Fighting blindly through the veil, Onion Rings that do not agree, Jager and Coke or my Shirt, My Kingdom for a Horse.

Disenchantment pervades. I have found myself drunk and lonely in Keeney for the last time. Is their any hope for meeting the Humanities major of my dreams. Does she walk in Elysian fields past Thayer and Waterman?

Rum Night for freshmen sailors and invited guests took a turn for the clear best when Knowles and I returned from Shore's with a handle in possesion and the experience to do it again. Our approach was amateur, and in hindsight, unconditionally hilarious. We were too busy pretending to be 21 (or 25 as Jeff's ID said he was) to hear the cashier ask for our proof of age.

Knowles fumbled the ID then begged pardon and placed it firmly on the counter. It was CLEARLY not him. She rang us up and wished us a good night anyway.

Further down the tracks it was possible to see the hilarity of our misadventure. We cruised back to Keeney and Jeff took a shower. I went to Thayer for cups and Dr. Pepper. Rum night was on as of 9:3o- there was raw ridiculousness by 10:15.

At some point during the evening, I formed the fullness of my alcoholic vision. I had been wasting away in the desert of the real looking for a way through the thin veil into another world.

For the longest time, the content of this higher reality alluded me. I knew that I wanted out of conventional reality and into a higher state, but what exactly was I seeking. What was beyond the veil? What was I trying to get through to?

Two summers of research on the matter left me with a penchant for rum and unapolegetic high tolerance. I was working harder but coming no closer. Midnights on rooftops, street corners or at pool parties were of no consequence. The veil was the sheet I could never touch, and its hidden world was opaqued with the curtain of inescapable reality.

Recently, while reading Hawthorne at the Rock on a weekday, the truth came blazingly clear to my mind. The veil separated my dreams from my reality. My hope in drinking was constantly that the rational framework of conventional reality would turn into the inexact science of imagination that manifested in dreams. I wanted the girls of my dreams, the future of my dreams and the feeling of my dreams. I wanted to realize the potential of my dreams, and for whatever reason, alcohol or drugs seemed the best possible means of breaking that barrier.

Gradually, I began to see the flaws of my pragmatic paradigm. I was drinking heavily but not breaking through. I was getting high but not cutting through the veil. Reality, indefinitely, seemed to chain my ambitions and desires to a etheral construct. A rational framework threatened to subordinate hope to its cruel logic.

Reality, at least in connotation, is always harsh and difficult. There is nothing pleasing about reality. It is always abrasive. It is never perfected.

Dreams are why we sleep at night. Exhaustion is a subconcious reminder that terrible and inspiring visions lay just outside of reality when you close your eyes and let the engine of your imagination take over. But they too are imperfect- manipulating dreams violates their piercing vision. Ignoring dreams is ignoring the prophecies of your soul.

Tonight, I recognized in fullness what and where the ideal man must live. At the cross roads of dreams and reality, the modern imaginative man can live happily and in great contentment. But blending the two realms is impossible. They are exclusive and incapable of balance. They are seperate and not given to sharing.

Instead, one must live in the very curtain I was once trying to cut down. The enemy of my past is now the hero of my present. At the intersection of dreams and reality one can fully indulge the senses and the emotions simultaneously.

In the veil, live is worth the living we've always hoped for.

Collegiate Racing in Newport, Sober Saturdays, Front page with a photo, Sprinting for Comp Sci, Smoking in Rome.

Saturday fleshed out another, now characteristic night of alcohol-free events. I sat in my room reading and talking with hallmates about dating, date-rape, and the police brutality scandal that had recently been on everyone's mind.

SDS was instigating a witch hunt-like hysteria within unprepared. Their "Speak-Up!" campaign was an excuse for radicals to take shots any the institution point-blank without any need of evidence or prior reports. Their emails bore an almost laughably anarchistic sign-off.

"Stay interested, Stay involved, Stay angry."

I was angry about another night dedicated to recognizing the foolishness of the University. Saturday's were getting weaker by the weekend, and that wasn't just because I was sober.

I went to bed at 2:00 despite a concrete knowledge that I would have to be up by 8:00 the next morning to catch a ride to racing in Newport.

In the morning, a stiff wind welcomed fantasies of successful rookie sailing. I checked the NOAA website and found out people were prescribing a howler for Newport. Winds possible 20-25 knots with gusts up to 35.

I was stoked.

Dougie met me and my Argentian skipper at Louis' on Brook Street. I had a bagel and some cranberry juice. Doug got a full order of blueberry pancakes.

We packed into the 'DeathTrap' and coasted out of Providence. It was first time out of the city since August 30th. It would be my first time in Newport since college began.

Doug did a steady 95 - 100 on the freeway. We crossed into Massachusetts five minutes out of PVD. We were back in Rhode Island fifteen minutes later. Early morning traffic on the island slowed things up a bit, but I knew the back roads and we were at Sail Newport by 9:20.

I had learned to sail at this very club. I had learned to race in this very harbor. I had taught others how to race and how to sail from powerboats on this bay- I was undeniably home.

I was in my element.

