Four Months

I.

Jesus Christ, bear with me here – I’m just drinking chocolate milk, writing words down - Don’t you realize that there’s more to life than reading books? - 10’45 - Cup-of-Coffee-#3 – It’s going to be an interesting day… (You know you have a problem when your piss smells like espresso.)

II.

Actually, we knew you had a problem when you started chewing at the bandages on your wrists and writing fake Latin on the walls in your own blood. “Why are you laughing? I didn’t mean that as a joke.”

III.

Jena paragot – Flying steamship. Slavic languages are so cool. (Latin’s not Slavic it’s Latinate.) “You guys aren’t the be-all and end-all of reality and what’s right and what’s wrong”, says this old guy sitting across from me (totally looks like an old sea captain,) “I don’t think I’ve ever used anything I learned in my undergrad.” Does that mean that Latin’s not cool? He later explained that he just had a lousy love life at MIT.

IV.

That’s why people take Arabic – After class we have very competitive scrabble games, drink classy wine, and get drunk enough to make some poor decisions. I don’t know my suffixes that well. Turnererer is not a word. (Does that upset you? Do the daffodils?)

V.

Drunk and talkative, they drive down the highway in Grospa’s electric wheelchair (he was German) while the Japanese family takes a daytrip to the tattoo parlour. These are called talking minutes. (What’s the other guy doing?; He curls his hair, she fumbles with her necklace - I’m seriously falling for this girl.)

VI.

I was bad at reading the signals for six months. “Great!” she says, “Bring a lighter.” I did and we jumped the fence and I read the Divan and started to realize that the world’s a beautiful place. Looking around in English: “to be” carries as much weight as “to eat” or “to drink” or “to jump the fence.”

(It’s starting to freak me out a little.)

VII.

It was about this time that the old guy’s eyes shot up. (He looked shocked and embarrassed.) What was the businessman writing? “Snoop Dogg is probably the finest musician of our generation” (…That’s the point when I realized that I’m too trusting in humanity and I kiss her goodbye and she wanders through those shiny doors.)

VIII.

I’d better be real charming for the next ten minutes. “Drag-racing’s a sport!” “I’d be thinking about JFK the whole time!” We’re the kind of drunk that would make you forget about Scrabble altogether. Besides, isn’t Parcheesi much classier?

(…But does Parcheesi really have a place in my life? :: Colossal Guardian Lion:: Assyrian, 865-860 b.c. :: (Talk about cultural rape.) (Never mention rape in bed – that’s a turnoff.))

IX.

But forget all that. We have two weeks left. Stop thinking about the hardest question and multiplying it by a hundred. Drop the physics of the heart. I’ll give you a hug, you’ll kiss my cheek, and I’ll go write about it in my book.