in it”
“OOO!” Leong pounces, “Busted!!”
“What?!” Anna reacts.  
“How would you know that then?” Leong asks, doubtfully.
“My mom told me!” Anna cries, in self defense. “She’s a vegetarian too.”
“Your mom told you.” Leong said, like a prosecutor raising an eyebrow for the jury.

“I just took my last English class,” I report, pony-tailing my hair, “my teacher told me - privately - that my writing destroys.”
“Nice,” Lisa says.
“Yeah,” I say, smiling and grooming with pride, “I thought that was a ballin’ complement and I’ve been riding that high.”
“No doubt,” Anna says and nods.
“My English professor..” Leong says, exasperated, “is driving me crazy, I’ve written three final papers so far and she’s rejected them ALL.”
“Huh?” I gasp, “Show me one!” I demand, wiggling gimmie-fingers at her laptop.

“Here’s a question,” Lisa asks the room, “What would you change about your childhood?”
“I would have never grown up.” Sophy said.
“When I was in third grade, in the UK, a girl in my elementary school, was murdered,” I reveal.
“What?!” Anna says.
“Oh, my GOD!” Lisa gasps.
“Spill” Leong demands.
“Her name was Kennedy,” I begin, “She was in another class, I didn’t know her but I started to imagine that I’d known her. I’d think of her playing on the swings in a yellow dress, in daydreams and in nightmares.”
“I can see that,” Leong said.
“I was flummoxed, at the time, how a family could lose a little girl and a president.” I added.
Anna looked confused.
“I was in third grade,” I replied, ”what did I know?”
“Go ON,” Lisa prompts.
“We heard that she was walking home and got snatched,” I continued.
“Jesus,” Lisa said, shaking her head.
“Although I never walked home, I was careful not to be snatched for a while,” I summarized.
“I bet,” Anna agreed.
“That’s what I’d change,” I said, “Poor Kennedy.”
“People ****,” Lisa pronounced, and there was general agreement to that.

We’re (my roommates and I) at a specific time of youth - a time I’ll call “close.” We aren’t fully adults but we’re close, we’re not completely out and independent, but we’re close. And once again, we’ve got choices to make.

I read this paragraph to the room.
Lisa gasped and exclaimed “Not choices?!”
“More choices?” Anna groaned.
“I’ll have a bacon-cheeseburger with large-fries,” Sophy said, adding, “and a blueberry-triple-malt shake.”
“Freedom is choices,” Leong, our favorite communist, ungrammatically observed.

We’re in the second half of our junior year - which is still hard to believe. We’ll be seniors soon, and seniors have one foot out the door - they’re ‘over the ****’ academically - nothing will be thrown at them that they can’t casually handle, so they sleep-in or trek off to job interviews half the time or in my case, go med-school hunting.

I’ve written about our lives - the stresses, healthy doses of narrative-suffused teen drama, the ascetic beauties and the enchantments of freedom - trying to capture a few real-life moments at irregular intervals, in small ellipses, to tack them, like butterflies on cork.

What’s been hard to capture are the subtler shifts in taste and mood as we’ve aged. I’ve had to purposefully slow down, doppler shift from frantic student to observant writer, to even try and grasp the constantly evolving, small variations. Like Anna’s cainogenetic expressiveness, Leong's imponderable politics, Sophy’s evolving, coquettish bar-side poses and the growing assertiveness of Lisa’s gaze.

As we mentally prepare for our real lives, there are diffuse metamorphic changes afoot. What will we leave behind and what will we keep in order to “grow up?” I don’t mean changes in haircuts, clothes and make-up - although I’m sure I’ll MCU-those-out - I mean the psychological changes.

Throughout our college careers, the objects we’ve surrounded ourselves with, the settings we’ve chosen to inhabit, the faces we’ve shown the world, and even our intimate notions of ourselves have changed.