Rough conditions on the ocean gave 23 knots of steady breeze, serious chop, and steady six foot swells. We were dressed to the teeth, spray jackets, pants, gloves, rash guards, boots, thermals and stapped life vests. For a bit of Brunonian pride, I wore the crazy lame hat some alumni had donated for the incoming class of 2010. Our allegiances were clear. It was time to race.

Friends and former best friends made up a contingent of our competitors. There was Jared Stearns, back from the days when he and I were the best junior Laser sailors in Newport, and Ben Quatromoni from Abbey Soccer. Rachel Johnstone, my fellow Cervantes scholar was also in the mix sailing for Connecticut College. Marisa, girlfriend to co-worker/drinker/sailing instrutor Josh G, was also present sailing with Quatro for URI.

It was like old times. Only in Newport can you go to a regatta and see everyone from your childhood.

Doug and Susan took the first set on the water as the A boat. They came back soaked and told us it wsa lightening up.

It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, lightening up. Sala, my Argentinian Skipper, and I rocked an intense down wind sequence for soem practice. We parcticed some bullet tacks and some serious hiking. The racing started quickly and the course was simple. We kicked it off a small line to a distant upwind mark, then cruised back down through the line to finish.

Sala and I blasted it off a 5, a 7, and then nailed a sweet bullet in the third race. On the upwind leg near the mark, there was a crazy rightie that dropped the layline two boatlengths if you could read it. By the third race, I was calling our layline dead on, and we rocked a conservative downwind leg to chalk up a solid bullet. We nailed a 5 on the last race, after losing serious boats in a ducking war.

In the secodn set, Sala and I really opened up on the downwinds. We started plaing hte board (up or almost all the way up) and ooch to catch waves on the downwind. We passed Connecticut College on the downwind in the fifth race and chalked a second and a third for the afternoon.

Brown secured Bronze on the regatta, finishing over URI and Tufts but just under Salve and Connecticut College.

It was an absolute blast. My legs never hurt me so much in my life.

------------------------------------------------

Later adventures in Providence living left me with a story on the front page on the BDH (above the crease this time) and with a finished play on lightsabers and genitalia for the Production Workshop. Thinking a head had left me prepared for my classes and feeling secure. MCM was fucking my mind every which way, as I struggled to understand Dadaism and the poetry of Hugo Ball.

Karawane, the sound poem of Ball's days in Zurich, in cubist costume and with powerful Germanic gothic typeset challeged everything I knew. In the end, I was left with a Yoko Ono quote to figure things out.

"Draw a map to get lost" was all the future Lenonite had to offer.

I smoked up with friends in a secret location near the University called Rome. Where we were I had no idea, but I was quickly on my way to mapping out lost living, and I didn't care what consequences the experiment might play out on my mind.

Yale, Jager, and RonDiaz Rum glisten in the future.

We're all friends here.

The casualities will continue until the war ends.

Fellini, Truth in the Witching Hour, BoxersArgylSweaterVestPinkPoloRedAllStars, Keys on the Shoe, Curtain Call, Nudity, Harvard Beats Brown, Victory in Society.

Illicitness.

My Dad used to tell me "Never swing at the first pitch."

It was my constant mistake. Fly balls to center field and grounded hits to the shortstop turned into double plays.

Life at college makes me aware of the same philosophy. You can never take the first thing you are offered or hell itself will follow behind.

For me, for my example, it was lady destiny that I took too soon. I knew I would. I lack discipline and covet the beautiful things of this world with haste. I took my go too soon, and I was left cursing that vehicle of glory. The erudite become the pretentious when made aware of their genius.

Reconstructing last night creates a composite of alcohol as my anti-drug, my sparkplug and my kryptonite. I didn't know where I was when it wokre me up this morning and I only had the poster of Clark Gable on the far wall to inform me that the room was not mine.

Knowles and I got back from sailing with a hunger. He had lost his Brown ID and now had no meal creadits. I offered to un-used meals- but we opted for dumplings with Henry on Thayer Street instead.

Schuyler met us at the Happy Dumpling and accompanied us to the Sailing House on Keene Street. There were burgers and beers available. I didn't care what happened later. It was raw happiness at the Animal House off Thayer.

I showed Shuyler the Laser Bar in the basement. I showed him the team pennant and the multiple keg taps. I invented a mythology for the house and explained its importance in the annals of Ivy League Yachting. I took another beer from the fridge and brought extras to the boys outside who were waiting for the freshmen to bring out more beers anyway.

We wound up at Pembroke finding old Abbey friends and intiating the new ones. Jay Popham will not remember last night. But I will remember helping him forget it.

Headaches in the morning reminded that we had had more to drink than ever before. There were the first four beers at Keene Street by 9:00. There was long pulls of Bacardi in the hallway of fourth floor Wooley. There was shots of vodka with Schuyler. There was wine somewhere. There was more beer at the Diva party. There was weed wafting somewhere up the stairs.

But I didn't really care what was available. We were all in the same boat. Freshmen desperation manifested in grossly pre-mixed beverages and messy pre-gaming.

