Lisa and I had been watching some boys strut about, as they played soccer, in their little shorts, in the freezing cold. It’s an old animal story.

The game ended, or it was intermission and about twenty guys came streaming into the cafeteria, their cleats sounding like a hundred keyboards clacking all at once.

They were laughing, joking and pushing each other around with rowdy, coiled, unexpended kinetic energy. They were scoping-out the area too, almost subconsciously, like their bronze man ancestors surveying the grassy savannas for threat.

As they strolled in, Lisa and I exchanged looks. Eye-contact can be its own form of complicated language. “Welcome to the monkey-house” we thought, rolling our eyes.

I recognized one of the guys, from a shared chemistry class. He’s tall, slim and lanky, with chin length blonde hair tucked behind his ears and a bit of ****** stubble. Ethan, Adam? I couldn’t remember.

“One’s coming over,” Lisa said, turning a little away and sipping her coffee.
“Morning!” he said, with his winning smile. “What'd you think of that test?” He said, putting one hand in his pocket like a model and making the most disarming eye contact.
“Hard,” I said, with a shrug, Lisa was giving him an appraising look from behind her blonde curtain of hair.
“Aww, come on,” he said, with an aw-shucks grin that looked like something from a Brad Pitt movie. When was the last time I saw Peter - my hypothalamus seemed to ask me with an electric tingle.

There’s something rickety and flexible about resolutions, they melt, like ice cream in the right heat - like the warmth of a look, or the thermal rush of a provocative thought. Impure thoughts are like excited molecules, they bubble, and mine were suddenly on the edge of boiling. I hadn’t expected it, I didn’t trust it, but I liked it. I reached out for my coffee and looked down as I felt myself blush.

Our conversation had lasted long enough to draw the curious attention of a couple of the other guys who came to jostle and crowd Ethan-Adam’s game. “Woah!” one of them said, looking at Lisa. “When you walk in a building, do the sprinklers go off?” The other newbie laughed. Lisa waved the complement away, unsmiling, like an annoying and meaningless buzz.

“All right, all right,” Ethan-Adam said, with a grimacing grin, turning and corralling the other two guys away from the table with outstretched arms. “See ya,” he said, looking back over his shoulder with a “sorry about that,” nod.

“Who was THAT?” Lisa asked, almost admiringly.
“I’m not sure,” I said, trying to remember the rollcall, “Ethan.. Adam.. one of those.”

He puts it out there, the Schrödinger’s cat of invitations.

Now, I’m irritated. “I TOLD you I don’t have time for.. involvement.”

“But you have to eat - so eat with ME,” he shrugs. “You can build a friendship with someone and still have freedom.” His observation was casual, as though it were unrelated to anything between us. He seemed to have the intuition that I’d balk if pressed.

“You’re subversive.” I said. “Why me? There are prettier girls, more agreeable, fun girls. I feel like I’m on the edge here,” I look around to indicate the room, the environment, the university. “And I can be a complete as-hole.”

He looked a little offended, “You’re interesting, I like what I know about you and, yeah, we can all be as-holes - we’re in a pool of “A” types, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“What do you KNOW about me?” I ask.

“I’ve read some of your writings,” he looked thoughtful, “I may know a little about how you think, It’s unusual.. interesting.”

I’m shocked and I squirm, “You looked me up?”

“I looked you up.” he nodded, “to be sure you’re not an axe murderer.”

“How much did you read?” I asked, wheedling, my inner-writer engaging.

“Tell you at dinner - YOU name the date and time,” he smiled.

“My idea of “dinner” is walking to a dining hall, picking up a bag of food, bringing it back here and taking ten minutes to eat it between chapters,” I warned.

“I have a meal card,” he says, jiggling his student lanyard.

“We’ll see.” I said. “Have you talked to anyone else about my writing?”

“No,” he answered, “Why?”

“Please don’t, I have to think about it.” I say. As far as I know, no one I know in RL has read me - it’s an odd feeling - like maybe he got ahold of my diary. I haven’t worried over the fact that someone I’m in physical proximity to could look me up. That all this stuff is actually out there.

“Don’t think my misgivings can be cajoled away,” I say, “no more talking.”

He chucked but we got back to studying.

I had a seventh grader tell me, when I was in 5th grade, that things go downhill after 5th grade - that life doesn’t get better, it just gets more complicated. I’ve had years to mull that over and I have to say that in some ways his testimony was on beat.

As we start the second half of sophomore fall semester, I think I’ve reached stability and I’m accustomed to this year’s schedule and workload. I haven’t surveyed whether I’m faster or slower in this (see below), but now I know all the tricks - where to eat, which paths to take and what to carry. I have a firm rhythm that’s consistent and insistent.
“I’m finally on my schedule.” I commented to Sunny yesterday morning as we collided in our dash to get our shoes on.
She looked at me in confusion “You know we’re on week 8 out of 15, Ya?”
I was shocked, “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” I admitted as we stepped out.

It’s midnight and we’re going (Peter, Lisa, Sophie and I) to “My ****” tonight (the dorm basement snack-bar). I took two seconds to splash my face with water and twist-back my hair. “How do I look?” I asked Peter.
“You’re attractive.. enough,” he said, “..I mean you fall within a bell curve.”
“You're almost 40,” I say, in the face of his non-complement.
“I’m 26,” Peter said, “You know it, and I have proof. You DO have some good points though,” he granted, while trying to drape his great, hairy, gorilla-like arm on me, “there’s your sparkling conversation and nice underwear.”
“I donated those to goodwill,” I lied, while giving him a half-gentle stiff-arm.
“You remind me of my parents,” Sophie says.

The tea (the best tea is scandalous). Lisa’s friend Baker dashed back to her room between classes yesterday. She’d forgotten the big paper she had to turn-in. It was a mad dash and passing a roommate’s open door, she realized that the girl was lowkey *******. Lisa, delighted to be an interlocutor in the matter, due to Baker’s overplus embarrassment, Lisa's trying to suggest next steps in a post-shock protocol.

you can’t smile, they won’t take you seriously

When left alone at night
I look for the pinpoint lights
of the stars that appear
when clouds aren’t there.

There’s a waning gibbous moon
shyly peaking from the shadows,
with one of its symmetrical sides,
what’s the moon got to hide?

whispering privately
I’ve heard the moon has a darkside,
that it’s coin-like and openly two-faced.
That’s no idle gossip, it's scientifically based.

India just landed on the moons bottom
I wonder what, exactly, that got ‘em.
It’s funny because the moon is ****,
making the landing sound rather rude.

“India is groping the **** moon’s bottom.”
See what I mean? It all sounds rather pervish
and obscene - not at all the usual routine -
it has the ring of something politically incorrect,
but that’s progress, I guess, undressed or dressed.

My boyfriend (Peter) and I went down to New Haven Harbor today.

Let’s face it, we’re surrounded by oceans,
and most of them are downright inhospitable.

I live near the ocean, (pointing) it’s right over there.
I love the ocean, tripping over whenever I’ve time to spare.

The way I’m fawning over it, you’d think I know it well.
But I really only love its edges and undulating swells.

It’s like a book that I’ve judged by its cover,
a beautiful stranger taken as a lover,
or a pie when I’ve only tasted the crust.
I love something, I suppose, I’ve barely even touched.

Peter says that black, inky “outer-space” is a low-viscosity liquid,
another, even vaster ocean that’s more dangerous and rarely visited.

The air that we breathe is an ocean - our own, vast, atmosphere -
in it swim creatures too small to see, but to the naked eye it looks clear.
It flows, eddies and swells - birds swoop in it so you can tell.

Of course, the ocean has issues - it's hardly news - corrosion, erosion, sharks and drowning - and the way the ocean lets the moon and air push it around.

What I love most is its motion, and how it reflects the sun and the moon.
Did I mention that hanging-out by the ocean makes for a pleasant afternoon?

Oh, shrill lark, just breathe. You rage too well.
Seek no comfort in wretchedness.

Renounce the gossamer moon, curse starlight
with a breathless voice - if you must - but let love be.

As the saddest tale fades after telling,
undistinguishable kisses fade like dewdrops.

Seasons alter, you will love again and love better
laughing unabashed, at the memory of this gentle injury.

Hold the phone, hold the freakin’ phone. Lisa’s got a boyfriend!
I’ve never seen Lisa with a boyfriend. Lisa draws men like fireworks on a dark night but I’ve never seen her keep one. I mean, it’s not unbelievable but it’s on the edge.

Then, one Friday evening, he came to visit. His name’s David - “call me Dave,” he said, meeting eyes and offering micro-expression smiles as he nodded around the room. Knowing he was coming, our suite’s common room was full, as if everyone came to see Lisa do a dangerous magic trick.

Dave’s got a young, Michael Keaton vibe going (the original movie batman), with a cocky, easygoing confidence and comedic snark that suggests he has everything under control. He’s 26 years old, about 5’11’ (a little shorter than 5’9” Lisa in heels - but he doesn’t seem to notice or mind), with brown eyes and unruly brown hair.

With some cagy sleuthing (I asked) it turns out he met her at her father’s (company's) Christmas party last year! I was there - and they’ve been secretly communicating for ten months!! How did I miss that? My situational awareness is obviously porous, and unreliable - was the room spinning?

You know, I hadn’t really focused on it before, but one of Lisa’s flaws is that her feelings and opinions don’t always show up in her expressions - it’s very annoying.