And It’s still only junior year, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Can a pure soul, haunted by desires, plot gross revolt for straight satisfaction?
Can giving in to the disobedient beasts of want, be an act of “reclaiming power?”

A thunderstorm rolled across early sunrise like a choppy, inverted surf, drowning my usual distractions. In still moments, my heart hurts - as if it were bruised. Peter has a hold on me, he pulls on my life. I need to talk to Charles.

Lisa comes into the sunroom where most of us are lounging. “Looks like the weather’s clearing.” she said, and all eyes turned to the sky. “And there’s a kid, cleaning leaves out of the pool, his arms look like socks full of coconuts.”
“What?” Anna said.
“Where?” Leong asks. Six girls step up close to the windows like mannequins in a shop display.
“Oh, my.” Sophy says, drawing it out like an accusation, “the pooool boy!”
“He’s fifteen,” I say, making an ID through the excited crowd, instantly dousing the fire.

“This place is like a hotel, it’s larger than life.” Anna said. “The other night, when we shared those shooters, the hall leading to my room seemed like an airport concourse.”
“I’d LOVE to have lived here.” Sunny said, dramatically as she slowly reached for a strawberry off her fruit plate. Then turning to me she inquires, “How’d you pull it off?”
“It’s one of the things we don’t talk about,” I answered, conspiratorially, “I’m sure *** was involved,” I add, wiggling my eyebrows.
“Mmm,” she practically hummed, biting into the juicy strawberry goodness, “it always is.”
“Do you miss it?” Anna asks.
“I’m trying to move on with my life.” I admit.

I spot Charles out by the pool, crouching down. He’s testing the water quality and I decide that now's the time. I’m going to tell him I’ve decided to override him and invite Peter here for August - peridot.

I made my way out and around to where he’s working, getting more nervous with every step.
“Do you think we’ve been peeing in the pool?” I said, hoping to bring on a jokey mood, but it doesn’t really hit.

“No,” he says, forever the serious one, “You know that chlorine smell pools get?” I nod, sorry I made the stupid joke. “Well, that smell isn’t chlorine - can you smell the pool?” I inhale and nod yes. “That chemical smell would be the chlorine reacting to *** - and there isn’t any.”

I sit on the edge of a lounge chair, near where he’s working - to lay it all out and tell him what I’ve decided - but as I watch him my confidence fades and my lips won’t move. How can I argue with my parents, have knock-down screaming matches and not be able to say word-one with Charles? I’m so frustrated my eyes fill with tears.

He knows me too well though, we’ve been together forever - since a girl at my school was murdered when I was nine. We’ve shared sagas. He knows and has faithfully kept all of my secrets.

I’d bet he’s been watching my wheels turn for days. “You always think you see a path forward that others don’t,” he says softly, “but you have a lot of runway left, Kid-O.”

I leave the pool and storm inside - not really angry, more embarrassed to be so vulnerable.
I get on the treadmill, and I run.

Sophy’s mom sent her a giant case of “Fun dip” - a thousand packets of sour, fruit-flavored sugar. Is there anything more junkavore a parent can buy a child - well, ok, an 18 year old?

She LOVES them and so does Leong who’s from China where, apparently, you can’t get useless, non-nutritional snacks. The two of them are running around, all sugar hyped with their emo-grape-chemical-lips, sticking out phosphorescent-green-tongues and threatening to tickle everyone with cherry-red-fingers. It has me wondering, should I switch to dentistry?

Our college prep has moved to a new phase - with just 16 days until we move back into our residential college. We’re suddenly sleeping-in. It’s nothing we planned or even discussed, it just started happening. We go to sleep around 10pm and sleep until 10am - or later. I think we all subconsciously realized that soon we’ll be back to sleeplessness.

I’m peachy - in a great mindspace - these days. I’m well rested (see above), we’re killing our sophomore prep - even the physics, my period was a nothing, we spent over two hours in Ulta sampling perfumes, I have a new Macbook M2 (see below) and I painted my nails in tropical colors.

