College Life and a Fun Story

College is such an interesting place to be. Everyone is over stressed and under slept. There is always a chapter to read and a paper to write. Nutrition, whatever lofty concepts we had of it at home anyway, is a thing of the past. Diets consist of candy, greasy diner food, pop-tarts, and soda. When you do eat a proper meal it is always preceded with the hunt for someone to eat with you. It could be a stranger, a friend or roommate, professor; it really doesn’t matter. But companionship is a must, if you are alone—something is wrong.

No one has money. And yet, there always seems to be books or food or supplies that need purchasing. If you can bum a ride, you do it. If you offer people rides, you do it in the hope of being reimbursed on a longer trip. You remain cautious of the University Police, if only for the simple fact that they love to write parking tickets. You cheer for Alabama football and attend the home games. Every home game day, you wade through the sea of tailgaters--people who drives hours to watch the game on television on the quad--to get anywhere. Travel becomes impossible because the world stops when the Crimson Tide plays.

But I love college and am starting to get the hang of it.

It is such an exciting place. The fraternity and sorority parties help keep life interesting on slow nights. They throw parties called ‘swaps’ where there is a different theme for the frat boy and sorority girls that attend. One was ‘dirty old men and school girls.” The outfits, which are determined by the theme, are ridiculous; but I guess that’s the point. Public humiliation is supposed to humble you I suppose.

Well, I have had a fun personal experience with the afterbirth of such parties. One night a young man was escorted, stumbling, into the dorm lobby wearing a black-tank top and black short underwear. Garnishing his ensemble were nearly knee-high boots covered in electric tape and electric tape wrist bands. He resembled either a professional wrestler or a gladiatorial combatant. We, in the lobby, dubbed him Testicules after the ancient hero Hercules.

His helpful companion pressed the elevator button and asked where Testicules’s room was. The companion received gnarled mumbles for an answer. The elevator opened and the questioning continued while Testicules took a seat on the elevator’s chair…and tipped-over directly to his right side, slamming his head against the elevator’s wall. A hazy eyed chuckle was soon followed by a frown and a rubbing of the quickly knotting area of cranium. In honor of the occasion, or perhaps to prove in retellings that the events were actual, several members of the lobby party snapped pictures of the incident on their cell-phones. They still make me smile.

Later that night, I received a phone call from my room mate alerting me that Testicules was naked and running wild in the dorm! I grabbed April, deciding for her that this life experience was too valuable to miss. We jumped into the nearest elevator and raced down to the lobby, hoping all the way down we would garner a glimpse of a drunken, wildman streaker.

Our hopes were soon dashed. What we were greeted with were stories of the remaining lobby party bearing witness to Testicules baring it all. Apparently his companion had left him on the wrong floor because Testicules was unwilling, or unable, to dispel the proper answer. Apparently the night’s excitement had gotten to our hero, and he took time to vomit all over a bathroom on the third floor. None was in the proper receptacle. He then ventured down the third floor hall, which is occupied solely by girls, smearing his vomit down the length of the hall as he went. He found what would have been his door, had he been on the right floor, and beat it until his hand was sore. When his phantom roommates would not yield, he got back into the elevator and managed to press the lobby button.

When the elevator doors opened onto the lobby he had removed his underwear and revealed himself to the crowd there. How appropriately named Testicules proved to be. I think he might have been kicked out of the dorm, but I am not sure. But any group of so-called brothers that would allow one of their own to disgrace himself, and in proxy the entire group, is suspect. But they are rich and influential and keep political control on campus because the system is run by the machine. I accept this, as do most college students. That does not mean it is right, and something should be done about it. Where does public drunkenness fit into networking, community, and social service?

This is what I get to experience on a weekly basis and I love it. There are few dull moments and many great conversations. I am constantly broadening my horizons with our required readings and I feel like I’m finally becoming a person in society’s eyes. Now if I could just find a way to participate…

For April (Because She Makes Me Happy)

In aging brick buildings on old town squares
Maids open up windows to let the breeze
Into stale, musted offices of aging capitalists
And it reminds them of their mothers or fathers
Doing the same thing when they were children and young.
The maids get in the way of the wind
While dusting the banisters and Phoenician blinds
So the cool air blows around their French uniforms,
Ruffling their white aprons and feather dusters.
But Mother wore summer dresses and Father smoked a pipe
When they would open up the window for their kids at night.
The aging capitalists regret the missing details. And then--
They notice they have sprawled out their files
And notes and type writers or pens
To be blown by the blusters, when the maids are out of the way,
Across the sturdy oak of their antique desks
Because they have more fun reorganizing
Than they do remembering old wives and divorces.
Which happens easier at work,
Because their minds wonder there during the day.
They might think of their maids and files while restacking
And, if lucky, their mothers or fathers, but it seems
They’ll mostly think of their Imported cigarettes
Smelling of chocolates, good tobacco, and French creams
Because smoke breaks are distractions from foreign thoughts attacking.
Those poor fools will never know
The happiness to me you are willing to show.
Sometimes I shame the smile in my eyes
Because you let my spirit live, and we can watch theirs die.