I’ve always been interested - umm, obsessed - with fashion. If I weren’t going into medicine, I’d have majored in fashion (called ‘Interdisciplinary Studies’ at Yale). Anyway, Dave’s been “dropping in” for the last few weeks - every Friday afternoon - arriving from Manhattan in his (my guess ~$6,500) business attire. What does Dave’s fashion sense tell us?

His business suits (charcoal-gray or olive-green) are Brioni, his dress white shirts are Thomas Pink, his ties Hermès and his shoes are Santoni. He’s slim and well tailored. I give him 5 stars.

If his work attire is lux, his casual attire speaks volumes as well. His weekend wear is a white dress shirt, open at the collar and jeans - both crisp and starched to hell and back. The long, stiff, white shirt sleeves are never rolled up. The jeans - deep blue and new - have a razor sharp crease down the front and his shoes are burgundy, Timberline, boat shoes with no socks. That outfit screams (Texas) oil money.

“What is it you DO?” I asked him, that first night, as Lisa was off getting ready to go out.
“I’m a “M & A weasel,” he said, shrugging nonchalantly. (that’s Mergers and Acquisitions, if you don’t know - with one of the Morgans - JPMorgan or Morgan Stanley - I can’t remember which).
He’s one of those reviled, monied, ‘Wall Street’ guys. Yep, he‘s in control of everything.

“Tell me about you.” he said, giving me a serious, intense look that held immediate charm. He seemed relaxed, his suit coat off, his white dress shirt glowing in the suite’s soft lighting.
“I’ve got the highest GPA in Yale’s pre-med program,” I informed him, adding, “..in my opinion.”
He chuckled (which, of course, made me like him more).

You know, life in an education bubble can get tedious. Sure, it fills our days from edge to edge and satisfies our basic needs but it can be stifling - a faraday cage filtering life into carefully measured doses. Come Friday nights, we’re ready to hit it.

One thing I like about Dave is that he wants to be one of us and he’s never tried to peel Lisa away for himself - I think that shows an ease and generosity of spirit. Did I mention that Dave’s a Yale alum? He KNOWS New Haven.

The first night we all went out, it was the whole clan - my roommates, the girls in our sister suite, Dave and Andy (a friend of Sunny). We went to an expensive harbor restaurant to get to know Dave and seafood-martini celebrate. We had an epic time. Dave fit in like family.

I’m kind of used to paying for off campus stuff because some of these girls are tight and I’ve got a bag, but when the waiter brought the check, Dave and I found ourselves both reaching for it.
“May I?” He asked, with his Keaton-like smirk. “This time,” I said, with my own shrugging smile.

Later, back at our suite, Dave’s heading back to his hotel (less than a mile away) and slowly, quietly, saying goodnight to Lisa by the front door. “You’ve got some awfully long legs,” he said, like a 1940s black & white movie gumshoe. Taking her gently by the back of the neck and waist and twisting her tall, thin frame in a dancer’s backbend dip where she hung, suspended in his arms.

“I’d like to shimmy up one of those legs like a native boy looking for coconuts.” She chuckled.
Leong and I, sitting on our red corduroy couch, exchanged eye-rolls and smiles - he’s a romantic goof, but somehow, he carries it all off - right down to the kiss.

If you prophecy the end of kings you are wrong.
Write no epitaphs, dig no graves, taste no grief.

The new czar, a rough and worldly killer firmly fixed
this very day stirs the cauldron of war to reset empire

Still, foxly friends of tyranny, who stab at weak democracy
praise the czar's autocracy, and mock free speech with treachery.

As modern judases, riding limitless swells of fortune, tease simple mobs
our old republic stagers and fades, mortally wounded by hypocrisy.

Perhaps, someday, freedom’s autopsy will show what transpired,
but if you prophecy the end of kings you are wrong.

Our coffeemaker died this morning - it wouldn’t **** all the water out of the reservoir - c'est tragique. We love our coffee and apparently, we brewed the life out of it. It sat, oddly neglected, in its usually busy spot beneath hanging copper pans. Adieu, faithful friend, you gave your life to a good cause. We’re reduced to using a freeze-dried brew.

Lisa grew up in New York highrises, and she was agog in our garden. “It’s like Versailles!” she whispered, when we first arrived and did the tour - flattering but hardly. It’s a six acre, French, Color Garden. An acre is like a football field without the end zones - so maybe you can picture the size of it as it wraps around the front of the house.

The lawn slopes off gently to circular beds and right-angled parterres. Two staircases lead to a fountain that feeds a rectangular reflecting pool full of lily-pads and lazy goldfish. Lisa and Leong spent hours this summer reading in the only cool spot, a shaded, wisteria-covered pergola, but gardens are best in fall and spring - when in bloom. I’m sorry they didn’t get to see the explosive flowerings - maybe we can come back, someday, for Easter vacation.

We’re leaving for New Haven at the end of the week so I’m slow organizing for academic life. I have 21 new notebooks (three per class or lab) and 60 various, carefully coutured, colored markers and gel-pens. I tried taking notes on my iPad last year but I found I remembered things better when I took colorful notes by hand, highlighting ideas, and pinning them down in my notebooks, like butterflies.

We hung out with a lot of rising college freshman girls this summer and across the board, it’s been fun. Their questions were super random, but super aware - their interests make our bumbling, freshie experiences seem buzzy. I remember being so ground-down the carceral, COVID lockdown of my 10th and 11th-grade years that college freedoms seemed like space travel. I’m excited for these girls.

Peter and I are squeezing in a morning Facetime call. He looked a little tousled and undone, sporting a black, almost blue, bedhead mess of morning hair. With his sleepy, brown eyes and five o’clock shadow, he looked like he just fell out of bed after hours of.. ahem. My usual, unfocused feelings seemed to find a compelling point.

I smiled and sipped my coffee, “What?” he said, self-consciously, upon catching my expression.

“I just can’t wait to see you in person.” I demurred, choosing to focus on this morning’s awful, instant coffee. I tend to chatter when I’m excited by something, but maybe I’m learning the power of silence.

We’re in a “new” trendy neighborhood called Cascade Heights, in Atlanta. It’s lush - hydrangea, musk rose, hoya and blue false indigo are in bloom and there are greens of every possible variation. The sky is clear and southern-sun bright - shadows are crisp.

It’s going to be 91°(f) today and although it’s only noon, the heat is rising.

Leong pointed out the black tubes that discreetly provide air-conditioning, carefully hidden in the shrubbery surrounding the shaded, outdoor dining area. She thought that was very clever and American. “They’re for survival,” I assure her, “it gets hotter and hotter over the summer.”

Leong and I are finishing lunch, savoring a decadent chocolate chai-tiramisu dessert.
“Oh, my God,” Leong said, sliding the chocolaty spoon over her tongue, “oomm.”
“So good,” I said, moaning with pleasure and closing my eyes.

The waiter comes over with an iPad, I wave my watch, like a magician’s wand and we’re free to go.

We were going to relax a minute and finish the last of our cold chai-tea, but as the waiter left with our cleared dishes, a rando, wino-looking, elderly man came up to the bushes by our table and said to me, “You look sad.”

First of all, I think: NO - and who ARE you? Thinking secondly, ***, go away.

I didn’t know what to say - but he put the kibosh to lingering. I started having an “eye-contact-only” conversation with Leong. Are we about done here - do you have your phone and purse - shall we go?

Leong and I stand, in unison, pushing our chairs back with our legs, gathering our shopping bags and belongings in fluid motions long-perfected at mall food-courts.

“We have to go,” I say, with a half-smile and goodbye nod to the man, “have a nice day.”

He watches us go for a moment and we surreptitiously watch him watch us go. Charles, our escort, who was at another table, fell in, a short distance behind us.

Maybe the guy was just being friendly but you can’t underestimate CrAzY in 2022

In a breeze of timid whispers
and with wary downcast eyes
the secret world was opened
to where true depth of feeling lies.

With each step, stories were told
and a tapestry of intimacy unfolded.
to dare or not to dare
to care or not to care.
In the dog-days of romance,
those are the calls
that lovebirds must answer.

Lisa and I were watching one of our favorite series last night, a Japanese manga called “The Way of the Househusband” and I could barely keep my eyes open. I went to bed at a decent hour (11:30) but when I got in bed, I couldn’t sleep, I just laid there. It was rude and caused me to oversleep.

I don’t mean to brag, but I can go from oversleeping, to bushed and showered in less than 15 minutes, I’m really a marvel of efficiency (with still wet hair), especially since we wear scrubs.
I grabbed my iPad, stuffed it in my rucksack, and hey, I was ready to go.

In the living room, it took me a moment to situate myself - it was a very noisy and disorienting environment - what with Lisa yelling at me for running late, but soon we were off.

Just a girl, her lemon ginger Kombucha, and her angry roommate, ready to face the world.

We stepped out into the morning and.. Ughh! I’d forgotten my AirPods. I double checked, not there.
Lisa gives me a threatening look. “PLEASE,” I begged, desperately, “MY AIRPODS!”
“OH, my GOD!” Lisa said, glancing, irritatedly at the Apple Watch I gave her for her birthday.

I ran up the stairs and was back in NO time, really, really ready to go.
Just a girl, her Kombucha, AirPods and angrier roommate, ready to face the world.

My sister’s apartment is about 7 walking minutes from the hospital. As we were walking, I had my AirPods in and was rolling with Kanye. I in NO way endorse his CrAzY. But If I start the day out, with “Through the Wire” and “Jesus walks,” I’m tweaked for whatever gamut Rebecca (my surgeon) has in store for me. I paused the slaps, momentarily, as we passed a herd of boys, but I was bouncing again in a blink.