The FedEx man rolled up yesterday. “Anyone expecting something?” Anna asked the crowd of roommates attracted by the driver bringing packages to the door, two at a time. No one was expecting anything. Eventually he’d delivered 8, back to school, M2-Macbooks (2 in each color) - one for everyone - from my Grandmère.

If that sounds needlessly ostentatious, then you’re thinking she went to the mall and paid full price, but she probably just traded Tim Cook a half ton of lithium or something - one of her companies mines it - in Chili - I think. But still, my roommates were blagabloo.

I picked a starlight one. An odd thing about the new, flat Macbook Air design is that you can’t pick it up with one hand - unless you hook it underneath with a long fingernail - what are guys going to do?

It’s a “travel week” here in Georgia. I’m writing this on June 1st at the Atlanta airport. This morning Sunny’s flying in from Nebraska, Sophy from California, Lisa from New York and Anna from Oregon - all around noon. Charles put a hard-shell luggage carrier on the roof of the Navigator because he didn’t trust it to hold the luggage 4 girls could bring.

My parents left last Saturday for Warsaw to join “Doctors Without Borders.” Charles, Leong and I drove them to the airport and then we took Leong to “The Mad Italian” for the best steak & cheese sandwiches on this side of andromeda.

Sunday was a typical lake day. We tied off in our favorite cove and were quickly joined by everyone who could get on a boat. Imagine that Dunkirk movie - except this was a get together - with motorboats, sailboats, skiffs, pontoon boats and canoes all crowding the little bay.

Leong’s an avril lavigne - who knew? On Monday, I surprised her with something green - a trip to “Fun Galaxy” roller-skating rink. I made reservations for a “birthday party” and a group of 15 of us had the rink to ourselves all morning (and cake). I thought I was a skater but Leong’s legit. She says that in Macau you either skate on the street (rough terrain and dangerously between cars) or at one of several huge multisport pavilions where the rinks are cement and resemble our skateboard courses.

She’d never seen an air-conditioned, basketball-court-smooth-hardwood, disco-lit, rock concert sounding, American roller rink. It was love at first sight. She spins, does double lutzes, skates faster backwards than I can forwards, and the manager threatened to pull her off the floor for doing backflips (“There are liability issues,” he insisted.) She was also amazed because there was a built-in diner. At home, she said, you have to bring your own water and sometimes your own toilet paper (toilets are completely different in Asia - don’t get me started on THAT).

Yesterday, Leong, Kim and I were waiting for a Facetime call, to coordinate today’s arrivals.
Before that though, at my behest, Kim helped me ferret-out - Holmes & Watson like - the dire skinny on something, and we, as long time besties and co-conspirators, had a plan.
“Did you know Rob Chen was class valedictorian this year?” Kim asked the room.
“No!, congratulations Rob,” I said.
“Yea, Rob,” Leong echoed nonchalantly.
“We’re so proud of Rob.” Kim continues.
“But, you know,” I said seriously, “there are Rob haters out there. I understand it - he’s hateable,” I expand.
“ek,” Kim blurted, like a little bird, at Leong’s reaction as Leong gasps, “What.. Why?”
“Because he dresses ugly!” I explained.
Kim, unable to curb her excitement, squeaks out loud.
Leong looked at Kim, shocked, Kim was looking down and rocking with the effort of silence.
“That’s not enough REASON,” Leong blurts, “to hate someone!
Again, Leong looked to Kim for agreement and got none.
“I don’t hate YOU,” Leong says, turning on me.

There’s a moment of shocked silence.

