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.

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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.