Lisa and I are in the second week of our two-month, summer fellowships - shadowing surgeons (different surgeons) for “clinical experience.” The first thing I do every workday morning is bring Rebecca a large coffee (from the cafeteria). She comes in at 5:30am every morning of the week and leaves God-knows-when - certainly, well after we do at 4:30pm.

She spends the three hours before I come in, reviewing patient notes and surgical plans. I gently rapped on her open door. She doesn’t look up, but she knows it’s me.
“Good morning,” I whisper, Rebecca’s seated at her desk, working on her laptop. I set the coffee on her right side and after I remove the pre-existing empty cups, I hesitate.

“What’s up,” she says, leaning into her screen to check something as she keys to enlarge it.
“I have a small question,” I say, “Are we supposed to be filling out timecards?” She doesn’t say anything, continuing to examine the - whatever. After a few seconds, I added:
“Quinn said we have to fill out timecards.”

“Did he?” Rebacca asked, rhetorically, after a bit. She’d stopped studying the screen and gotten a faraway look. Then, after another moment, she said, “Well, bless his heart,” which made me chuckle, because we’re both southern girls and that’s shorthand for “f**k him.”

“Thank you.” she says (for the coffee). I’d been dismissed.
We have rounds in twenty minutes.

My roommates Leong, Sophie, (Charles) and I were coming from a Yale sporting event. The sky looked like a ***** Swiffer-mop and the wind seemed to be ignoring the posted 20mph speed limit. It was a typical spring day in New Haven, overcast, 65°, with intermittent, drizzling rain. I was thinking it was a good day to be a duck.

We were looking for something to gnaw on and a beverage - of the alcoholic variety. We picked up some Mike’s hard cider (featured in our refrigerator now), which proves college students really do plan for the future.

It was about 4pm and the streets were puddled, slick-looking and empty. The lone passing car sounded like it was riding on a sponge. I was wearing a navy blue, short sleeve Polo dress, a matching Polo bucket hat (for the rain) and a slub knit hoodie that I ‘borrowed’ from Sunny forEVER (seriously, I ordered her a replacement from Amazon) and Roxy boat shoes.

On a side street, a “party-bike” sat parked, sad and abandoned in the rain. A party-bike is a tram fitted up as a bar that slowly drives noisy drunks around. The drunks sit around a “U” shaped bar, on small, backless stools welded onto the tram. Yes, an open-air bar on wheels. I can’t help thinking that a lawyer came up with the idea, because what could go wrong?

The first time I saw a “sightseeing” party-bike was on Beale Street, in Memphis Tennessee. Memphis is the Disneyland of barbeque and the blues. Every storefront for blocks is an open air blues bar, a barbeque place or souvenir shop (or all three at once). Party-bikes make sense there, because intoxication is like oxygen in Memphis. It's a party-bikes native environment. In New Haven, they seem cheap, excessive and opportunistic.

As we were walking, in the distance, we heard the wail of a saxophone and a beat so clear, that the sound seemed to linger and shimmer in the air, like a cartoon neon ‘Jazz’ sign. We instantly turned that way and discovered it was coming from a place called “Three Sheets” which was having open-mic tryouts for the house band.  

It’s a bar that serves food and there’s a ‘beer goddess’ painted on one wall. In Georgia, we’d call it a ‘fern bar.' We found a table in the darker back, out of the way, and settled in. A waitress quickly took our orders and brought us several IPA beers.

Near a platform stage, there were 6 or 8 musicians sitting around (with their instruments) waiting to take a turn forming a trio with the house drummer and bass who were laying down a constant beat. One would step in with a guitar and play for a hot minute, then a guy with the sax, another with a trumpet and yet another with a clarinet, it went on and on. They each had a solo, at some point, and it made me wonder why I don’t listen to more jazz.

Our afternoon of music was something Sophie had wished for. Earlier that morning, as we were leaving the residence, she’d said, “I wish there was a concert or something going on tonight - something musical,” and boom, we get this. Still, I don’t subscribe to the idea of holy intervention.

I hate it when I hear people say, “God never gives us more than we can handle.” I bristle, my head snaps in the direction of the speaker, I want to see who that dumb-*** is. My parents and sister are doctors, and believe me, people are dying every day in situations that are more than they can handle. Heart attacks, staph infections, gunshot wounds, covid, cancer - Uggg, sorry, I got off track and boiled-over there.

Anyway, we had some jazzy music and incredible Vietnamese pulled-pork sandwiches with fries and a smoky ketchup that I could have just drunk.
.
.
**I put (Charles) in brackets because, as our driver and escort, he’s usually there in the background when we’re not in the residence. But his presence is circumscribed, because he’s not there socially. Is it rude not to include him in every narrative? I don’t know - it's a habit.

I woke up very early this morning, restless and bothered, itchy for the day to happen. As dawn broke orange, the city was revealed. I’ll never get tired of watching that. The snow was gone but a gloss over the city streets indicated ice. I scanned the landscape for movement - for life - like a predator.

Lisa and I are headed back to school today, at 11am, by air, which our parents feel is the best way to avoid our old, holiday nemesis omicron (doesn’t that make us sound like secret agents?).

Once everyone was finally up, Lisa and I got our busy-on, doing the last load of laundry and final packing. Lisa, packs a suitcase, by throwing clothes in without bothering to fold them, while I meticulously fold and roll my clothes, like a marine headed for deployment.

As Lisa and I worked, Leeza (12) was lying on Lisa’s bed, on her back with her head hanging over the edge - watching us pack upside down. Her red hair looked like a thrown plate of spaghetti.

Leeza was talk, talk, talking and gnawing on a toasted bagel at the same time. “How do you feel about going back to school?” she asked us. “OH, feelings!” I gasped, “A free therapy session!” “No, really,” she said, grown serious and rolling right side up.

Leeza is cute as a button and vulnerable - I could almost feel her anxiety. As the youngest sibling I’d been left behind too - you don’t want the holiday to end and your big sister to leave - it’s a singularly lonesome feeling. I wanted to grab her, like a puppy, wrestle her and tell her I love her and I’d miss her - like my sister used to do with me. I decided that as soon as we were done packing, I would.

“My GOD,” Lisa said to Leeza, “will you PLEASE shut up! I have to think.” Leeza blushed and shrugged “I’m just making conversation, grump-face, you’ve packed a million times before haven’t you?” “Does counting to 10 make ****** premeditated?” Lisa asked the ceiling.

Suddenly, Lisa dropped the blouse she’d been holding and pounced on Leeza, tickling her as she squealed with delight. In a second they’d become a ball of flailing arms, legs, hair and playful noise. I slunk out of the room to give them their sister’s goodbye.

Besides, I smelled bacon.

Dark and ordinary mornings start,
with haptic taps from my Apple watch,
and a yawning stretch, way before dawn.

I glance out my window, to check
the weather because that’s the spec
that decides whether, we’re outside
or we’re down to the gym inside.

“Alexa, brew,” I compel my AI
thank God, she understands,
and my Keurig gurgles to life.

I brush the ‘ol tusks and wash my face,
before wiggling into spandex and taking a place
on the bench by the door where our shoes are stored.

When Lisa comes out, stout coffee in hand
she slumps on the bench, with a sleepy pout.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she confides with a yawn,
“I barely closed my eyes - then it was dawn!”

Checking my watch, I haven’t the heart
to say ‘dawn’s a half hour after we start.’
Every morning we rise and jog a five K (3.1mi)
we decided, last year, that it’s the best way
to jump-start our brains and start our day.

Poets write about love, pure and chaste,
and less about morning alarms and toothpaste
but in these moments, the ways we start our day,
can influence our lives in interesting ways

I drew stick figures
things were simple

in a pencil world
mistakes were erased
you could start over

but an inchmeal awareness nagged
- the sky isn’t gray, it’s a liquid blue

but crayons were complicated
you couldn’t erase things
mistakes were irrevocable.

and there were 148 colors in the big box
keeping them in rainbow order was work.

growing up is hard

It’s Harvard VS Yale this weekend, the vibes are just starting now. Everyone - and I mean everyone - has been asking about my game tickets, because guest tickets are $25 a pop. I’m more interested in the parties than the game, so I donated mine (Students get 1 free ticket and they can buy 2 for $15 each) to Lisa (one of my suitemates) for her family.

Lisa, Leong, Anna and I are getting ready to go down to the dining hall. Lisa asks the room, “Harry Styles’ new buzzcut - Yes, or No?”
“No,” Leong said, not looking up from her teen fashion magazine.
“Oh, no - God no,” I answered, “The worst decision of 2023.”
Anna blows a raspberry, “I think he’s trying to ditch his ‘pretty boy’ image and go hard rock.”
Lisa followed up, “And?..” “And NO, disaster NO, jump the shark NO,” Anna answered.
“I’m a NO also” Lisa admitted, and she’s a h-core Styles fan.

Later, Lisa was reclining on my bed, using every pillow I own to turn it into a chaise lounge that wouldn’t wrinkle her outfit. Her heels were on the floor and her bare feet were dangling in the air. Her toenails were a French tipped twinkly-pink.

She was slurping on a Coke-Zero - again - for a much-needed kick of caffeine before the night's events - which made me feel guilty, because she picked that up when I took her to Paris last summer. I’ve told her (a million times) how bad it is for her metabolism and endocrine system.
“How could you do this to me?” I asked, as if exasperated - which is currently our in-joke for everything.
“Now-now-now now-now,” she says, in self-defense, “what SHOULD I be drinking then?”
“H2-oh,” I say. “H20, as in water,” she sort of inquired, she then asked, “What’s the ‘2’ stand for?”
“Twenty,” I think, snarking back.
“Oh, you fancy, huh?” she laughed.
“I’m in college.” I shruggingly bragged.