“WOW.. wow,” I say, as Kim nervously snickered with glee.
“First of all,” I begin, between my own chuckles, a defense:
“I’m wearing a very **** black ensemble but not exactly dressed to go OUT, (Kim laugh-coughed) and SECOND,” I pause for drama-queen effect.
“YOU,” I say, turning my head significantly and accusingly, towards Leong, slightly askew for a better view, “seem to have quite a few hickies on your neck this morning.”
Kim can't stand it any more and squeals, full out, with delight.
“You, need,” Leong said, pausing just before she lunges at me playfully, to put her hand over my mouth, “to cut off THAT line,”
“I knew it.. I KNEW it!” I say, bobbing and turning my head away as Leong pins me with her body while still trying to mug me and we’re all howling with laughter now.
“Those are Rob Chen hickies! - I. KNEW. IT.”

The facetime ring interrupts us and Leong reluctantly lets me go to answer it.
We all sober as she moves to press “Accept.”
“Let me just loop-back to say,” I looked at Kim with elementary-dear-Watson satisfaction, and said to Leong, “you didn’t deny it,”
Leong blushes crimson as the call begins.

We’re in the common room, Lisa and I. It’s Friday afternoon, about 2 - It’s partly-sunny and 45°f. outside. We’ve claimed the two squares of temporary rectangular sunlight like the Spanish conquistadors of old once claimed everything.

I’m just drowsing, I had a test this morning, I got up at 3:30am to study for it and although I’m confident I did ok, I find myself rehashing it when I close my eyes. So I’m determinedly not closing my eyes - much. Lisa has a book open and she’s working on a chemistry problem set (called a pset) assigned as homework.

Looking out and up, there’s only one, lonely, cumulonimbus cloud in the sky. It's there, as if placed - a piece of art - the rest of the sky remaining defiantly blank. At first glance, it resembled a man, hanging by his neck, blowing in the wind under a giant mushroom gallows - but he soon detached and floated away like a tattered kite.

Lisa starts asking a question, without looking up from her book. “Ok, so when hydrogen acts as a metal instead of a nonmetal..”

“Please don’t make me think,” I whisper in a tired monotone, “I’m unprepared.”

“Ugh.” Lisa, grunted. She absorbed her disappointment quietly, without taking offense.

We’re like two disparate species coexisting in the same landscape: the chemistry-tested and the soon-to-be-tested - neither diminished the other but we’re separate.

Leong and Anna come in together, breaking off to their rooms to shed bookbags and coats but soon they’re filling the room with restless energy. “Has anyone heard from Sophy?” Leong asks.

Sophy failed a rapid test yesterday morning and was hewn from the population like a cancer on the student body - and swooped off to isolation housing. “Yeah, I took her some stuff this morning,” I report, “She seems ok.”

People are dropping to covid like flies. None of us are invincible, we roommates watch each other - as if any one of us could go full-on-zombie at any moment - not unlike I imagine dinner at the Trumps these days - everyone looking around, nonchalantly, wondering who’ll flip first - but here, if you cough, you’ll start a panic.

The sun seemed to rise slowly, almost hesitantly, this morning - a yellow syrup pouring into a deep, dark blue sky. The air is hot and thick, like a low viscosity liquid. We’re going out on the boat this morning and when you have 9 passengers and crew, everyone’s toting something.

Kim and Bili have towels and a shoulder bag of sunscreen lotions and repellents, Charles has a cooler with everything needed to make breakfast omelets on the grill (the eggs have been pre-beaten, the veggies pre-chopped, the cheese grated, the meat diced).

Anna and Lisa are toting a cooler of sodas buried in ice. Leong has the “dry box” with phones, Nintendo switches, kindle readers and iPads. Leong’s rolling a luggage rack of textbooks, Sunny has a large coffee thermos, and Sophy has a bag with dry clothes for everyone.

The girls are practically running over each other in their eagerness to be last onboard because the first two get to towel the night’s condensation off everything.

I carried the lunch cooler full of Chick-fil-a sandwiches, but my main job is to check the indicators and disconnect the dockside water, drainage and electrical feeds as Charles takes the helm and begins his “preflight” before he fires up the Mercury 500-hp engines. I know we’re a “go” when he turns on the underwater lights - that’s my signal to cast off.

