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.