I was shuffling through my closet, trying to pick out an outfit that would, at least, look ‘ok’ next to Lisa’s ‘in your face’ fun mix of pinks and purples sprinkled with neon greens.
Barbie herself could never.
I doubted I could keep with the theme.

My secret to dressing for these endless ‘theme’ parties, is to just tune out the noise and focus on your feels. If you give too much weight to how others will judge you, it’ll ruin the moment. I ended up wearing a vintage, deep blue, Betsey Johnson dress with matching tights and black ballet flats. Glittery, smokey-eye makeup and messy curls completed the 'très bien ensemble'.

I looked in the mirror, hoping for glam, and shrugged, “the scene’s going to be moody-lit anyway,” I said, as an excuse to the universe.

“You’re going to ******-der-der,” Lisa pronounced, as we gathered our bags to leave. “******-der-der?” I chuckled.
“******-der-der,” she confirmed, as if it were obvious.

h-core = *******

Was I maudlin over our breakup? For a minute.

If I think of you now, it’s like a slideshow of unflattering images.

At the time, my breakup buddies reminded me you were a bad
choice - like a brand of deodorant that gave me a rash or fashionable shoes that chafed, even after they were stretched.

“Ruca,” my girlfriends would say, “you’re shootin-terrible, they’re a million pork-swords in the sea.”

Finally, I pulled the trigger - double-tapped us.

At first, reminders of you, those siren whispers of nostalgia, were everywhere - like the moon - which, I just had to live with.

You passed from memory though, that’s how memory works. Events fade, like last week’s chemistry test, or yesterday’s lunch.

Now, if someone asks me, “Hey, remember, what’s his name, your big love from high school?”
I say “Nope.”

I chose to laugh, dance - and shoot birds at the moon.

My suitemate Sunny is from Nebraska. She’s 5’9,” and has cinnamon brown hair that’s half messy-bob, just long enough that she can twist it up with a pearl-studded comb, and half mohawk. She has the long, slanky elegance of someone who’s spent most of her 18 years outdoors.

She’s a cowgirl. There’s a well-worn sage-nova cowgirl hat hanging on her dorm wall and she has her own horse - a red-roan quarter-horse named Valentine - at home, of course. Her best friend growing up was a Sioux girl named Wachiwi who shared her love of barrel racing and lived on a nearby reservation.

Wachiwi was the first person Sunny came out to, at 10. Sunny was 13 when she came out to her family. “I like girls,” Sunny declared defiantly, out of the blue, one night after dinner, “not boys.” Her younger brother had snickered, her older brother rolled his head and said, “Oh, lord.” Her two little sisters seemed unconcerned. Her dad, after a moment’s thought, responded by asking her if she had taken the kitchen scraps out to the chickens yet.

Sunny grew up on a ranch and there was a rigid structure to her days. She would get up early and do ranch chores (muck out horse stalls, feed the chickens, gather eggs and set out hay) then study - but her first love was World of Warcraft.

Sunny was homeschooled and her stories of how that was accomplished are epic. For instance, they had three satellite internet services which she would have to switch between, throughout the day, like a gambler hoping to get lucky and every other Saturday they drove three hours to exchange books at the library. Whatever they did though, it worked. She’s unholy smart - like someone made a deal with the devil smart.

Sunny describes Nebraska as “basic, cliche and poor.”
“Wow,” Leong says, “you really paint a picture.”
“We all inhabited different worlds,” Sunny says, shruggingly, “Lisa’s from skyscraper clouds, Anais a palace, Leong a dystopian communist hellscape..”
“I wouldn’t say a palace,” I demur. “WHAT,” Leong screeches, throwing popcorn at Sunny.
“Stop!” Sunny says, raising both hands to ward-off further snack assaults.
“I just mean, if you were to go live in Nebraska - you’d have to go in on those terms - expecting something basic, unimaginative and poor, periodt.
“I couldn’t wait to excape.” she says, definitively, “I was thirsty.”

Everything about Sunny is deliberate, she looks you in the eye. Like a madwoman let out of the attic, she takes perverse joy in being fiercely blunt, raw and outspoken. She has a drive that can’t be mollified - she’s making her life over and you better not get in her way. The girl cracks me up - I could stand to be more like her.

Sunny’s joining my world this June for most of summer vacation. “Maybe you could show me Nebraska one day.” I say. “Maybe.. someday..” she says trailing off with a far off look, “but I wouldn’t do that to you, you’d go CrAzY in three days.”

“I’ll own that,” I say, wiping away fake tears.
.

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

(a poem in Haiku and Senryu)

Draw a stick figure
future - sadly diminished
and chaos ransomed.

Paint the landscape
with the sweltering glare
of global warming.

Add micro-plastic
and forever chemical
flavorings to taste.

Come share this
with me - let kisses heal and
soft whispers inflame.

Some locks need two keys
to open, some heavens can
be reached by mortals.
.
.
A song for this:
All Gone Away by The Style Council

beauty is a witch
the kiss of light, a trick
a mask, a banquet
a spell, a curse
a blessing
you

Leong and I are at a party, a graduating-high-school-senior throw-down. Their school year is over, and they are ready to darty. We’re at a lake house, well away from parents and neighbors.

These are the kids I high-schooled with - I just got promoted a year early. I get a lot of nods, waves and winks from some guys but none of them approach, like a mysterious inversion of attitudes has occurred - as if Yale were a nunnery and I’m a known novitiate. It’s just as well, I’m not looking for a hookup.

It’s Friday night, about 11:30 pm, the party started long ago and it’s britney-spears-2007. There are drunk girls in the pool in their underwear (Ok, that’s just exhibitionism, who comes to a lake party without a bathing suit?).

We’ve been here for about a half an hour, long enough to dance a couple of times. It’s hot and we’re sweaty but we can’t swim - Leong and I are moon sisters tonight - it’s our trauma bond. Our ad hoc solution, rubbing our arms and necks with ice, is congroovesive.

Leong is loving the bash, she keeps saying, “crazy,” like when large football players jump from the second story roof into the pool. It’s a huge pool, a huge party (with maybe 150 kids), a sound system that Led Zeppelin would envy and the house is a beach.

Everett, the host for tonight’s decadence, comes over and takes a seat by Leong and my lounge chairs. He’s a handsome guy, but there’s a cocky, entitled edge there that’s off-putting. He can be nice when he’s not trying to impress anyone.

There’s a break in the music. “You’re traveling this summer, I hear - me too - what games will you be playing?” He asks,
“I have my switch with me,” I say, “it travels well - not the whole console mind you - that seemed too extra - just the switch. So I’ll be playing Animal Crossing and Zelda - what about you?”
“Oh, I’m gonna play Grand Theft Auto - It was my favorite as a kid,” he says.
“You played GTA as a KID??” I gasp, “Why has THIS never come up?”
“I don’t know.” He admits
“How did your parents let you have that?” I ask, astonished.
“My dad’s the one who turned me onto it,” he confides, “he wanted a partner.”
“No wonder you love ******* music!” I say, making new connections.
“I DO.” He laughed. “You do,” I confirm, knowingly.

He holds a bottle of deep red something near my glass and raises his eyebrows.
“You can gas me up,” I laughed, “I’m not driving, I’m ok with it.”
Leong holds up her glass as well and he pours generously into our Sprites.

“What song can I play for you?” He asks, as a reward.
“I’m going to go basic,” I announce, after thinking about party music, “Beat it, by Fall out boy”
“You got it,” he nods, taking a moment to text the request to the DJ, before moving on to the next table.

After a moment, “Beat it” begins, there are a few cheers, but conversation becomes impossible.

Congratulations seniors everywhere!

There’s a writers’ strike. Should you be writing today?

Darkness has pressed up against our lattice windows. Classes start again in the morning. I’m being reabsorbed by college life. I’m a planner. I’ve been going over my syllabuses, repacking my bookbag, charging my power banks, checking and rechecking the assignments due tomorrow. After watching me prep for hours, Peter said, “You’re not going to the MOON.”

Peter asked me last Friday, “Are you excited for Monday? (I’ll find out if I get my fellowship.)
“I’m more excited about tonight,” I said, “I like going out on the town.”
“Wow,” he said, “you’re so different - not like the other girls at all.”
“No!” I said, laughing, “We’re stuck in a rut, we only go to one or two places, ever - if we go out at all. When people come to New Haven, I need places to take them - places besides pizza. At home, in Athens (Ga), I know twenty places - this is RESEARCH.” I assured him.

Peter settled back into his doctorate-fraternity-house yesterday. Tonight (Sunday), there’s music in the suite, the crazy noises of people and the comfort of returned friends. All the roommates are back, greeted with hugs and kisses, as they dragged in their luggage.

Lisa arrived with dinner, for 10, from Dominick's, in Manhattan. Spaghetti, salads, rolls, extra sauce - in six, small, suitcase-sized insulated bags. It was a logistical marvel. It’s only 90 minutes from Manhattan to the residence - we didn’t need to rewarm anything. “I KNOW we could have just eaten in the dining hall,” she said, shrugging, “call it zany - one last hurrah.”

Everyone seemed happy to be back. There were travel stories, questions, and laughter. Oh, and Zeppole, little powdered sugar custard desserts that seemed the worst for travel. Everyone seemed to have an eye on the clock though. By 11pm the suite was quiet. Très unusual.