The engines roar to life and then purr as we slowly pull away from the dock, we girls greasing ourselves up with sunblock. The air conditioning begins to help but picking up speed is what finally breaks the hold of the oppressive heat.

As we exit the marina Charles opens-up on the throttle and that’s always a thrill. We usually ski first, before the lake gets crowded, and lounge later.

Sunny, Leong and Anna like to sit in the bow, refreshed by occasional lake spray and the wind-whipped cool. Leong likes to sit in the cabin, like Charles’ copilot while the rest of us recline on lounges facing rearward to watch the skiers.

Our summer mornings have passed like this, launching around 6 am, skiing, then swimming, studying and getting off the lake before the noontime “heat advisories” and afternoon thunderstorms.

Later, I’m relaxing in the shade, having just gotten out of the lake, and I’m on my iPad.

“What are you writing?” Anna asks.

“Oh, I write poetry and stories - mostly stories these days but there is some occasional poetic recidivism.” I say.

“You write poetry?” She repeats, as if shocked, “I didn’t think there were any poets left.”

“Well,” I say, “Most poets died, in the early flames of science, trying to prove the pen was mightier than the sword, but there are still poets around - they live in cities where they’ll try and wash your windshield if you stop at a traffic light, and they’re frequently mistaken for the homeless - or they may actually be homeless.”

“Can I read some of your writing?” She asks, after waiting through my long joke.

“Absolutely NOT.” I answer.

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.

I’m at an (outdoor) dinner, with Peter, some of his doctoral-student friends, professors and their spouses, to kick-off the Fall semester and Peter’s second year in the doctoral program.

“So, what impressions did you take away from your time at the Large Hadron Collider?”
A 60-ish professor asked Peter. In this setting, as a student pursuing his doctorate, Peter’s comments will probably be noted and there’s a watching anticipation.

Peter is a tall, pale, scraggy, 25-year-old with unruly, deep-cove-blue, almost-black hair. Tonight, he’s dressed in a brown, distressed Italian lambskin leather blazer that I got him in Paris, as a fall semester present and his usual, dark, neutral shades of brown. To break those sleepy colors up I also gave him a soft-caramel-brown tie, inlaid with tiny, yellow, rubber ducks.  

“Two impressions, really,” Peter begins, “First, the Higgs Boson particle was discovered a decade ago - but since then we haven’t seen any notable results - the particles we expected, when we expected them. Of course, “no results” is an important part of the scientific process,” he continued, “and those researchers still deserve their doctorates, but it isn’t ****, and it won’t win any Nobel prizes.” He has the room’s attention.

“Secondly,” he says, looking around for reassuring eye-contact, “experimental particle physics is a very expensive business.” This observation generates nods, toasts and laughter all around.

When the reaction dies down, he gets another question.
“Why do you think we aren’t seeing better results?” another professor asks him.

“I think the problem,” Peter twists his head as he turns serious and begins his reply - and by the way, he looks adorable in the soft light of the dancing Japanese lanterns - “is the lag between the theories and our ability to experiment. It takes so long to build a collider, that theories out-evolve them. The apparatuses we have now - like the Hadron Collider - were designed based on theories from 30 years ago.” Again, there are nods and thoughtful looks before the professors move their questioning to the next student.

Later, we’re in the common room of my dorm suite, huddled together, talking hushedly on an overstuffed loveseat while others watch TV or read. “OH!” I say, still in a whisper voice, like I’ve just remembered something interesting, “You know what I heard - about the doctoral physics program?”

“What?” Peter says, I have his unblinking attention now. After all, I was talking with professors and their wives and shards of information are precious, not unlike atom particles, so he’s openly curious, his head tilted in focus.

“I was told, I say slowly and earnestly, “by a reliable source,” I begin playing with one of his shirt buttons, “that doctoral students,” I pause for maximum effect, to indicate this is important, “have equipment that’s 25 to 30 years OLD - outDATED equipment..”