My BUI 104 Paper

The cool breeze drifts through the branches and limbs of pines and maples sending any loose foliage onto the dark brown earth below. The sun stretches across the sky. It is nearly halfway through its daily cycle. The sun gets caught in-between intermingling braches of different tress. Only individual columns of light hit the floor below the canopy. They illuminate the ferns and mosses. Bugs scatter even lower. Red ants gather bits of dark dirt and march them toward the mound. Some carry food to feed the rest of the colony and to help increase the kingdom of the queen. Large worker ants move small rocks out of the path's way with their giant pinchers. They don’t have eyes and can not eat for themselves, so smaller ants clean and feed the larger land movers. Black spiders patter up trees towards large webs strung out between the trunks of trees and low hanging branches. Small wads of silken thread denote future meals for the eight legged trap layers. Large sacks of white signal the next generation while the layers of the eggs guard their investment. Their hair covered legs scramble over their mazes of thread-like web, one stops to repel down back onto the floor riding a single strand of its entrapping and constructing tool. Squirrels dart back and forth over the grass banks between sidewalks and roads searching for whichever morsel of food they may find. Grey squirrels precede their bushy tails up trees and shake limbs sending down their desired dish. Red squirrels with black and white stripes running down their backs hide into holes in the ground the food they’ve found.

The cool breeze is a break from the humid air that hovers over. Patches of grass have faded from the bright green that the majority of grass shines to pale yellow and light browns. Orange leaves crumble on the side walk and in the grass. They were sent to the ground not because of the coming Fall, but because of the heat and lack of rain. The gentle bluster scrapes the dead leaves across the grass and concrete. When they collide they rustle. The wind gathers them in groups at the bases of trees and areas where the grass has grown over the sidewalk. The edges of the sidewalk are covered with the corpses of leaves and lined with mosaic concrete. The square slabs are a steel gray and hold chips of black, cyan, and tope. Each one is different and each one is separated by the spaces in-between the slabs. Kaleidoscopic wax paper, burnt cigarettes, and caked in dirt fill the valleys between the concrete blocks.

Sprinklers leave puddles and tiny streams of sprayed white water on the dirt and sidewalks. They spray water mechanically into the air that mists down onto the grass leaving water droplets. The water makes mud of the rust colored dirt. Pools of filthy water collect in dirt basins. Darting into the puddles, mosquitoes leave ripples that surge outward on all sides to the muddy banks of the tiny lakes. Bike tires slosh the water and mud onto the damp grass and the wetted sidewalk.

The cool breeze blows a haze of clouds near the heat of the sun. They meander in front of the glowing orb and cast shade over stretches of the landscape. When they move away sun light slowly reilluminates the land, stretching and reshaping the shadows. Chill spaces under trees get colder when the clouds create a general shade, but warm up again when they sun beats back down on the land directly. Groups of clouds move together and change color. They turn from a soft white to a steel gray and then to a hazy blue. The threat of rain covers they sky, but the breeze picks back up and blows the would-be storm to another down poor.

The cool breeze stops blowing and the humidity makes the air thick. Fewer animals are seen scurrying about. The squirrels and insects that remain move briskly across small fields of grass. The sun begins its decent toward the horizon and the sky’s color reddens. The bright greens of the grass mellow into light yellow tinged greens. The yellows turn to pale browns. The browns grow darker. The silhouette of the move slowly fades into view. With less sunlight pouring onto the ground and pavement, they start to cool down and the humidity subsides. Squirrels and insects start moving again across the grass plains and sidewalk barrens. Joggers bounce around the brim of blocks of crabgrass and walkers bring curious young dogs onto the sidewalks. They sniff around the ground. When they locate a squirrel they become alert, as does the squirrel and it runs away. The young dog goes back to its sniffing. A faint gust blows by and rustles the dead leaves. They get crushed by any forced applied and crackle when the force is taken off. The vanes of the living leaves carry nutrients to all parts of the leaf and protect it from falling off of the branch. The sprinkler water feeds the trees and grass it reaches. Some trees do not receive the drink and lose their leaves.

The bark of the trees is hard and ridged. Knots and tumors litter some trunks. Others lead to exposed humps of solid roots. Pine needles gather on dusty patches of pale purple dirt under their trees. Some lay in pairs connected at the top by a short sleeve grown over the ends of the needles. The needles do not touch, save for the sleeved end. Fallen needles touch and overlap in piles. The ground is sectioned off in groups of alternating piles. Patches of pine needles circle under trees near the bases while dead and dying leaves cover the ground between the shadows that the tree’s branches and leaves create.

The sidewalks make a web of walk ways. The web divides the large yard of grass into triangular sections. Blue grey fences separate the side walks and grass from a plain of red dirt. The dirt is smoothed flat. Small mounds of earth still rise up against. Tiny red rocks of packed dirt are scattered across the expanse. Tire marks curve and sway over the face of the rust packed earth. The red dirt shines with an orange tint in the lowering sun. It crumbles and falls between the spaces of the metal fences. The steel fence is spotted with white and black. The specks are wrapped all through out the fence. The posts are rounded at the top and flow into cylindrical shafts that plow directly into the ground. The chain length fills the spaces between the posts. The thin circular wire leaves square gaps with rounded corners. Dozens of them form the chain length and serve to keep things outside and in the red dirt yard.