Leong dreamt of meeting Jesus,
at the Koffee coffee shop.
It was early and not too busy,
so they had a chance to talk.

He was well dressed and looked quite nordic,
which was a surprise to her at first.
“Because we all know he was born in China
and Beijing the city of his birth”

At first, he kept it casual,
he talked a lot about his dad,
but he began to be rather judgey,
as some religious people can.

When he asked her for her digits,
she was put off by his entitled vibe.
In the end he got fake-numbered.

“It was a lowkey way to decline,
and both pacify the “boss’” son,
and keep him on her side.”

Leeza (the 13 year old sister of my roommate Lisa) and I are in the building 220 lobby, heads-down on our phones, waiting for Lisa and Peter (my BF). The lobby is huge and deserted except for a lady concierge at the front desk, a security guard and the doorman - all far away from us. This is by way of explaining that our masks are off - mine hanging, useless, on my left ear.

When this unmasked guy, I was grazingly introduced to at last year’s 220-building Christmas party walks up to us and says, “Anais, Hi. You’re back!”

I flinched. I know a lot of people are over the whole mask thing and the covid thing - and have the temerity to risk it all, but I don’t - did I mention flu season or covid variations? Someone unmasked getting unexpectedly up in my personal space is jarring, rude, and on several levels dangerous and scary.

“Oh, hi,” I said. I vaguely recognized him, but I couldn’t remember his name. He’s one of those guys who’s cutely strange looking. He’s short (5’4”) (nothing wrong with that, short kings, you’re valid), his hair’s dark at the roots but blonde tipped (beach-hair?) and when he smiles, and he smiles a lot, his smile looks too big for his face. I remember he’d seemed socially awkward when we met, and Lisa had said his father is someone important.

“Yeah,” I said, with a shrug, “Holidays again.” I briefly bob up on my toes, to glance over Leeza’s head and to my relief, I see Lisa and Peter coming out of the elevator. I decide to mask up and seeing me do it, Leeza does as well.

“I’m sorry,” I said apologetically, “I remember you, but I can’t remember your NAME. I’m an idiot.” I give him my best, ditzy shrug.

He reintroduced himself, “Merritt,” he said, offering his hand and smiling again, still unmasked. As I shook his hand he twisted in Leeza’s direction and said, “Hi Leeza!” She gave him the smallest possible 13-year-old’s courtesy nod.

Peter and Lisa arrived, having masked up. “Merritt, hey!” Lisa said, greeting him warmly. “Have you got senioritis yet?” she asked, cheerfully. “Merritt’s graduating from Brown this year,” she announced, turning to include us all in the good news. “Public policy, ya?” She followed up.
“That’s it,” he confirmed, beaming.
“Congratulations!” I said, nodding.
“Way to go!” Peter added with a “yes” nod.
“Merritt, this is Peter,” Lisa said, taking charge. “He belongs to Anais.” she reported, as they shook hands and exchanged nods. “Merrit,” Lisa said, in a disappointed tone, “I hate to rush off, but we’re in a scramble for a dress fitting,” she lied. Lisa can lie like a politician.

And just like that, in something like 45 seconds she shook-off Merritt - who seems like a very sticky guy indeed - without resorting to mace or anything - Lisa’s got charm.

Thoughts about charm..
My grade, in physics 3 (an A-) was 2-one-hundredths from an A+. I almost certainly (like 85%) could have charmed the professor for that tiny bit. We’ve all seen it done - you put on a self-effacing smile and say, “I’m so close, is there something I can do for extra credit?” But I can’t DO it, physically, I can’t say the words and beg for grades. It’s like I can picture my mom watching me having to beg for something she earned, and I’d be mortified to even try. It’s my small disadvantage, a self-imposed handicap.

Besides, if I did betray my code, there’s the awful chance the professor might say no - and that would **** me.

Lisa, on the other hand, wouldn’t actually have to charm. She’d ask about her grade, periodt. The teacher, seeing there’s something he or she could do for this goddess - would just do it. With no asking involved.

Imagine you’re an airline agent and Beyonce´ stepped up to your station. She has a little problem you could effortlessly fix with a click of your mouse. Would you, do it? Hells-yes you would and before she even asked. “It’s already done,” you’d say - just to have Queen Bey smile at you.

The rest of us have to work at it (sigh) - and take our chances..

When I was twelve, my older sister, Annick, was in med school.
She was dedicated and incorruptible - always studying, always.

I wanted her to spend time with me, I craved her engagement.
I was jealous and mean to her, thinking her uncaring - uninterested in me.

Now, I get it. Now days, I seem to behave like a machine,
I’m busy and unapproachable - forgetting myself in function
and I’m just a lowly undergraduate.

When I think about how hard she must of been working,
I tear up, like someone hearing a sad song on the radio.

Everyone was lazing around, it being the holidays. The intercom buzzed and Lisa got there first to press answer. “Package, on the way up,” the concierge announced. This time of year, a package could be a late arriving gift, there was interest.

It takes a hot minute for elevator three to get to the 50th floor and in those moments, we waited. The foyer of Lisa’s suite looks like a half circle with three doors. To the left is the library (Michael’s office), to the right is a hall leading to bedrooms and straight ahead is the living room.

Lisa was already at the front door. Karen (Lisa’s mom) came into the foyer from the hall and Michael was heads-up at his desk, when the front door finally buzzed. An iPad sized monitor showed a messenger with a bouquet of flowers. “OOO!” Lisa said, opening the door and signing for it.

“Whad we get?” Leeza asked, flying into the foyer, like a vulture, from the living room and saying, “OOO!” When she saw the flowers, following up with “Who’re they for?!”
“Anais,” Karen said with a grin, reading the envelope as Lisa turned the vase for a 360 view.

I was in the living room playing “Disney Dreamlight Valley” on my Nintendo switch when Lisa, followed closely by Leeza, came in with the flowers. “Oh, WOW,” I said, sitting up when I saw them.
“They’re for YOU,” Lisa said, trying to make it sound all casual, but her grin gave the truth away. Leeza gave a hoot of suppressed excitement when I grinned.

Leeza had her phone in hand and took a picture as I accepted the vase from Lisa, setting it on the coffee table as I opened the card. A moment later Leeza pronounced, “It’s a “Warm Embrace Arrangement.” Gen-alphas can research anything, in moments, from their phones. “It cost,” She started to say, and Lisa elbowed her, “OWW!” She exclaimed, then “175 dollars,” as she completed her thought, rubbing her ribs, and took a seat next to me.

“They’re from Peter,” I revealed, (who really can’t afford to spend $175 on flowers).

A week ago (Tuesday), I woke up in a rage, on a vendetta. My eyes opened, and the world seemed dark, like a newly opened box of slights and irritations. Shadows seemed to reach out and the very air seemed gritty and annoying. I wanted to yell at people and maybe ****** someone.
“Remember last week,” I asked the room, “when I was in a funk?”
“I was a witness,” Leeza said chuckling, “I can confirm.” Lisa just nodded.
“Yeah, I needed to rant and you were there,” I patted Leeza’s knee, “Thanks, sorry.”
“All you listened to for days was Rihanna,” Leeza reported, shaking her head.
“It lasted for two days,” I said, wincing at the memory,” that’s when I sent Peter that message.”
“Ahhh,” Lisa nodded, “I get it.”
“Yep,” I nodded back at Lisa, “got my period the next day, it doesn’t usually hit like that.” I said defensively.”
“That explains a lot.” Leeza grinned.
“But look!” Lisa said, putting her arms out like Vanna White, “You got flowers!”
“Poor Peter,” I said, sighing, “I better call him.”

I’m sleeping in
just call me out
it’s the simplest kind of comfort
I do it for me
there’s a softness and care
my, that got so wholesome

I know, I should embrace hardship
adversity builds resilience
it’s darkness that reveals the stars
that last one sounds too good to be original
but I’m not researching it
haven’t you been reading?

I’m sleeping in fugaciously
and metaphorically.
If you’re in the water
it’s good to swim
otherwise
you could be writing.
.
.
Songs for this:
Sleeping In by The Radio Dept.
Save the Phenomenon by Fievel Is Glauque

Coffee, I adore thee,
somehow you never bore me.
Bold and dark or mild and smooth,
you get me up and on the move.

In warm embrace or cool frappe,
mocha, french roast, or tall latte,
crema, sospeso or con panna,
you never fail to make my day.

It’s the best thing ever manufactured,
without it, my mind is slow and scattered,
for a quiz or formulating I’d be knackered,
every morning the Keurig is where we gather.

You pick me up and keep me keen,
in complementing any cuisine,
by delivering a dose of sweet caffeine,
you are the original magic bean.

In doses quick or lingered over,
on mornings with a hangover,
I reach for you, your warm embrace,
the morning fogginess to erase.

The flavors, the scent, which is the best?
They are of compound interest.
French press or espresso - take your pick
- they all provide that delicious kick.

Jitter juice, rocket fuel, cup of joe,
cuppa, morning brew or ristretto,
your flavors please, your scent rouses,
a coffee shop is where the crowd is.

In slang they call it Mormon-crack,
but sugared up or with a snack,
with creamy art or straight-up black
once I’ve got it, you won’t get it back.

I want to say something about cursive writing (this might seem random).

I’ve seen articles saying that cursive writing is a “dead art,” that computers have destined it for oblivion and questioning whether cursive writing should be taught in schools now-a-days.

But if you plan to go to college - relearn it and practice it, because you’ll need it.