He’s on to me now, and he starts to lean into me and grin. “that might not be able to get the JOB done!” I finished, busting out laughing as he caught my underarms with tickle fingers. I shrieked with delight at my own joke and his reaction.

“We’ll SEE about THAT!” He says while playing my ribs like accordions, producing newer and louder squeals and mutual giggles.

“Hey!” Anna said, turning as she paused her “Better Call Saul” finale.
“Get a ROOM!” Leong suggested, sarcastically, in mid-popcorn scoop.
Lisa eyed us annoyedly over her Chemistry book.
Sophy rolled her eyes, smiling and blood-thirsty Sunny barked “Get ‘er!”

The night was rainy, hot and humid. It was the kind of night that populates steamy, black and white, noir movies where someone is murdered. The stars seemed reduced to sloshing behind moldy gray clouds, as damp and listless as seaweed in the surf.

“Let’s go see a movie,” Sophy suggested, as she brought up the Fandango website on the 70” smart TV. This quickly drew a brouhaha of excited interest.

“Ooo!, Bullet Train,” Anna said. “Elvis!” Lisa gushed.
“Where the Crawdads sing!” Sunny gasped.
“Super pets!” Leong declared, pointing - producing groans all around - THAT was a no-go.
“Maverick!” I said. “I could do that,” Sunny agreed, “he’s crazy but I’m a Cruise fan.” she added.

In the end we decided to do a movie marathon with “Maverick” that night and “Elvis”, “Bullet Train” and “Where the Crawdads sing,” on Sunday.

As we ordered our treats at the theater concession stand, a tall, skinny, spotted, teenage boy attempted to flirt with Lisa. He smiled at her as confidently as a lizard, but sagged, like a shirt whose coat hanger was removed, when she pointedly ignored him.

Yale student radio (wybcx) is playing throughout the suite. I’m working on chemistry problems but when a song I don’t know is good enough to catch my attention, I add it to one of my gazillion Spotify playlists - God, I love the Internet.

One of our roommates, Sophy, is from California. She’s brilliant and friendly but almost never leaves her room, which she keeps hot and airless. If I’m in there for more than two minutes I have to start peeling off layers of clothing, one by one. She didn’t seem this odd last semester. We take turns, mediating between Sophy and the living, picking up her meals and packages, like vampire assistants.

Then there’s a nice but nerdy guy named Andy, who Anna’s adopted. He’s sitting on our deep, red, four cushion corduroy couch, crafting an essay on his laptop. He’s a divinity student who I rely on to answer my deeper religious questions.

“Do you think Jesus went around telling people his mother is a ******?,” I’d asked.
“Jesus had brothers,” he answered, “Have you ever read the bible?” He asks.
“My bible is Seventeen magazine.” I say, hand to heart.

“Listen to this!” Andy says - a peremptory order to the room - as he begins reading from his paper. “Disruptivist writers who no longer strive for agency, circumventing narrative in order to resemble the fiction construct, risk losing what Robbe-Grillet called the “intelligibility of the world” and themselves illustrate the exhaustion of forms.” Andy paused. “What do you think?” He asked the room.

No-one says anything. No-one ever understands what Andy’s talking about.

Anna and Sunny are studying and sunbathing in the common room like they’re on some kind of permanent holiday. They occupy two generous rectangles of sunlight streaming in through the closed picture windows.

They’re laying on yoga mats, almost shoulder to shoulder, wearing bikinis and Wayfarer Ray-Bans. It’s 12° degrees outside but there’s an oil heater with a fan blowing across it that provides them with a sun-like warmth.