I had nothing to hide; I was dressed in a tight pink polo, an Argyl sweater vest, boxer shorts and a pair of red chuck All Stars. It was all for the best.

It would all be for the best.

Drinkning in MoChamp became dancing in a New Pembroke Lounge. I was kissing in hallways- taking beers from Frankie and wishing him a happy birthday. I was back in the dance kissing, and demanding that Joy in soberiety, not judge the misadventures of my debauchery.

I will never live them down.

We were back in Em-Wol on the fourth floor like the weekend before. There was toplessness and boys from Harvard who swore they had never partied like this before.

We gave the Crimson gentleman shit and the obliged our assumptions that Brown parties harder.

It does, definitely, I've had it from the Horse's Mouth.

We were leaving the drunken techno grind that was Em-Wol fourth floor. We were dancing down Thayer street in boxers and tights. The police tipped their hats to kids who were breifly the smartest people in the world, and now would never be any longer.

We were back in Poland and I was demanding the speakers from Evan in coitus. I told him the people needed music. He disagreed. I dragged the speakers across the quad and locked the Apple Laptop to the grating. The Party was on.

Bottled water from two stories up ended the sheninigans. I was begging mercy from a fellow CS 15 student and he gave it on account of expensive computers and Andy van Dam.

We were upstairs in Archibald 5th floor raving like mad men.

It was snowing.

I was asleep with a wonderful girl watching Fellini.

I was waking up in an unfamiliar place and begging forgiveness.

I was asleep in my room at two o'clock, and the sea-fever came over me.

I got up.

Magic Bus, Melancholia, Desperate Paper Writing, Alarm Clock Failure,
And Dactylic Hextameter.

More misadventures in the realm of Sobriety. Keeping myself clean for a History Paper that has consumed my concerns for almost a week and half, I found myself at the cusp of completing the four page asssignment last night before the Midnight target I had set for myself.

The Boom/Click of Reformatting destroyed that dream and left me gasping for breath. I was doing laundry in the O-Zone. I wanted to toke up outside and be done with the paper that had consumed my soul.

There was nothing to be done. The Re-Formatting was unreversible. Only 2 and half hours of correction would make it work. It was the only way.

Eventually, I went to get my clothes out of the dryer. They had been in the machine for nearly an hour and half. But the clothes weren't dry. There was no heat in the machine.

Vaguely I remembered the Out of Order sign on the machine when I put my clothes in. At the time it seemed like a move to reserve the dryer. The place was packed with people. I couldn't afford to wait. I put the clothes in the machine, the money in the coin slot and watched it begin to revolve.

Out of Order? Nice Try. I knew how to see the work of shiesters and charlatans.

By Midnight, with no clear end of my paperwork in sight, I realized that the machine was indeed out of order. I got money and started the drying in another unit.

It would be a long night. I would get the clothes later.

I would be up when this hour of drying was complete.

By 2:15, I had finally finished the paper and created a new intro. I closed the computer and went back to the room.

I remembered the laundry and picked up the clothes. On my way I secretly expected all of my boxers to be gone- stolen no doubt, by the manifested figure of my dire fate.

The clothes were all there though, and I came up to my room with a basket full of freshly washed shirts, jackets, underwear and more.

I went to sleep, conciously setting the alarm for 9:30 AM.

There would be time for another once over and a for a revision. There would be time to print and correct last minute errors in the text. The essay was due at 10:30 exactly. There would be time.

Dreams gave way to pure sunshine. I gave the alarm clock a glance and jumped up. Liquid Crystals displayed the time for all the room to witness- it was 10:30.

I hopped up- panickedly printed my paper and dashed out the door. There was no time for revision. There was no time to even ascertain that the paper I had printed was indeed the final draft of the essay in question.

NO TIME.

I ran up to the Pembroke Campus a good 1/2 mile up hill. It was five blocks. I did it in about one minute. When I got into the classroom, the Professor was finalizing the pile of papers and looking around the room distractedly. I feigned a trip and slid the paper into the pile.

I retreated, and prayed that the horrors of the last 24 hours might somehow yield true genius and a high letter grade.

The pessimist in me however reveals another sentiment: the righteous expectations of my soul are highly unlikely.

Brazil, Pushing Macs at the Bookstore, Losing the Battle to Berman, Visits from Laura,
DISENCHANTMENT

Saturday became the matyr of sobriety. I just didn't want to drink anymore. Alcohol felt like a putrid concoction of wastefulness and nightmares.

It was available, but I was uninterested. I wanted pot, but it was unavailable.

Evan and I wandered around Campus trying to connect the dots. A last alliance of Tucker, Schuyler, Evan and Myself formed the core of kids who weren't getting drunk or were not drunk as of yet at least. We strolled from Keeney to Josiah's to Wriston to Keeney and then off to the Avon.

It was midnight, film geeks were assembled on Thayer like oprea aficionados awaiting a performance at the met. The doors were just opening as we walked up. Tucker and Shuyler had long since abadoned ship. Sky Sky had gone in search of a bellydancing girl and Tucker was giving in to invites from the swim team to a thing off campus.

Evan and I alone, artistic purists in every sense, were willing to throw a lost saturday night to projected shadows and integrated sound.