Random hot fact. The first time you have to handwrite a multiple-question essay test - where each answer requires five hundred to a thousand words (a written page) - handwriting, in block letters, is unsustainable.

Your hand will literally cramp up - dog, you’ll suffer, your essays will suffer and so will your grade.

Writing in cursive is faster than block lettering and with a little practice, it’s effortless.

My sister told me this once, and this morning, as I watched other students, one third of the way into our essay test, grimacing and flexing their aching hands - I just smiled to myself.

Yeah, you can thank me later.

I’m so siced about the Barbie movie. I just watched the latest trailer. I felt a fluttering in the stummy.

Peter’s birthday was May 1st. “What do you want for your birthday?” I’d asked.
“A flash for my iPhone,” he said. “Your phone already HAS a flash,” I replied, helpfully.
“No,” he explained, “a professional, external flash - they’re much more subtle and variable.”
“What are you going to take pictures of?” I asked. “You,” he said, smiling slyly.
“Me!?” I said, with a wrinkled nose, somewhat alarmed. “You don’t take pictures of ME.”
“Not usually,” he admitted, “but we’re going to Paris and the snaps will look better with a flash.” “Just ME?” I asked, “What about some ussies?” “We’ll take snaps of us, but you’ll have savage new pics for your poetry sites.” So, Peter got his flash and he’s taken a baZillion pix.

“Smile,” click, (iPhones don’t always click, so the click’s a writer’s dramatic effect)
Peter takes bursts of 50 pix at a time and only one in fifty turns out looking good (my opinion).
“Look this way,” click “toss your hair,” click. Apparently salads and my hair are better ‘tossed.’
So now we’re in Paris, but before we can take our tourist pic, I must lean over, like I’m going to throw up and comb my hair forward, so when I flip it back, it will appear fluffy.

“Look sad, look happy, try not to look so drunk, look ****,” he asks. “You’re kidding,” I replied. I exist only in his view finder.
“Just part your lips slightly and look vacuous,” he advises.
“Can I DO both at once?” I asked, as if challenged by a scientific equation.
“Don’t roll your eyes,” he said. Today, he was ‘the serious artist’. I’d never want to be a model.
Finally, I’d had enough constant photography and I just started looking moody. Peter seemed not to notice.

I read somewhere that when you smile, the activated muscles of your face actually improve your mood. Or something like that. Anyway, I’m trying to deepfake myself and smile my way to happiness. I ordinarily think of myself as tough, but lately, I’m soft.

A Yale counselor once told me that sometimes we tell ourselves a story and we just hold on to that version of things until it feels true. I have to stop thinking I’m on the edge of a deep, blue loneliness. I need to get on a metaphysical bike and ride away from my sad-self.

Later, when we’re back at the hotel, Peter was reading in the living room and I was lying on the bed, watching another Heraclee Beach, sapphire and ruby, sundown through the hotel windows. Peter came looking for me. He had a book in one hand, his place saved with his index finger.

“What are you doing?” He asked, lightly. “Want to go out to dinner or get room service?”
“I’m thinking thoughts.”
“What kind of thoughts? He asked, taking a seat on a desk chair he’d rolled over. Now I’m watching his face and he’s watching mine.
“You know how, everyday, at school, we tell each other everything that happened?” Peter nodded. “Which, of course,” I’d continued, “is impossible, but it’s as if we’re having experiences just so we could discuss them later - share them. It’s like, when we aren't together, it isn’t real life.”
“So..” he said, verbally prodding me on.

My voice felt thick, like it knew I wouldn't say things right. “Well, I’m two me’s now, I’m split right down the middle. Before you, things were easy. I was becoming Dr. Me, I had one goal, things were simple,” I shrugged, “but now, there's the me that’s going to be a doctor and the me that needs you.” I can’t seem to take my eyes off his face.

He touched my foot and wiggled it a little. “You don’t have to figure out the future right NOW, Mz overachiever.” He said in his soft, western drawl, “You can’t wrestle the future into orderly submission, like a chemistry test - we don’t have enough data (says mr. physics). Anyway, don’t we have forty or fifty years to figure it out?”
Suddenly, my head felt clearer than it had for days. I chuckled. I may have had my hand over my mouth and a smile was so big it hurt my face.

“You were very patient to put up with me today,” I said, turning slightly and quietly serious.
“You be you,” he said, smiling bigly back, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Then I got serious. “Do you think we can find barbecue?”
“But of course!” he said, in a fake French accent, like Lemiure, in ‘Beauty and the Beast.’

When I was little, my stepfather and I would be outside, coloring the driveway with chalk or throwing a frisbee and he’d stop and say, “I’m gonna go stir your mama up.”

He’d go in the house, coming out minutes later with my mom hot on his heels, waving her arms and haranguing his retreating back. She couldn’t see the big grin on his face as he approached me, “It’s good for her heart,” he’d say, chuckling and resuming whatever we were doing, “We’ve got to keep her on her toes.” He’s a master of dolorous mischief.

Flash forward to a cold, dark, Yale, winter evening in 2023. Peter and I are in the suite’s common room. Four dorm rooms share this ‘living room’ area but we’re alone, which was rare.

I’d been reading for about an hour and I was only half done. A chemistry PSet was next. I closed my Chinese language studies book and looked up. Peter was there, sitting on the floor, leaning back on the far end of the red corduroy couch where I was sitting. His long lanky frame was curled around the book he was reading, like an awkward python.

As I watched, he plucked a mint-chocolate milkshake off the white coffee table, bringing the straw to his lips without ever taking his eyes off his book. Homework, homework, homework.
I was bored and wanted a little attention, a little fun.

“Was I your first choice?” I asked him, as he noisily slurped at the last of his milkshake.
“First choice for what?” He asked.
“To be your girlfriend,” I clarified, emphasizing the last word.

He thought for a moment, “No, I had salty love-jones for Ivy Waters in second grade. Why?”
“I don’t know, It just occurred to me to ask,” I confided. “so, why did you choose me then?”
“Well,” he said, raising his eyebrows in all, fake sincerity, “you know all the best jokes,” and with that, he went back to his milkshake (argh!).

“I know, you’re finishing your doctorate,” I said, “but you could be a flight attendant!”
Peter stopped trying to stir the last of his milkshake into a slurpable lump and froze in thought. “It’s TRUE,” I continued, “Really - you need to be flexible in your planning. I read that most physicists slave away in povertude.”

“Povertude, huh?’ He said, and resumed his mint-chocolate work - his straw making a loud “ssssuuuuusssssskkkkkkkkkk,” empty-cup air-******* sound.
“AI isn’t going to replace **** flight attendants,” I offered, as my last argument in the matter.

After a moment he asked, “You really think I could carry it off?” Putting his palm on his hip and wiggling his shoulders in a provocative shimmy.

“I KNEW you’d leave me at the FIRST opportunity,” I said, turning sharply away, pretending to ignore him - the universal cap of girlfriends everywhere - with a condensed absence of attention that, I hoped, spoke unspoken things.

Setting his milkshake down, he gave me a lecherous smile, which made me giggle, and began crawling in my direction.

“Eeek!” I shrieked, laughing, as he climbed up on the couch, “I still have homework!”

It’s starting to cool down here in Connecticut. Leaves are falling, like giant, burnt snowflakes (science says that trees send chemical signals to their branches to clip leaves away).

Peter borrowed a friend's toy-like, pea green, Fiat-500 convertible and we drove into the country to see the turning leaves. We hiked a bit too and stopped, in Mystic, for seafood.

I never realized just how theatrical trees could be, with their few, simple, chlorophyll tricks and how reflective still lakes could be. Wowzer, just - wowzer.

There are some things that should never be shared. Like a toothbrush, an iPad, lipstick, strawberry stroopwafels, a slice of pizza or a secret lover (that last one just sounded good). But life is good, I can share that. We’re young, dramatic sophomores with good hair products and we’re at it, working and playing hard.

Ahh.. ok, upon consultation, I have to add that some of us are in their mid-twenties with only a few good years left.

Did I mention that we climbed up a twisty lighthouse staircase too? Peter always thinks people should take the stairs, and not the elevators, “You want to have muscles and bones that work when you’re eighty,” He says. Since he’s closer to eighty than I am, when we’re not carrying furniture, I let him have his way. Of course, he’s never been to up Lisa’s 50th floor townhouse either.

My mom told me that they’re off to Poland again, over the holidays, for another tour with “Doctors without Borders” (**** war). Lisa’s parents have (kindly) invited me to share their high-rise utopia again this year. Who knows, maybe Peter will have his chance to try those stairs.

In Paris, society people unironically dress for dinner, go to cocktail parties (where the hostess has an obvious drinking problem), dine with Catholic Bishops, industrialists, politicians and occasional celebrities (usually for charity) in places dripping with atmosphere.

I met this famous actor once (July 2019, pre-covid, I was 15), at one of these summer parties in Paris. He was probably in his early forties (an impression, I didn’t look it up). Shall we wax poetic?

It was sunset - almost 10PM in Paris.
The last rose-blush of sunset was in the west.
I was leaning on the wrought iron balustrade,
of a 4th floor terrace, in the center of the city proper.

The Seine still shimmered, with diaphanous emerald flecks,
and the air was heady with the perfume of jasmine and Nuxe oil.
Behind me, beyond the French doors and filigreed silk drapes
that fluttered like angel wings, a cocktail party was happening.

I could hear the tinkling of glass, laughter and conversation.
A couple, across the way, were wrapped together as if for warmth
and they communicated in the language of lingering touch and gazes
that delved and explored. I smiled, embarrassed, and looked away.

