He's a Brown grad, the founder of the one conservative newspaper at an overwhelmingly liberal school. He's wearing a suit. In the years since graduation he's been writing news stories for a local right-leaning paper in New Hampshire. Over the summer he's been doing a little grant-writing for a conservative think-tank in Rhode Island. He wants me to meet so-and-so, important person this-and-that.

I think about this rich old lady I once waited upon at a fundraiser who said that all the Young Republicans were clones.

I ask him what kind of writing he'd really like to do if he could do anything. I ask him if he's ever considered writing a novel. He has. I'm interested. About what? He's hesitant, then he answers that it would be a sci-fi novel. He's heard about several ways that the planet could be completely destroyed. He's not sure about the scientific basis of it all, but he heard that an errant black hole could wander into the solar system and suck up the Earth. He'd like to write a novel about that scenario, and how everyone would react to the news that they only had a short time before they got sucked into the black hole. He brings up "The Plague" by Camus, which was one of my favorite required readings in high school. Instead of everyone being trapped inside a walled city, it would be like everyone was trapped inside the Earth. He'd write about the chaos that ensued and all the different reactions that people would have.

I'm hooked.

Comment! (3) | Recommend!

First Day of School!!

... I guess I'll fill in what happened after I get back. It probably won't be much different than usual seeing as I haven't any classes this semester.

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

Angle and I went down to the track to go running at 8. Afterwards we threw the pigskin around and finally went to play on the jungle gym. I was telling her how sad I was that I could no longer do the gymnast mount on the bars and as I was telling her I did it easily. WHAT?!? I was somehow under the impression that my strength and agility had retired itself, had been going slowly downhill since I was in high school... turns out that I lost about 12 pounds since the beginning of June and it's a lot easier to pull yourself up onto things if you're 12 pounds lighter.

In light of this discovery, I've decided that at my age I have the ability to be the fastest, strongest, most agile and best looking version of myself that I will ever be. It would certainly be a shame if I squandered this time not being in shape. Then again, my professor has just assured me that no matter what I eat, I will lose 20 pounds in Antarctica from shivering alone. At this point I don't think I have 20 pounds to lose, so I might have to have a bowl of ice cream.

Ice cream, here I come!

Comment! (3) | Recommend!

I spent the morning sleeping in my soft yellow bed while the summer sunlight streamed through the window and the breeze carried the sounds of Americans laughing.

I ate spaghetti and ice cream for brunch. With no responsibilities and no plans, I settled on the futon to read about the adventures of the rabbits of Watership Down for several hours while the whooping and hollering of the boys next door rose and fell like the lapping of lake water on a dock.

What a feeling, to be young and free.

What a feeling, to be unencumbered by responsibilities.

What a feeling, to do nothing because you have nothing to do.

In the depths of dark velvet space, the planet is hurtling 67,000 mph towards winter.

But here in vicinity of my house it is a warm and lazy summer day.

To be, in the grass, in the peacefullest time,
Without that monument of cat,
The cat forgotten in the moon;

And to feel that the light is a rabbit-light,
In which everything is meant for you
And nothing need be explained.

--Wallace Stevens

Comment! (2) | Recommend!

Tonight is the Fiesta Party, the party where we welcome the new geology grad students to Brown at the end of the school-sponsored orientation.

But this year, it's at MY house.

Yep. That means it's going to be awesome. I mean, both of my parents are awesome at throwing parties. I have throwing parties in my genes. I also have party-jeans. We have a black light. We have hours worth of wild latin music. We have enchiladas out the wazoo. Tiki-torches. Twinkle lights. Streamers. Tablecloths. An inflatable cactus. Life-size mariachi clings for the walls. We're expecting around 50-60 people in my tiny apartment. We invited the neighbors.

It's a good thing my insurance company "enhanced" my renters insurance...

Comment! (3) | Recommend!

Near my middle school there is a large property where it is said that the guy who owns Pepsi lives. The complex consists of five separate houses, including a boat house, a pool house, a guest house, etc. It is set on a parcel of land so large that it is difficult to even see the main house from the road. At the gate there is a little plaque that reads, "Private Property: No Trespassing. For Deliveries, Ring Bell". When I was a kid we'd always talk about how some day we'd be pizza delivery guys and we could deliver pizza to that house.

Yeah, it seems weird looking back that we didn't say that someday we'd live in a house like that, or that we'd be invited over to that house as guests or anything, just that we'd be pretty pumped to someday deliver pizza there.

I've had some similar experiences since. One time we went to a fundraiser for our university at a highrise apartment in downtown Houston, and the whole time I was there I could only think, "I've helped cater events like these...." I was treated with professional detachment by the catering staff, who were just my age. I wanted to take them aside and give them a wink and say, "Don't worry, guys, I'm actually one of you!"

Today I went down to Little Compton with my friend to check out her parents' summer house down there that they are massively renovating. As I passed all of the mansions and the perfectly manicured lawns and gardens I mentioned to my friend that I'd always wanted to be a gardener at a house like that. She gave me a strange look and I could tell the thought had never crossed her mind.

New England is a weird place where people actually have "summer homes" and "diving platforms" and yachts and sailboats... I guess I had had an idea that these people existed from movies, I just had never met any of them.

Comment! (6) | Recommend!