The film was Brazil, a blazing, dystopian Christmas Carol that tripped out like hard drugs delievered visually. I couldn't deal with it. I sat there identifying parallels and actors and subliminal directing touches that connect the film to other Gilliam or Phyton projects.

The movie got out at 2:30. I would not sleep for another two and half hours. Evan and I could feel the movement of ducts on the main green. It was impossible to deny the singular genius of Brazil.

Why was it called Brazil? Why was it set at Christmas? What purpose did the Santa motif serve?

Questions unanswered and unexpectedly profound. The film was a sort of summer reading assignment for people with nothing else to do.

In many ways, the sheer fright that Brazil's dystopian paper golem unleashed on me was exactly what Hunter S. Thompson was seeing in Fear and Loathing. Looking around the Circus Circus and getting the "fear," Thompson was watching our movie. Ironically, or predictably I suppose, Gilliam had directed both of them. There was no way to tell which way I was falling but I was falling fast.

Laura's visit on friday, less than 24 hours prior, had been a sudden splurge of sunshine in a dark, dystopian state. I was disenchanted with Brown. I am disenchanted. Drunk people wasting away fridays and saturdays in the quest for being so fucked up that they wouldn't remember their actions the next day. Was memory so inconsequential? Did they really care so little about what they did? Were their actions so restricted under normal conditions that they required alcohol to predicate foolishness and stupidity?

Is alcohol freedom? Are inambitons the negative products of a taboo driven society?

I didn't give a fuck. I wanted no part of the debauchery- it wasn't even debauchery. Passing out in a bush and needing emergency assistance was stupid not romantic.

I walk around waiting to find that artistic, intellectual core that is the promised heart of Brunonia. Does it even fucking exist? Is it even worth finding? I have followed no name streets to classrooms that the world has forgotten looking for the Ivy League dream I will be forever in debt for?

Disenchantment is spelled like suicide on an emotional surface, and while I continue trying hunt down the fragments of broken dreams and photographs, I wonder if it has at all been worth it.

Do the people in the Library at 2:00 on a Sunday morning party til the sun comes up the next day? Are we in the midst of a class struggle? Is their any pot left in Providence? Midnights make the mornings look brighter than the day before, and I have felt no better finding best friends at Faunce for studying.

She left a book on the table and an addiction to cheap cigarettes in my body memory. I will burn in the conflagration of caring. I will burn her book and delete phone numbers that link us.

I will be free.

I will be re-enchanted, if the dream will take me again.

Nipple Clits, Porn, Erotica, Writing, Film, Getting Published in the BDH, Sailor Parties and ridiculousness-

I write from Kirsten's room somewhere deep in Unit Six. I had violated boundaries beyond the typical. I had applied, asked what type of clothing i would assign myself I said a G-string, I had been approved.

Talking Heads playing in the background. Reminded me that the boys who had started the Art Rock Revolution had gone to school but 1500 feet from the room I was writing.

The Sailing Party left me krunk and crazy. Where the fuck was Geoff? I had been doing so well. Studying well, taking notes, gettign up for classes- doing what I was supposed to.

But there is no solve-all for Alcoholisn. Kirsten found me on the floor outside her room and took pity on the drunk that the Sailing Team had kicked out onto Thayer Street. She gave me a water and a computer to write this ridiculousness on.

She was at once an angel and the muse of the beauty in which I revolved in.

Fuck Yale, Harvard and the Rest of the Ivy League- They do not know drunken debauchery with a consentual sexual element.
Women;s Peer Consuleours at Brown invented Intercourse (true story, I learned about it at HI 110), and I, some people in Keeney, and the Sailing Team perfected it.

I spent the early part of the day trying to make sense of Computer Science. I ended up drinking away my confusioon. Accessors and Mutators were suddenly shades of the same colored horse.

Would I get up in the morning? Will I get up in the morning? I have NO idea. It will be a question of my intoxiation, my feelings in the morning, and whether or not the Alarm clock wakes me up.

I published my first article to the Brown Daily Herald today. It was on the front cover- can you imagine? I think I might write again. I think I might write again for the people who read this absurdity and wonder Where I live, Where I am going, and how I plan to get there?

My sentiments exactly.

Ever read a history of the internet?

Ever read a history of the internet on weed?

It's September 11th- I always wrestle with this occasion. When the towers first fell, I was living in a small town outside Boston. The airport was directly next to the town. I remember walking over to the fence that separated the Airport from the town and wondering how something so awful could have come so close to me.

Media manipulation, an imperialistic presidency and the subversion of American liberties have died this holiday black. I once believed in the power and comraderie that Bush as counted on for support. Once. After the horrors of this day became a pretext for invasion and colonization, I have fear that I have had to put the patriotism of America on hold.

People died today. They didn't know where they were going or what was going to happen. Heroes were formed. The world was changed. Things were altered indefinitely. But at what cost to Americana?

Before the attack, media attention was sparse and barely sustainable. After, people turned blindly to 24 hour news networks that promised answers and up-to-the minute updates. At the time, having the most up-to-date information was a badge of pride. I know what the Pentagon just released- I believe that there is another press confrence in about 4 hours time.