Welcome to higher learning 2022

It was Friday afternoon and we’re discussing weekend plans. “You know,” Anna said, introspectively, “we were different people last year. We (Sunny and Anna) went out both nights, Friday and Saturday - for weeks. We got a taste for it, we were absolutely feral.
“True,“ Sunny admitted, “but we were high school nerds, we had to go a little crazy.”
“I can’t imagine going to the frats this year.” Anna said, with a quiver of revulsion. “Not that we’re living the nun-life, exactly.”
“Not exactly,” Sunny confirmed with a chuckle.

In fact, it’s been very quiet in our dorm suite recently. We’ve been ASMR-ing 24x7 and I have to say I like it - there really is something pinequal about it. We’ll be on campus somewhere together talking very softly with our heads pressed together - we get looks - but we’re not the only ones - it’s a trend.

Another trending is “That’s why I’m the way I am” where you have to tell an off-beat story about your pre-college self - ending with “That’s why I’m the way I am.” All in whispers, of course.
We’re all sitting on floor pillows around a large, low rectangular coffee table where we usually study.

Leong, whispers, barely audibly, as we all lean-in and strain to hear. “One time, when I was playing softball in high school (this was in Macau, China), I got benched and I started planking on the bench in protest and somehow, the other girls thought it was hilarious and it started a trend at my school, of planking if you got benched or something and the school administration thought that attitude seditious and threatened to stop the playing of softball altogether if players didn’t behave. That’s why I’m the way I am”

I take up the game with “I had this evil French teacher in high school, Mrs. Chew. She hated me because she knew I didn’t have to try very hard in her class to get an “A”.
One morning, Mrs. Chew was being a real *****, and she asked whether I was dyslexic.”
“Well,” I answered, innocently, “I got into Yale.” (With an implied air of - “f*ck off”)
“That’ll be a lunch detention,” she said, one-upping me, it was unfortunate and tragic. That’s why I’m the way I am”

“I started this whole kerfuffle yesterday,” Sophy said, out of the blue, “by saying “THE” Ukraine.” “GOI,” I snapped, “THE United States!!” And I think I crushed THEM.
“Have you been spending time at the med school?” Lisa asked, “Did they give you something?”
“If so, share,” Anna laughed.

Leong gasped, “Did you guys hear that car last night, cruising back and forth by the dorm dubbing? The fricking stereo was bassquake - I was ready to **** by the time they drove away.” “Yeah,” we all groaned.
“Let's hope THAT doesn’t trend,” Leong added.

The other day Lisa, Anna and I overheard a nonversation that took me back in time to high school. We were at Ascot for day three (ladies' day), to see the fashion, the silly hats, the horse races (called stakes & cups) and maybe even gawk at some famous people.

Anna, Lisa and I were sitting at our table in the Windsor Enclosure - a flat area right by the racetrack. The other five girls in our clique (Leong, Sunny, Kim, Bili, and Sophy) had stepped away to be ready for the royals arrival at 2pm sharp.  

Everyone was well dressed, men in waistcoat and tie, and we women in formal daywear. The table closest to us was populated with another squad of college age teens. We tend to be garrulous but that other mixed coterie (16 guys and girls) weren’t friendly at all. They were insular and sharp eyed - they projected an air of smirking pride - a bunch of edinas.

Suddenly this one girl at the next table just comes-at another girl verbally. There seemed nothing the target girl could do except hold her head up, put on her best debate-smile and weather it out.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been exposed to it, but the exclusionary voice of the rich, consists of acrid, inactively-terse asides delivered with casual, drive-by cruelty. The most insufferable rich think (know) that they’re better than you - like you know you’re better than a cabbage or a dog and they are merciless, their hearts are made of hard, black-card plastic.

When used on pretenders, interlopers or social mountain climbers - the cold and mesmerizing bluntness can have a deep psychological effect. The response is usually passive intimidation but it can also induce violence.

This attitude (I think of it as “the voice”), is learned by example, and mastered early. I heard an eight year old girl turn it on a sales clerk once. Her mom apologized and reined in the little princess - but where do you think she learned it from?  

