Archives: February 5-11, 2006

February 5, 2006

I spend my Sunday afternoon at the Front Desk in Smith Hall. I sit in a beat up rolly-chair, at a desk littered with forms, log sheets and keys. The little office where I'm stationed connects to the mail and package room, which is the all more out of order.

There are a lot of perks to working this Sunday shift. While I have to answer the occasional stupid question, or sign out an extra room key, here and there, it's pretty quiet on the whole. There's no mail to sort, and most of those packages have already gone out. Beyond that, half the people who live here don't wake up much before my shift wraps up at 5, which means most of the time I'm paid seven bucks an hour to catch up on homework or read a newspaper.

“Working hard or hardly working?” I generally don't like people who speak in clichés, but I'm willing to let it slide for Barry, as he steps inside, en route to the mailroom. Barry is my RA, a 6'7”, solidly built junior. What I like about him is that he's sincere in the work he does. He's not like the bitch RA downstairs who stops by my room every time we're playing music, looking for a party to break up. And he's not like the guy on the top floor—the type of person who keeps his door closed whenever he is around, and you can tell just wanted the job so he could a single room.

With Barry, you can tell he's committed to building a community. He knows everyone on the floor, not just by face and name, but by majors and hobbies. He'll stop by and hang out on a lazy evening to watch TV, or blow up a bag of popcorn and invite folks over to his place for a movie. He's wholesome and nice. He's someone who could tell me he's never had a beer and I would believe him, but at the same time, not a guy who would preach to you about the evils of alcohol.

“Eh, slow day,” I reply, leaning back, feet up on the desk. “How's the weekend treating you?”

“Rough night last night,” Barry answers, holding up some papers. “Have to turn these in to the boss lady. Big party on the fifth floor.”

“Crazy kids causing a ruckus?”

“You betcha. They took their closet doors off the hinges to use for beer pong tables, and had their neighbors do the same thing. Had a full-blown tournament in there. They didn't even bother trying to hide all the alcohol when I got there. Glad you weren't there, Preston —all 23 of them got written up.”

“How the hell do you even fit 23 people in a dorm room?”

Barry laughs. “It was pretty crowded.”

“That's why I like to drink and smoke up in the privacy of my own room,” I bust his balls. “More elbow room, less chance of getting caught.”

“Not what I need to hear, Preston .” Barry progresses into the mail room and slides the papers into the residence director's mailbox. “So how's Emma doing?”

“Doing all right. She's going to Off Beats rehearsal as soon as I wrap up here, though. Hardly get to see her on Sundays.”

“Ah well, it's good you guys keep busy. Keeps you from getting sick of each other,” Barry says, scratching at the stubble he hasn't shaved away today. “Speaking of busy, you give any more thought to the RA thing? You know the last deadline is coming up.”

“Yeah, I've thought about it.” Since I started working at the Desk, Barry has insisted I should apply to be an RA myself next year. It's not like I'd rule it out, but I'm a freshman. Who would want to make that kind of commitment now—when I have no idea what I want to be doing with my life this time next year. “I don't think I'm gonna do it for next year, though. I feel like I have enough on my plate, you know?”

Of course, Barry doesn't know. He's told me the story more than once of how put in an early-decision application to be an RA his freshman year, and when Reslife was in a bind that winter, they offered him the job. He's had the position ever since, and probably can't conceive of not wanting to do it.

Barry lets the point go as a red-haired girls walks up to the Desk, hair soaking wet, clad in a bathrobe and flip-flops. “All right Preston , I'll leave you be.” He pats me on the back. “Don't work too hard.”

“Take it easy, Barry,” I say, before turning to the girl. “Hi, how can I help you?”

“My roommate left while I was in the shower, and now I'm locked out of the room.”

I set my feet back down on the ground, and the grab key sign-out log book, getting to work at last.

February 6, 2006

I wait on a couch in the reception area of Taylor College's Office of Volunteer Services. A ceiling fan whirls silently overhead, shaking, then flipping pages of the magazines on the glass coffee table in front of me, as if it was reading the articles for itself. By my side, a secretary stares at her flat panel computer monitor and taps away on a keyboard. I came into the place with a vision of something a little less posh, maybe a little more Bohemian. I suppose that's my own stereotyped view of the sort of people who devote their careers to volunteer activity—that they're the sort of people who would trade in new computers for the most basic old Commodore 64, and donate the extra money to a rescue mission.