Ok, snap out of it.

He came out on the terrace alone, as if he was looking for a breath of air and stopped at the railing about three feet away from me. After a minute, he turned, as if I’d suddenly appeared, and introduced himself.
When we shook hands, his felt like silk.

Anyway, we’d chatted for under a minute - I was jabbering about how I’d loved the Bourne movies - I was trying to sound interesting - when he leaned in and whispered, “What would you do if I kissed you right now?”

I was flabbergasted and I think I looked around to see if he was talking to me. Sometimes life offers simple choices. I grimaced, shook my head ‘no,’ and at first, I backed away, then I turned and hustled back to the party.
I think he chuckled. I saw him some time later, chatting up a model-looking woman.

I told Charles about it after the party and he said, “Huh - No kidding?” Then he shrugged and said, “Hollywood.”

This isn’t some sobbing “me too’ story. I wasn’t traumatized. It’s a tale of entitled male tomfoolery. Maybe I looked older in a certain light? A humorous ‘growing up’ story I get to share with friends - and now with all 8 of my readers.
.
.
Songs for this:
Hurricane Waters by Citizen Cope
Beautiful Trash by Lanu & Meg Washington
Quero Te a Sambar by Tape Five

I love the way the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences let Will Smith sit there, for 40 minutes, preening in the front row, in plain sight, after he assaulted a black man at the Oscars.

I know what you're thinking - wait, isn’t Will Smith black? Well, obviously NOT. In an America where black men are routinely murdered for selling cigarettes or having a broken taillight, Mr. Smith got to commit his crime in front of millions of people. Then sit around like a three-piece suited sultan for over a ½ hour to receive an Oscar and a (reflexive?) standing ovation.

Will, in an effort to make his violence palatable said, in his tearful acceptance speech, that he was protecting his wife. Chris Rock made a joke about her hairdo. Was she actually in some kind of unseen danger? Perhaps this is some kind of new, Muslim “honor” slapping?

The very function of comedian hosts and presenters at the Oscars is to take-the-**** out of these overpaid actor-celebrities. If you multi-millionaires can’t take a joke, stay home or wear a **** wig.

I’m curious, we know Jada and Will have an “open” marriage - because they have said as much. Does that mean, in “Smith” logic, Chris could have *** with Jada but not comment on her looks?

How far does Will’s privilege extend - could he have *****-slapped Betty White (she was pretty salty sometimes) - for instance? I mean, Chris Rock is half Will Smith’s size. Do you think he would have launched up at Dwayne Johnson, Idris Elba or Jason Momoa? I doubt it, even if Will did get to pretend, he was Mohamid Ali for a while.

Chris Rock is a trooper, he took the hit and carried on like a professional. He’s going to be ok. Chris is in the middle of a national comedy tour, and it completely sold out the night of the assault. Even with ticket prices jumping from $49 to $340 per seat. I can’t wait to hear his new bit. I’m fairly sure every comedian in the world will now make a point of making vicious fun of Will - who’s made himself a punchline.

Will Smith will now start an apology tour. “It was a momentary lapse,” he’ll say - like every guy who ever slapped his wife or punched-down on someone weaker than themselves. From now on, whenever Jada’s invited anywhere, she’ll be asked if her husband is coming too and if he can be counted on to behave himself.

Chris Rock generously declined to press charges, but the LAPD doesn't need him to charge Will with assault. I know he’d only get a slap on the wrist, but someone should hold him accountable.

I was a Will Smith fan once.

Snow began in mordant gray dusk,
a silent sprinkle of crystal light twinkle,
attaché charm to the simply ordinary.

Purple skies drew black as dreary fought back
to obscure winter’s mask of ceramic magique.

Yellow sodium campus lights slow ignite to golden
halo bright, their intense, saintly glows casting rivers
of shadow and a golden glisten to the snowflakes that fall
twisting, in silence, in grace, to present winter's face.

My Grandmère and I have long, gossipy conversations,
where we fall into our own chatty, slumber party rhythms.

She’s met or knows everyone important, and people tell her things.

They DM her or whisper secrets of lives ordered but loveless,
of careers choked by excesses and indiscretions.

She gets stealthy, leaked business reports of purported fortunes gambled and lost or of innocence wasted in bittersweet embrace - delicious, tangled narratives that expose the gaps between facades and realities that can’t be purchased.

Sometimes we pop popcorn on our private ends of the Atlantic,
watch Netflix, share secrets and laugh conspiratorially.
.
.
Songs for this:
Us by Regina Spektor
Young And Dumb by The Bird and the Bee

(A 'thought piece' I wrote in high school)

Ok, I'm not paid to think (like the TV shouting heads), I have no real voice (vote), and certainly no credentials - but I'm as invested in America as any high-school citizen can be. I've pledged allegiance 3000 times (hhmm.. do they doubt our loyalty?) and when it comes to loving America, I'd have to say my classmates and I are at the center of the spell.

I'm afraid we're growing up in the age of hate.. the age of phony outrage where each position large or small is high noon and violence is underfoot even when policing ordinary citizens.

We won't address the multitude of old problems in this new age.. we'll just unleash a marquetry of half truths to dispute the proven until unreasoned arguments reach their paranoid fullness.

The real world is alarming enough - lets just push that away and ignore it - while we're at it lets **** shame the poor, the old, the sick, the unemployed, the hungry and the hand of mercy.

I realize America was never one moral atom bonded for better.. but those anvils that forged us appear neglected or forsaken. I'm afraid what's happening now, what we're seeing and hearing now, is a symphony of erosion - that by the time I have any say at all, the middle class will be gone - america turned slum - where even the voice of despair will be turned traitor.

We'll only be able to see our greatness in museum souvenir shops where nothing is affordable and everything is made elsewhere.

My sister Annick fixed me, locked me in, with cold, blue eyes as she sat down slowly next to me at the table. “I’m a surgeon,” she said, not quite casually, “a board certified surgeon.”

I give her a questioning look.

“I could take your steak knife,” she says, eyeing it, “plunge it into your neck - and oh, sure, there’d be a question or two but in the end - I’d walk away clean.”

“I don’t think,” I start saying…

Tears well to near overflowing in her turquoise eyes. “I came in - officer” she says, sounding stunned and surreal. “She was having a convulsion, she exhibited severe cyanosis, I couldn’t clear her airway, it was a classic tonic-clonic seizure.” she goes on, her voice rising to near panic with the diagnosis.

“You’d never…” I start to interrupt but she gently covers my mouth with her left hand while gathering the handle of the serrated silver steak knife, expertly, into her right hand.

“I attempted to perform a tracheostomy,” she continues in a traumatized but professional voice. “but as I began a transverse incision above the sternal notch,” a tear rolls down her cheek, “Anais suffered a severe generalized-onset seizure and convulsed, forcefully into the knife”

“IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!” I confess suddenly, as if under oath, in court.

There’s a moment of still silence.

“And WHEN,” she asked, wiping away the tear and turning the knife for a downward ******. “Were you going to MENTION IT?!”

“NOW! - before dinner!” I look around the empty room - for help - for a sympathetic jury. “It was an ACCIDENT! - I’m SORRRRYYYY!” I plead.

My sister slowly sets down the knife and says deliberately, purposefully - like a death sentence: “My Valentino sheer floral-lace top is STAINED.”

”I can FIX it!” I insist in a rush.

“Keep OUT of my room - and my stuff.” she grumbles, “And REMEMBER what I said,” she adds as she pats the knife before getting up and leaving the room.

“I WILL’” I promise to her back.

A second later, my mom sweeps in from the opposite direction.
“What’s up” she asks.

“Nothing” I almost whisper, head down.

My Astrologer, ‘*** and Love’ horoscope, for Halloween, is grim and on-trend for me.
(Libra) “Get ready to take some chill-time - give yourself the space to recover. People pleasing is out, boundaries are in!” Yeah, I’m like Texas, I have unsecure boundaries.

Sure, I KNOW horoscopes are horoscopes but while other signs get unicorns & puppies:
Aries: “Use your deepest desires to please yourself, step into your power.”
Gemini: “Your curious and bubbly nature shines, shoot your shot for that special someone!”
Cancer: “Be at home in your feels, your needs & emotional expressions are valued, go deeper.”

I’m getting “**** it up buttercup,” thanks universe - what did I ever do to you?

We’ve been scanning the teen magazine fall looks, “We’re living in a bold era, a time of expression!” They declare, which means dramatic-metallic eyeliners, goth grunge, bold reds and Beyoncé’s “Renaissance silvers.” Luckily, Yale’s pretty low fashion environment, because seasonal changes are a lot to keep up with.

I love Autumn, with its colorful leaves, pumpkin lattes and colder nights, but coming from the south (in ‘21), I had no idea how badly heated air could dry out my skin and hair (freshie year, my thumb literally started to crack, like a plastic Barbie). In the spirit of fall fashion and maintenance, my entire crew made an Ulta store run this morning for hair masks, detox tonics and skin moisturizers - we’re ready, bring on the cold.

The best smelling places on earth are Ulta and Yankee Candle stores. In my religion, heaven smells like Starbucks in the morning, Chick-fil-A around noon and Ulta stores as the sun goes down and things turn dreamy and romantic.

Sleep wouldn’t come, the clock hands seemed to shrug, so I decided to walk.

It was dark, the kind of fall overcast that makes a low ceiling of the sky.

Early mornings, on campus, are always solitary - students shun sunrise like vampires avoid the sun - so I got sole custody of the university. With no traffic, squirrels, birds or humans - predawn was nonchalant.

