Alright, I'm back. I know I haven't updated for a bit, but I was busy shuttling my entire life down to Baltimore and reconnecting with my people here. It occurred to me over break that my friends at Lohan tend to be either monumentally self-absorbed and -promoting or quiet and inwardly focused to the point of actually deflecting light. My two tightest guys here are probably Granver Elios, who you couldn't pull out of the library with an air raid siren, and Dave Del Mar, whose whereabouts on campus are known at all times, since his every line of conversation is delivered in a shout -- not in an angry way, and oddly not in a manner that becomes annoying; the guy is just so happy to be alive, and pitches his voice accordingly. This is one of those things where I don't know and can't ever find out whether things would be different if I hadn't been born with pieces missing. Between Dave and Granver there is almost no overlap, except that both are absorbed to a huge extent by their own agendas. Is it possible that I can only become good friends with people who are so self-preoccupied that they don't bat an eye when I swing myself onto a couch or hit the dance floor on my fists? Not that I have encountered anything like hostility or even hesitation here at school -- everyone is friendly, if momentarily awkward on first introduction, which I can forgive. Still, I don't know. This is one of those life issues Dr. Seakins recommended I spend a quiet hour thinking about, when there's any number of things I'd rather be doing.
Classes begin Monday, so it has mostly been a weekend of heroic stupidity, early breakfasts paid for with fistfuls of dimes, and way, way too much alcohol. I guess in the interest of full disclosure I should mention that I have been sucking on a bottle of Svedka this evening. It's been a few months since I got properly toasted -- the semester took an early dive in November, and I ended up having to hold myself to a schedule of something like twenty-one shots a day in the run-up to finals week, so I was too cashed to drink in any event. Then I was in Sweden and then home, both of which experiences were disorienting enough without the aid of distillates. All of which is to say that my tolerance seems to have dropped significantly. It was never that high to begin with, for obvious reasons, and I have evidently lost about half the ground gained in the first three semesters of college. This was to be expected. What I didn't foresee was that I have pretty much lost most of the desire to be drunk -- it's just not doing it for me lately. Having your brain revolve like a phonograph record on that needle called equilibrium, seeing each motion in ghostly advance before executing it blurrily -- I don't know. I kind of like having a clear head. This whole last paragraph I have been working on a half liter of Poland Spring, the sobering powers of which are supposedly a myth but usually hold in my case. It is nice to be back at school, nice in a lot of little ways. For right now I feel good just keeping the Vaseline off my vision and appreciating what is there. I'm sure I'll be back into the cocktails by President's Day. (Interestingly, Lincoln's birthstone is the amethyst, which was thought in Greco times to be a powerful ward against the effects of intoxicants. Oh well.)
All right, on a trip to the bathroom I am basically fluid without possessing false knowledge. Bless you, bottled water, and call on me if you ever need a character witness. Also, if anyone is reading this and feels like reminding me tomorrow to for God's sake go get a Dustbuster, I'd be greatly indebted. The hall here is still three steps down from horrific in terms of cleanliness. It's not the maintenance staff's fault; they can't keep up with Heusinger freshmen, and the sophomores are not much better. I hate to be that guy out moving past your room in a Dopplering whoop of whining suction, but on the other hand, I really don't mind so much at all. Empires could be built from the dirt ground into that carpet. Actually, if you are going to be reminding me of things I need to do, be a mensch and add something about getting my bus pass refilled. I need to carve out some new loops of territory in the city's junk orbit. Lohan is a beautiful campus, looking every day like the catalogue, but it has been snapped to death, cut into a billion squares and proudly hung on clothespins. Time to forge new ground. Way past time.