I am here on assignment from The Window, the weekly college newspaper. I joined the staff at the start of this spring semester, and have yet to a score an article on any topic resembling front page material. Today, I stare at a glass window on which the name and title are printed:

JANICE HUNT
Director of Volunteer Services

I'm here to interview her about an upcoming volunteer fair, where Taylor students can check out different causes to which they could devote their time. The story's a no-brainer—a list of groups that will be at the fair and a handful of idealistic quotes from the organizers. Hunt's are the last quotes I want to get.

The glass window swings out as Hunt's office door swings partially open. The head of a wiry little woman with large glasses pokes out. “Preston?”
I nod.

“Come on in,” she says, opening the door wide.

I enter the little office and have a seat across a large wooden desk from Hunt, as and she sips from a travel mug of coffee. She's a little awkward, saying very little with a lot of words every time I ask a question. The most useful thing I get from the interview is a pamphlet about all the volunteers available at the school and the surrounding area. It'll be a comprehensive catalog to base some of the article on. Of course she seemed more interested in giving it to me in an effort to recruit me to help out. It's not like I'm opposed to community service, but I'm there as a reporter. I've found college officials have trouble remembering that when they're talking to a student.
Otherwise, the officials paranoid and very careful about saying anything. I haven't had the opportunity to interview many folks important enough to look at things that way.

It should be easy enough to throw the article together tonight, to make my Tuesday afternoon deadline. To be honest, I probably could have written the bulk of this article before the last interview. I guess that's where I'm an idealist, or a dreamer. I keep thinking that one of these stories I get stuck with just might go big. There will be some sort of conflicting story from my sources, or maybe some source will have a more important story she's just aching to leak to the paper. This is a large part of what keeps me going—interviewing more people than I need to, asking a lot of questions. I'm seeking out the big story.

The other reason I stay involved with the paper and do all that I can is for the benefit of the News Editor, Sam Hawkins. He was in a creative writing class with me last semester and the guy's writing was unreal. He said he liked what I had to offer too, which is why he encouraged me to join the Window staff. I was flattered, and aim to keep impressing him on a weekly basis. He'll usually toss me a compliment or some constructive criticism when the paper comes out and the sfaff meets on Thursdays. I eat it up. I guess it's a little brother sort of thing.

I leave the Volunteer office without any sort of a big story to write. Nonetheless, I'll do my best with what I have. In the meantime, I head off to meet Emma for lunch.

February 7, 2006

“I think that's the most interesting part of the book—that Pittington won't sell the jewelry, but it's like he keeps stealing it, and stowing it away,” a girl named Valerie says, sitting by the window in the circle of desks for my 19th Century British Literature class.

“It's ‘like' he keeps stealing?” Professor Jones says, legs swinging as he sits a top a desk, amidst the circle. He wears a black button-up shirt and blue jeans, with black sneakers, more casual than most of my teachers at Taylor.

“He keeps stealing,” Valerie corrects herself with a giggle. The bubbly blond alternates between stupid comments and staring into space. What simple comments she does make are typically phrased pretty poorly.

“All right,” Jones says. “And what do you mean by interesting?” The two of them have at least one exchange of this sort each week. On the first day of class, Jones told us that he takes class participation seriously—that he wants everyone to speak up, and that when they do, they should be able to say something meaningful.

“Well it's just weird. I mean, the only reason he is stealing so he can make money off of it, but then he's too afraid to sell anything, so he doesn't make money.”

“Yes, it is weird,” Jones says, turning from Valerie, scanning the rest of the class. “What else might we be able to say about Pittington's actions?”

“I think it makes him a criminal in the least forgivable sense,” Nick says. Nick is the kind of guy who always does the reading, and who you're glad to have in your class, because he'll always volunteer some sort of answer when the rest of the class stalls, and keep away the awkward silence. “He steals for the sake of stealing, and doesn't even cash in so he can survive off of the profits, or provide for his family.”

“But what about the intrinsic value of the stuff?” I'm surprised to hear my roommate, Dave speak up. He came to Taylor as a political science major but is talking about switching to sociology, because he says the polysci department is too conservative. He's taking this class to fulfill a college requirement, and taking this specific class for the purpose of mooching off of me—having me summarize the reading on the way to class. In any case, Dave doesn't speak up some of the time, not trusting himself to expound on texts he hasn't even read for himself. There are times when he can't resist joining in, though. “He doesn't seem to care about money. But he takes stuff that he thinks is pretty—and there's that whole part about how he likes to look at all of the things he's stolen, and keep them presentable. So he has an appreciation for the aesthetics of the jewelry, which I would say is more noble than just liking it because it's worth a lot of money.”

“Could you point us toward that passage of the book?” Jones asks. I've noticed that his is often how he goes about validating a comment—by demonstrating how it's supported in the text.