But now, attacks over and averted become spurs for motivating a populous driven by fear. People in middle America fear terrorist attacks more than New Yorkers. In the election of 2004, New Yorkers voted heavily for John Kerry. They didn't buy into Bush's plan of protection and continued service. They didn't buy the fight in Iraq as the defense for America.

Farmers in rural nowhere, America bought the Christian, oil-for-freedom defense strategy. Most of them had not even seen an Muslim in their entire lives. Like the ideological purists that had first attacked the US five years ago, the protected muslim-hating elements within a shell of ignorance. The Christian Right watches Fox News like the Islamic extremists watch Al Jazeera. They are similiar elements of opposite polarities.

And somehow, despite educated moderates in both realms, the purists win out in support and ideological instigation. The extremist agenda wins over the cause for consideration.

-------------------

Good classes today.

EL 171 - Photography and the American Novel hit a nerve that was simultaneously touched on by MC 10 and ultimately expressed by Professor Tribe in MC 75.

"Is the Media the Message?"

I find myself connecting otherwise dissimiliar elements in the cause to synthesize my education. There is much to learn. I have to read a history of the Internet, an introduction of Java Parameters, and some translated first-hand medieval documents for the Crusades chapter tomorrow morning.

And what of entertainment? What of fun, girls, sex, orgies and alcohol?

They are for other days. I already smoked up on the green and tripped out alone to electronica in my room.

The hipster labelled seems to have tracked me down and to have expressed my core values to a group of otherwise individual individuals. Becoming a label feels like joining a team where you have no position. Will I lose my name? Will I become a phrase? A label?? A listless distillation of essence?

I got work to do:
1 Comp Sci Assignment due tomorrow afternoon
1 Set of internet readings for Modern Culture & Media
1 Crusades essay to work/move forward with
1 Chapter of Andy van Dam theoretical work to get thru with

Vaporizers, Midnight Chemistry, and Absolut Belated Birfday -
Brown University Blows My Mind

We started off at Josiahs for a late evening snack. I was sure that it was a Quesdilla night, but much to my disappointment, I discovered that the Stir Fry was actually on the schedule.

We left Jo's and walked up to the Store 24 on Thayer. I bought cups, a bottle of Dr. Pepper, a bottle of Coca Cola (classic) and a bag of Fritos.

Only later in the evening would I fully understand the importance of the Fritos.

We started pre-gaming in my room with a half liter of Bacardi that Paul had brought up on the visit from Portsmouth Abbey. Mixing first with Dr. Pepper (the preferred mixer for Rum of any sort) and then with Coke, Poland House found itself lookign warm and effervescent.

We- Dave, Collen, Joy, and myself- began the evening by going up to Tuckers room were he had recently installed $100 of qualitity dance electronics. They were just chilling in that room so we rolled further into Keeney and found ourselves with Mischa on the fourth floor of Jameson overlooking the film noir Providence cityscape.

Mischa was deep on the pot. Using a German manufactured Vaporizer, Mischa vaporized his already high quality weed to create a pure, transculent THC that slowly filled up a large plastic trashcan on top of the machine. Once the thing had filled completely, Mischa would take the bag off, attach a mouthpiece, and offer the device to a ready circle of parisioners.

I took several hits, while putting away the Miller Lites that some kid was distributing out of a backpack. By the time, I had found Evan downstairs and brought him back to the party, things were COMPLETELY out of control. Seven or so Freshmen guys were circled around the 15 inch MacBook Pro and were tripping out to Steve Jobs designed visualizations.

I got a call from Schuyler and met him back at my room on the second floor. He was with Julie D, of Portsmouth Abbey fame, and together they had purchased me a bottle of Absolut.

Across the top of the bottle, scoth tape over the Label were the words

ABSOLUT BELATED BIRFDAY

So we hit that, and within a few moments, all of the Absolut was gone. A flashdance party formed and rode the instant intoxication. Dave found a six pack of Budweiser in the fridge and distributed it. I was dancing on the desk and singing songs with people who didn't know where they were.

When the Party finally broke up (on account of drought) I was whisked away to Wriston Quad and into the melee that is Fraternity Partying.

There were WAY too many people at Phi Psi so I went across the Quad to Sigma Chi and began dropping names until I struck solid gold finding a member of the sailing team and telling him that I needed to talk with Preston inside.

Dave and I were in and off. We took a couple of beers and watched the quirks of an alternate Beirut. We got out, tried a second pass at Phi Psi and finding myself again unable to get in, sat outside with Rachel, Kirsten and Chantal smoking cigarettes with some other people that I did not know.

I vaguely remember reciting a version of Ginsberg's 'A Supermarket in California' for the masses.

We got in. I danced with Maggie, of B.U.S.T. , and with some other girls whose name came to me miraculously in the sweating air.

I went outside with Chanti, Kirsten and some other people. I began to slip out of conciousness.

I felt very cozy and cuddly.

I felt like a care bear.