Water geysers from and underground fountain. The water rises into the air and falls back to the mother of pearl cement in the small path. Some of the water mists off into the air. Most of the water pools around square drains. The drains have filters that the water flows through. Though the water pools back down toward its underground source, the cement the water smashes into from the sky remains wet. The water darkens the cement into a green gray. It is slimy and slippery. The water blasting from the ground is entirely white. All of the water that leaves the fountain is falling. From the moment it is shot into the air it begins to fall and does not stop until it hits the cement and flows into the small pools. The center of the fountain is lower than the surrounding cement to allow for pooling and draining.

Black metal benches are scattered across the field of grass under shade trees. Small bushes are nestled against the giant brick walls of buildings. The shrubs are olive green. They are pruned into squares ands rectangles. The shapes keep the branches from the bushes from touching. In front of some walls the bushes are unpruned and the branches tangle and intermingle. The bushes blend into one another. The short black trunks root into the ground and are hidden by the shade from the branches and leaves.

The cool breeze blows onto the dead leaves and pine needles scattering them from where they were resting. The wet areas of sidewalk and cement start to dry. The fountains stop spouting water into the sky. The sprinklers stop showering the grass and trees. The sun fades further into the horizon. Squirrels and spiders, ants and dogs, make their move away from the grass plains. Into trees, colonies, webs, or houses they all move back. The moon grows bright in the sky, stealing its moonlight from the sun’s light. Stars begin to twinkle in the deep purple sky and the humidity makes the air thick again between the burst of chilling breeze. Raccoons and bats start to stir and scavenge or hunt for their meals as night billows from the setting sun and brightening moon.

Wars of Religion

Half of hell screams for the souls of the saintly,
Screeching like a banshee, but heard ever so faintly
By those of us who walk the Earth, caught in between
The war of good and evil, of the gluttons and the lean.

Half of Heaven heralds for the souls of the faithless.
Those who hope to Hell that God is faceless,
Those most interesting transgressors of God’s favorite affront,
Those who will feign to carry their own chains,
But cheat others into taking the brunt.

Angle wings flutter while harp strings mutter
The secretes of demons and the battles they shudder.
Young tears are flow down wondering, blushing cheeks
As days without worship quickly turn to weeks.

Hope for the switches is what empower the books
Of the record keepers and their discriminatory hooks.
They spread their judging glances over the last of our romances
Wishing we would pray that someday we may snap out of our trances.

Sidewalks, Cellphones, and Boyfriends

There’s that awkward time of day between morning and afternoon where everything is still but anxious. Even cars seem unwilling to admit that the day has honestly gotten underway and things should be picking up. There’s always people walking down the sides of streets this time of day, always. It is an unwritten rule of society; when people feel uncomfortable for no reason, they walk on sidewalks. This time of days makes you uncomfortable. Especially when it’s humid, and it was when she suddenly had an epiphany.

That no good piece of trash that she’d been calling her man had to die. She was going to kill him. Even if that only meant breaking up with the bastard, she was going to hurt him as much as she could live with. He did her wrong, and that’s just not kosher.

She couldn’t help but think back to last night and the reason she was walking now. He had been an ass. Arrogant and pompous, he was showing off in front of his friends and basically forgot that the girl he said he loved and had been dating for damn near two years was sitting across the room. Alone. Waiting for him to come sit by her while he was laughing and chatting and having an obviously better time. The prick. He invited her over and ignored her. That’s like buying a goldfish just to watch it die. How malicious! The least he could do was check on her once in a while. Ask if she was fine, or if she needed anything. But he wouldn’t, he’s not the type, so he didn’t. So she sat there. The boy would even change rooms without saying anything to her.

It is an unwritten rule of relationships that if you change rooms at a place where your partner is presently located you should tell them. It’s common curtsy. He didn't. He even went outside to smoke. To smoke! Damn it! She hates the smell of cigarette smoke. It was going to get all over his clothes and completely kill any romantic buzz she might have been able to muster later in the night. She wished she drank. Then she could mask her apathy with drunken passion. He’d like it because he likes her, and he likes her how ever he can get her. Pig.

When your phone rings and you’re in nature, even as synthetic a nature that exist on a college campus sidewalk, you feel like you’re intruding, at least a little. So did she when that familiar tune rang out singing that Satan Incarnate was calling. How dare he. She shouldn’t even answer, that’d show him. Treat her like shit, no sir. She’s her own woman. She is strong. SHE IS GOD!

“Hello…”

“Hey, it’s me. I’m sorry about last night, I got a little carried away with the boys and kind of ignored you. How about just me and you tonight? Diner and a movie at 8:00?”

“Sure, and hey….”

“Yeah…”

“I love you.”