Anna looked at me, her eyebrows drawn down in alarm, Lisa said “Wowzer.” I just shook my head and shrugged - it wasn’t our business, we certainly didn’t know those knobs or what kicked it off - but we noted who the mean girl was - Anna even took her pic. They were Cree-P.

Our little group was soon reunited. We briefly gossiped about our rude, socially-obsessed neighbors but the incident was soon forgotten. Our champagne and strawberries arrived moments before Princess Anne and her daughter, Zara Tindall, rode by (20 feet away) in the Lead Carriage.

Now THERE are some REAL, world-class snobs. I hate that whole-*** upper-class attitude. That’s one reason to choose Yale over Harvard - fewer snobs.

I have a slight fear, in relating these vignettes, that musically we're too basic. I doubt anyone could say we don’t know new music, after all, we listen to WYBCx, which plays unusual tracks but we just share this silly place that fits us. So go ahead, judge us. No, I mean it’s fine, so fine.

In my suite we liaison with Cinderella Sundays, once a month, where we ALL clean our suite. We put on rediscovered disco classics - like Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” Dana Summer’s “On the Radio,” and the Bee Gees “How deep is your love,” bumping these songs as we sano things. As part of this effort, we usually order some wings.

When we get deliveries we have to pick them up at the front gate. I was wearing this short, cropped shirt, shorts and no bra and as I headed for the door, Leong said, “No! You can go outside like THAT! So I grabbed a cover shirt and absentmindedly put my Airpods in one of the pockets. I always do my laundry on Sunday - ALWAYS - if I don’t it’s because of something tragic like nuclear war.

That’s how I destroyed my second set of Airpods in less than a month. They drowned in the wash. I’ll miss them. They were dear to me and served me well. We buried them in a flower *** as part of a martini fueled funeral service. I decided to name my new ones “Miley” because I’ve been listening to her “Jolene” backyard session endlessly.

My suitemates and I decided to do this friendship exercise where we exchange playlists of songs that remind us of that person. All 8 of us chose a song that reminded us of Lisa, for instance, and she got that playlist.

The song Lisa picked for me was “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton. I couldn’t discern why, so I asked her. She explained: We all go to this local NailPro to get our nails done (although It’s not the greatest place and there’s always a wait - it services) and I like Acrylic nails. She says that when I’m reading, with my headphones on, I unconsciously rub my nails together, making a little washboard sound with my nails similar to what Dolly used at the start of the song.

The song I picked for Lisa was “Way too ****” by Drake - that future and young ****. She had it on a loop last fall. If we were studying or deep talking Lisa would say, “You know what would make this moment better?” And, she’d call it up. That song is pure Lisa.

Anna plays guitar and sings sometimes (she’s really good) and one song I particularly liked her version of - which I didn’t know the name of for the longest time - I’d say, “play the night song,” is “Because the Night” by Pati Smith. So I gave her that.

Sophy got Zendaya’s “Dynamite,” because she IS and Leong got “Year of love” by Jenny Hval - because, well, that’s what it’s been for us.

One lowkey pastime of our little group was re-watching “The crown” and we were ignited by a scene where Lady Di is roller skating to a song called “Girls on Film” by Duran Duran. If you spend much time in our suite you’ll hear that song and how everyone dances it out.

Peace y'all.

African poem:
.................................
I feel African in every vein
The land supersede with love
This country is so dear to me.
........
I feel African in every breath
The obstacles the world plant
None I see, but the jocund Africa.
.........
To all African, there and here
Join me to hold the peace and unity of Africa together
No legs should go without walking ...
.........
Scholar of Africa come join hand
This country you owe a lot
Build up yourself to build peace of Africa!!
..........
Old Africa where are your intelligence?
New Africa where are your wisdom?
Future Africa what is your hope?
My heart duty  calls
You deserved to be loved 'AFRICA '
As I feel African in every vein! ☝️

Mr-Sophy
Reverent bard