Gradually, I started to see what space Chantal occupied in my mind. She was like my dreams- ephemeral, intellectual- at a level that was vastly beyond my abilities. Me chasing her, me following her, lusting for her, hoping for her and wishing for her, was like coveting my ambitions. She was perfect, and I, in definitional imperfection, was no match for the erudite francophile.

And it was all symbolic. After dropping off my test assignement for the Brown Daily Herald, and picking up my first "real" assignment, I was outside of Tealuxe on Thayer waiting to meet with lady destiny.

I burned my tongue on tea that was too hot and had a hard time singing or talking for the rest of the night. I smoked three cigarettes on the stairs of Faunce House and couldn't remember the limitations my body had set for itself. I wandered aroung the upper campus, with beautiful Chantal, and I couldn't find intimacy.

But this was too be expected.

She is my dreams. She exists in a future paradigm that I can neither see nor understand. It was obvious that I couldn't compete- no one could. She was busy giving out her number, teasing other, even more accomplished men, and trading quirps with wise men many years older.

I didn't know how to compete. I had no idea how to summit the insurmountable.

So we walked around the campus, talking and confessing. I was taking photographs, perhaps trying to visualize fully what my dreams looked like. Perhaps trying to sketch the shape of my ambitions more fully.

There was no hope. No hope on Thayer or off it. There was no hope on the Main Green, and no hope near Carrie Tower. I retired with Chantal to her room. It was 1:00 in the morning.

I left with a hug and the knowledge that we were best friends.

Just best friends.

"Are you aware that you have a light on in your trash can? ... Oh wait a minute, that's the sun."
-- Dave "The Libertine Libertarian" Gagnon in an Early morning drunken stupor

"Are you fucking serious? You were BLASTING classical music!"
-- A member of the Brown Democrats, clearly securing another vote against the GOP

"Dave Gagnon is now single."
- Headline of the new feed on Facebook

They changed facebook while we were sleeping. It was like some sci-fi film where overnight, everything you knew and held true was now gone. Since Saturday, the Brown campus had been beset by tragedy. In a freak accident, Steve "the Croc Hunter" Irwin had been impaled by a stingray barb through the chest, and promptly died. Added to the universal tragedy of Pluto's demotement, things on college hill were not well.

After a brief introduction to History 110 - "The Crusades", I was left to piece together the immense tradition that was walking through the Van Wickle Gates. Fortunately, I found friends on their way to the event, who were armed with packets and information, and confident that things would be alright.

Walking down the hill, the conversation turned suddenly to facebook, and the outrage that something so universal could be so quickly erased. They hadn't exactly erased Facebook, but the re-formatting took the soul out of the thing. I felt lost in a digital newsroom of sorts when I first booted up. A series of headlines and feeds greeted me to "the new Facebook."

And across the top, in bold letters, the call sign of the apocalypse reared its ugly head. Highlighted with a pink heart and bolded for posterity, was the message "Dave Gagnon is now single."

The world had changed fundamentally.

We strolled up College Hill and through the iconic gates into the University. It was formal now, we were all Brown Students. We only had one way back out of those gates, and it lay a good deal off in the distance.

Faculty members in full academic regalia appaulded our entrance and marked the occasion with hopeful faces. As Jeb took pictures with a disposabal camera, there was a sense of grandeur and satisfaction. I was at once honored and humbled. I had truly arrived at Brown, I was truly expected to make something of myself.

Lunch followed lectures that should not have been given. At the Ratty, the Facebook dialogues continued. Dave had recently discovered that a group of his former friends had de-friended him on account of a political change of heart.

After spending time at Brown for but a couple of days, Dave changed his political status on Facebook from 'Conservative' to 'Libertarian'. It was an almost laughable change. On Facebook, profile alterations of this kid were virtually unoticeable. There would be almost no one to notice such trivial things unless the person in question was so ridiculously plugged in, that they monitored the "Recently Updated Friends" with near fanatical devotion. This was unwaveringly absurd. Political views were conversation starters, not cause for war or strife.

But this kid, apparently, was a crazy motherfucker. In fact, as Dave explained thoroughly at lunch, the kid in question was a proto-facist whose grip on reality centered mostly on wire-taping and other applications of the Patriot Act. He loved it. So when Dave switched view points, this kid shit an brick. Exercising Mussoulini like precision, the facist from Bates formed a coalition of the willing to de-friend Dave and put him in his place. Their prescribed motivation was that Dave had absorbed liberal bullshit on College Hill and fallen into the political purgatory that was Libertarianism.

(Interesting sidenote on this kid, he supports the Death Penalty for small misdemeanors like theft, shoplifting and jaywalking. Stuff like Drunken Driving requires medieval quartering, or death by public hanging. Just some additional ideological information. Just something to thing about.)

Anyway, I ran out of lunch to catch CS 15 with Andy van Dam at MacMillan Hall. Known for his absolute CS prowess, Professor van Dam made a dramatic entry. Kids from his classes had formed Pixar after graduating Brown. "Andy" in Toy Story was actually named for him- a frightening bit of information for a kid who believed that the course would kill him already.