The wind, busied itself, sweeping the leaves falling in twos and threes, first left then right and finally throwing them in the air like a carefree child.

Frost on grass looked grey, then would suddenly become silverlit by the moon.

If you measure time in steps, as seconds, and then miles become hours. Soon, dawn made night morning, dew became drops, and I searched for coffee.

Sunrise was just a red line in the inky void, as Lisa and I reached the harbor decking stairs,
but at once, the brazen slash began widening, like a silent, slow motion explosion,  
thin, smoky wisps of cloud, like flammable tissue, prismed the stage light ignition.

bee-de-deep my phone chirped. It was Peter (my bf).
“Hey you,” I pronounced, as Lisa took off her left sneaker and shook it, upside-down.  
“How’s the harbor?” Peter asked. I glanced at my watch, it was 5:32 am in New Haven.
Peter must be at lunch (in Geneva) and tracking our morning run with the ‘Find My’ app.
“Beautiful,” I pronounced, “they’re really putting on a show.”
Of course, I meant the universe, the sun, the turns who were already at work, and Long Island Sound.
The gulls, perched on whatever, and grousing at each other, obviously haven’t had their coffee.
I read that AI had decoded bird talk and on a wire, they chittered, “Move over, you’re in my space.”

“Just wanted to say good morning,” Peter confessed, “Good Morning.”
“Good morning,” I wished back, “gotta go,” I replied, Lisa had finished de-pebbling her shoe.
“Yep,” Peter agreed, “Seee ya,” he quipped. “See ya,” I chuckled, smiling.
My watch asked, in my Air Podded ears, “Have you finished your workout?” because I was motionless.
I pressed the crown of my watch and slid the phone back in my pocket, our jogg’s only half done.

We began our harbor exodus, by turning our backs to the haven. It was already beginning to busy with boats.
We slipped on our hats and protective, polarized sunglasses as we began to run directly into the blazing sun.
.
.
Songs for this:
Sail on Sailor by the Beach Boys
Dancing in the moonlight by Toploader
Cold Heart - PNAU Remix by Elton John, Dua Lipa, PNAU

The Batman Movie (a review). The clues part was cool, but the end of it got boring. I liked that Batman kept a journal - I like the idea of men keeping journals, because, do men have many thoughts they share? Men’s thinking seems so ephemeral.

In this Batman resurrection, Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne & Batman are Kurt-Cobain-like emo and that seemed to work. Didn’t you just want to take your hand and get his hair out of his eyes? I think guys should have hair - I like hair on guys, not buzz cuts. I liked the muscle-car Batmobile.

I liked Zoey Kravitz, she was girl power, but not in a hot girl way, she had her own motivations, she wasn’t just in danger and served up to fuel Batman.

The movie is too long though. They need to bring back movie intermissions - I’d vote for that. As usual, I drank my giant slurpee and ate ½ my popcorn before the twenty minutes of previews were finished.

It’s a three hour movie. I had to *** so bad by the time the movie was ¾ over that I was grinding on my popcorn bucket to keep it in. I finally had to make a dash for the bathroom - I was afraid I’d miss the KISS scene. Argh!

Let’s talk about Robert Pattinson, the actor, and his arch from Twilight to Batman. Of course, doesn’t every vampire turn into a bat? (joke) but it’s always Pattinson being moody, being hot, figuring himself out and the introspective man - the broody man.

Are broody men ****? I don’t like broody men in real life - I feel that only one of us gets to be moody in a relationship - and it’s going to be me. Pattinson seems almost zany and cheeky in RL so the brood is his method act. I Like that Pattinson didn’t buff-up for the role - I think the buffed-up muscle-man as superhero perfection somehow relates to capitalism. Pattinson’s American accent was good.

What was missing from the movie was horniness. Batman didn’t seem HOT for Cat-girl - he just stood there for her to kiss. What’s boy-girl attraction if it’s not horniness? Where has the horniness gone in movies? Sexiness is missing from ALL the superhero movies - I guess the age demo is too young.

I give it three out of five stars

We’re playing the long game.
We share things, we’re lovers,
we slip in and out of each other’s lives
like jackets hanging on the back of a door.

Relationships are like instruments,
they must be played, kept in tune,
the carnal and the corny balanced,
carefully, like sections of an orchestra.

Sometimes, I feel that I have to bring the energy,
BE the entertainment - and I can do that - in spades
but not forever - I’m not a tireless-giver - in fact,
I'm atavistically Parisien (we admit loving nothing).

I’m learning that when a relationship’s conducted,
at great remove, the basics - like punctuality,
dependability and preparation - become a big deal.

When I’m in an optimistic headspace, I think we can do it,
maybe, that we know what we want and who we are.

That we’re playing the long game

I’m at the acorn, a coffee shop, trying to write a poem but my mind is blank. I got here early enough to get one of the comfy chairs - yeah, I’m a self-indulgent monster - and I’m not getting up until my having to *** becomes a medical emergency.

What rhymes with blank.. Spank? THAT would take this poem in a WHOLE new direction - maybe it needs a new direction. Why does coffee that comes with latte-art, which costs 20 times more than what you can have in your dorm room, taste so much better?

A “Hi,” reveals a man standing in front of me, looking down and smiling - I assume he’s smiling because we’re all masked. I look up, blinking, and give him a questioning look and a head tilt - because we are masked. People at tables and chairs near us look up from their zoo of electronic devices to give us the onceover. There’s a keenness to him that makes me want him to go away and I begin to feel a nagging trepidation.

“Apparently I didn’t make much of an impression,” he says. He’s right and frankly, I’m thinking we should keep it that way. “We met at the Pundits party a couple of weeks ago?” He says, the inflection of his whole sentence rising, like a question.

Some background…

To her friends, Lisa being gorgeous is everyday and unremarkable, but take her out somewhere and she draws all eyes, like you drove up in a growling, fluorescent red Ferrari. She’s invited everywhere (she calls them “shiny ornament” invites) and one afternoon, as we’re coming back to the dorm a girl comes up to us - to her - hands her a ½ slip of paper and strikes up a conversation.

She introduces herself and runs through the usual, “What year are you in, where ya from.. bla bla. Then she asks, “Would you ever consider attending a naked party - have you heard of them?” To my surprise, Lisa smiles, brushes the hair out of her face and says, “I’d think about it,” which makes me laugh nervously, “You would?” I interrupt. The girl says that the paper is an open invitation from “The Pundits”, and that there’s a URL on it with details. “Just bring the slip,” she says, touching the paper in Lisa’s hand.

Guess where I “met” this guy? In an instant, I’m tense, and if I were a fox, I’d gnaw-off my paw to get out of there.

There are men (fair knights) who always get what they want.
If suddenly, Mr. Knight doesn’t get - say, a girl (the fair maiden) - he’s confused - what IS this, he wonders but he doesn’t KNOW. We will assume that getting this thing (girl in our example) is important to him.

Though his perceptual systems are still searching for answers he gets a sinking feeling because his limbic system reacts faster. It tells him something’s wrong - and it might be a predator (the dragon) so he starts sweating, he wasn’t prepared for a dragon - for chaos!

Why didn’t I get what I wanted, he will ask himself.
Maybe I’m not attractive? (That would be a horror of the 1st order)
Maybe this girl is trying to hurt me.. attack me? (the predator) - that may be a thought, but it’s unlikely and an unhealthy one.

Rejecting that he must ask himself questions: Did he come on too strong? Was he acting like a ****? Did he make too many assumptions? Am I well dressed? Did I shower today? (he smells his breath, checks himself in a mirror) He goes back over the encounter in his mind. Was he really trying his best?

If he decides, at this point, to go on, he must face his unrealized world in order to slay the dragon of chaos blocking him. The issue may be something outside of his normal, conceptual structure.

In that case, the problem is literally, the snake in the garden (his walled conceptual garden - his view of the world and his place in it).
Now this IS something - a snake in the garden - again he can give up - quit with this girl, quit trying period, quit dating, bathing, eating - that’s how the dragon can ****.

Failure is a message from the implicit world. The good news is - it’s a message from the real world and it may be a gift  - the best thing that ever happened to him. A slap that says: wake up, learn something, clue-in.

It can be a treasure, the gold that dragons hoard.

I’m tired of influencers faking nervousness.
my generation wants to care less
these days.
it’s a counter-current hack.
we want to be less defined.
we can search and reflect for ourselves.
we’re sick of the emotion
that’s all over everyone’s faces,
the unsightly splotches of opinion.
the entire election machine,
the process of getting there, is smudged.
It’s a curated mess, an advising spin,
an incomprehensible hex:

“Oh profit pondering,
contradictory means to an end
- bless weave, and conceal,
bloodless dollar debt options,
painful penny pincher paradoxes,
and deadly debt bliss dilemmas..”

“Is this a witch or an arbitrager?” Lisa asked, after rudely leaning over and reading up to this point.
“I was shooting for a numinous type of beat,” I revealed.
“We’re supposed to be working on our thesis definitions,” she said accusingly.
“Are you not challenged, here, hour by hour?” I asked sarcastically.
“I need ideas - well - I have too many ideas, I need some focus, I wanted to see what you had.”
I deadpan looked at her, “Well, you broke the spell - I lost my train.” I complained dryly.
“Don’t put me in a situation.” she said, waving my gripe off as insignificant.
.
.
Songs for this:
Easier Said Than Done by Thee Sacred Souls
drive ME crazy! by Lil Yachty
Melt by Nilüfer Yany