----------------------------

A few hours later, and I was at the Avon on Thayer watching Little Miss Sunshine with Evan, and Dave "the now single man of Middle Keeney" Gagnon. About 1/4 of the way through the movie, things started to go directly to hell. The projection went out of focus, then out completely, and then the feed turned into the pure white light that is film manna.

It was a beautiful film. Profound, stirring and absolutely appalling. Combined with the light rain falling outside of the theater when we left, the feeling of the experience was sublime. I was tripping on intellectual provocation and the midnight drizzle stimulation.

It was a powerful experience.

Around the corner on Thayer, we found a man playing the Saxphone and narrating his "famous one minute Oprea" between bouts of classic brass and smoking breaks. His glasses were duct taped and thick with scratches. But he was Providence, Rhode Island invested in the body of a man, and for a dollar or two in the hard shell saxphone case, he would tell you your national fortune.

We strode down an empty Thayer and through a deserted Main Green that only hours before had hosted Pizza tasting and before that, Convocation. We had indeed been called together. But were we already drifting apart? There was no one here on the agora academia, and it was only 11:00. What was wrong with these people?

--------------------

Midnight conversations with Kirsten left me in a mood of utter contentment. Over Quesidillas and Nantucket Nectars we had already achieved intimacy.

I had known her already by many names. She had been "Shrooms" in the reflections of a drunken night, and a chorus member in the adventures of other evenings. But now, with her nursing NeuroScience, a smoking habit, and a love for DARK movies, there was more to the beautiful girl than I could ever imagine. I was meaning to be pretentious in any regard, but Kirsten, like the talent that is Brown women, blew me away with her staggering wit and great insight.

And she was beautiful. That is worth mentioning, because it is always worth mentioning and because I had already "accidentally" described her as Liza Menilli-like, which was unfair.

We sat on my bed discussing disconnects with Alma Mater and the trouble with Brown decadence. We thought about finding the Brunonian Dream and what it would mean to other people.

But already, in our shared experience, the specter of the dream was forming. It had been Sunday night on the top of the V - Dub where we could see everything we needed to sustain college living, looked over Thayer Street like Olympian Gods, and stayed up drinking and smoking until the materials necessary had been exhausted.

There was only one way on and off the roof. And that, if nothing else in my collected fragmentary drunken allusions, had to be the main nerve of the college dream known as Brunonia.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday

For a while, Friday - Saturday was all soccer games and Genny 14s. Without classes to steady students or Pluto to guide the stars, we were all like crazy people wandering aimlessly.

The soccer had team had unleashed a media blitz on the campus and made it socially mandatory to attend their first game. I walked up with Evan, Alanna, Neko, Laura, Dani, Emmy and Jinaabah, my constant companion. The game took a while took a while to get going. In the meantime, I sat next to a crazy Swimmer named Tucker who sat busily descrbing the techniques of swimming and the excitement of leaving among such eligible bachelors as the Swim Team might be considered.

I was excited when the game started. Brown looked good, disciplined, and without weakness. Its offense and Defense were equally skilled and had no trouble coordinating. Brown went up 1 - 0 in the 28th minute off a cross from the right flank. USD equalize before the half was out, but we left anyway. It was far too cold to stay.

Walking back, I called Travis and asked him what he was up to. DelBonis was having some people over his room and had "a fair amout" of alcohol available.

We got DRUNK.

---------------------

Saturday night corresponded with my salvation.

She was a sweet little brunette whose name had been running around my mind like a song whose catchy chorus wouldn't leave alone.

But I got her, in the end, I got her for a space and time that can only ever be ours.

Saturday Night's affairs were centered around a Freshmen Dance and a party at Delta Tao afterward. Evan kicked it off a little early, by making an appearance at St. Anthony Hall, and in the process losing my keys. (The truth was, we were quite lost, a little drunk and without any sense of direction. It is at times like these that indentured servants like keys tend to excuse themselves from dire situations and flee closed pockets.)

Evan was dressed as a Jedi in a bathrobe that I had lent him. I was dressed as Al Pacino from Scarface with a pimp, pin-striped suit and an Italian dress shirt that I unbuttoned far down my chest. The dance was supposed to be a superheroes gala, so neither Evan nor I were dressed properly for the occasion.

It was unnecessary.

Inside the dance, raw debauchery had broken out in all directions. Self-aware hussys had seized on the opportunity of superheores to wear virtually nothing. Thuggish jocks and frat-boys-to-be were shamlessly shirtless and entirely self-absorbed.

Grinding to the bass-driven rap only amplified the anonymity. Without seeign the face of the girl I was groping, my decisions seemed strangely uncomfortable.

I was also sober. That is worth noting because everyone else was QUITE drunk/high/hallucinating/tripping out various pharmacueticals or perhaps more illegal substances.

I got a text from Chanti and saw that she was on her way to the sordid affair, dressed as QuailMan, and already quite drunk. There were already forty QuailMen in the assembled mob of people inside the dance. I had no way of finding her or anyone else I knew in the dim, dimly light dance hall.

It was then that Fate, the finger of pointed destiny, rescued my obscure ashes.

Out the darkness and the dancing, Chantal formed quickly. She smiled and took my hand.

We danced for 45 minutes.

Exhausted, the Jersey girl required a smoke and a breather on the Pembroke Lawn. We left the dance and I nursed the growing nicotine addiction in my chest.

So I was at the dance, then in a room in Poland, then realizing that my keys were indeed missing and that I had know way of bringing her back to my room, I took her to the party at D - Tao.

-----------------------------

"Evan, hurry up. It's there across the way. The fucking portal to truth we've been waiting for. It's a fucking rave and it's off the hook."

My smoking habit has picked up substantially as of late. A couple of nights ago, I was under the arch a Wayland smoking the air with English Aristocrats. A night later, I was puffing Marlboros with a girl so cute and intelligent, I dared not leave her side.

Her name was Chatal, thought, at the time i met her, I thought her name was Chatao and had immense trouble pronouncing it. On Friday, we had spent the better part of the witching hours talking about hopelessnes and the end of the American Republic. I was intoxicated by her brilliance. She was brash, pretentious, and all-encompassing.

She was me, and seeing her there in the midnight mirror, I wanted her more than anything else.

But there were complications. A ghost of friend, Eric, haunted her steps. He, like me, was in love with the spirit of informed youth invested in the body of Chantal. She was the flower of New Jersey, and how badly did we want her.

The saga of Chantal took the ups and downs I might attribute to Virgil, Homer or Milton. At each turn in the story, I could feel myself slipping into a classical caste. I was Dante, and Beatrice was beyond reach. I was Petrarch and Laura was havign none of me.

I was me, and Chantal was the greates thing since sliced bread. Stars dim when she sleeps in Elysian Fields. Rough waves calm when she puts her hand to the shore. Uncouth men, who have spent mornings, evenings and autumns chasing dreams, give up those ambitions to chase her.

But this is neither here nor there. Lost in a developing Smoking habit, I worried that I might never escape.

At every possible opportunity, I was smoking Cloves or Marlboros or Cohibas with the girl of my dreams.

-------------------------------

Saturday came on hard, like a unexpected guest that had plans for you and him, and would never excuse you for sleep. Looking for food, Evan and I found ourselves indebted to Jinaabah for the chance to eat better food at an elite minorities conference.

Chantal was there. The damn siren was dressed in a neon yellow soccer jersey with the name "CHANTI" across the back. I imagined strolling through the cocktail tables and pausing for a moment in front of her.

"Chantal, I want you more than anything."

I would kiss her in a style Clark Gable would've admired.

But this was Brown. That would be some sort of Sexual Harassment. It would not be wonderful or romantic. It would offensive and awful.

I feared the loss of the romantic in me.

So Evan and I sat through the Third World's annual 'Rapping and Dining' luncheon. It was great. I settled many of my personal squabbles with the concept of Minority support. I learned about the imperialism of Americana and the rooting out of indigenous Native cultures across the world.

Coca Cola killed the Conch Republic and other depictions of mass-marketing in the US choking out the beautiful delicate flowers of other cultures.

But this is another digression.

It was early and I was still drunk. The night before had spent drinking beers with Travis, Brendan and the assorted sophomores that I had met on a visit to the University. We walked over to New Pembroke from the soccer game, which had been remarkably well-attended. Travis was out on the corner of Thayer with a Bud Light and a long board. He guided us back to the room and we began drinking. We were watching 'White Men can't Jump.' We were all white men who couldn't jump.

At 10 past 10 I asked Travis if I could get a run to the liquor store down the street. He asked Brendan if he had his fake and if he was willing to take on the job. He said he would. I sat outside of 'Spirtus Fermenti' awaiting my 30 rack of PBR. Only at Brown would the liquour store be called 'Spirtus Fermenti'.

We drank til the end of 'White Men' then rolled back to Poland. I was carrying the 30 in my left hand down Brown Street with cops smiling at me. Did they know I was underage? Did they care?

We got into the room and did a round of Peaches. Chantal called an explained coincidentally that she was drinkign downstairs. I went downstairs and got her. I brought up the dregs of a party in Everett 106 to Poland 222. I put on music and cracked open the 30. 35 people were dancing in my room with no time to spare.

When the beer ran out the boom town started to disentegrate. Schuyler came in and asked if I had anything left. I smiled and popped open the microwave where the reserves sat warm and waiting.

The FlashDance left people with powerful buzzes walking all over the lower campus. I stuck with Chantal, the kid that followed her everywhere and a girl with a shrooms obsession. Shrooms looked a lot like Liza Menilli. It was fun. Outside, a kid named Adam was smoking a Cohiba and passing the Vanilla tobacco to whoever wanted a hit.

I took a couple in the courtyard and began discussing life and death with the group. Fast forward two hours and I was in a lounge near Archibald talking about the death of the American Republic and the flaws of a two party system. Shades of the same color. A disinterested public that had politics dictated through the media like we were in 1984. Fear and Loathing were substituted by apathy and moderation. Nothing but the fear of attack motivated the mainstream.

It was a bleak national analysis. But I had been smoking lots of cigarettes, and things were bound to get grim.