“Page 265,” I chime in, knowing that Dave won't have a clue. And so we thrive as a team. I know the reading, inside and out. Dave is smart enough to draw insights without so much as skimming the first page. Between us, we fare pretty well in the class.

February 8, 2006

Returning to Smith Hall after a class, I find Dave standing outside in his black pea coat, cigarette dangling from his lips as he flips through the pages of a small notebook.

“How's it going, compadre?” I ask stopping beside him.

“Not bad, Presto,” he replies not looking back at me.

“Thought you were quitting again,” I say. I press the tip of my shoe into the snow bank behind Dave. Then do so again, en route to making a smiley face.

“What, smoking?”

“No, studying outside,” I roll my eyes. I've known Dave for about half a year now. For most of that time he's been in some stage of kicking the habit. The problem is that he'll go back a step pretty often, if not abandon whatever plan he's working on altogether.

“Whatever, I'm on a plan,” Dave continues to flip through the notebook. “Fuck it, I can never find anybody's phone number.”

“Maybe you should get a normal address book.”

“Eh, too many names.” Dave keeps upwards of 10 little notebooks like this, each of which contains contact information for different sorts of people. Some are friends from home, others classmates with whom he's done group projects, others political acquaintances from anti-war protests, others college administration. Having this much information is a part of who he is—an idiosyncrasy that does not mesh well with his lack of organization. “Damn it, where did I know that girl from?”
“Hot date?”

“Only if I can find her number.”

More often than not, this is what Dave's searches through the notebooks are all about. I told him once that he should just get a little black book to keep the girls' numbers together. He admitted he would do it if it weren't for the fear of putting off his feminist girlfriends. “They wouldn't like it,” he had explained. “They would say I was objectifying them, and that's the last thing those bitches want to hear.” Therein lies Dave's charm. He can understand and represent every argument, without ever believing a word of it.

February 9, 2006

Professor Jones paces inside the circle today, rather than sitting in it. He reaffirms his role as the professor, as he explains the assignment for our first paper of the class.

“Now the assignment is based on Chamberlain's Virtuous Men,” Jones says. “But that doesn't mean you should focus exclusively on it. As the hand-outs going around tell you, you will be dealing with the substance of one quote from the text. Chamberlain writes, ‘A man's choices define his world.' You're job is to interpret that quote and either defend it or attack it based on any of the texts we've read to this point, and contemporary events in the news.”

A collective groan emerges from the class, manifesting itself both orally and in a change in posture as shoulders slump or people shift in their seats.

“I know, I'm a horrible person—I'm making you pay attention to the world around you besides doing the assigned reading,” Jones continues. “In any case, you've got three weeks. Think about it and let me know if you have questions.”

I take an extra hand out for Dave, as the stack makes its way around the circle. I think about how the paper topic could attach itself to my life. Dave made the decision not to come to class today, and so, put his fate in the class at my mercy—it's up to me to inform him that this assignment is out there at all. Of course, Dave is in the midst of his own choice—deciding which girl he's going to ask join him for the premiere of a documentary about genocide in Rwanda, opening at a theater downtown this weekend. A part of his choice is also deciding who he'll bring to the party Saturday night after the movie, put on by one of the guys on the floor whose family lives in house nearby.

Meanwhile, I am making my own decision about whether I should spend the night at Emma's tonight, or invite her to stay at my place. But then, either way, one of our roommates will be there, and I think maybe I should wait until the weekend.

I think about Sunday—the day after the party. My Sundays have grown pretty standardized. I get up late, half the time with Emma. We part ways and I call my mom or my dad, sometimes my grandma. I think about the ramifications of that choice. Does one of them feel left out when he or she doesn't get the call?

I think about my brother Ray. Haven't talked to him since he came home for Christmas—a trip home which, in and of itself, was a last minute decision.

I've got to hand it to Jones. He's got me thinking. I'm paying attention now.

February 10, 2006

“Hey little brother.”

I'm surprised when I hear Ray's voice on the line, and a bit embarrassed to say that I didn't have his new number saved for my caller ID to recognize it. We haven't ever been great at keeping in touch. The fact that he lives across the country in LA doesn't help matters.

“Ray—how's it going?” I ask, making my way from class to a dining hall to meet Emma for dinner.

“Not bad. Just had some downtime, so I figured I'd check in on you. So how are things?”

“They're good.” It may be residual from my childhood, but when I talk to Ray I generally get the sense that he has much bigger things going on in his life. Talking to him, all I want to do is listen, to hear about his latest exploits and adventures. Still, I make an effort to make the call worth his while. “I've been staying busy with class and the newspaper and everything.”

“And how's Emma treating you?”

“We're getting along all right.” It's strange to talk to Ray about that sort of thing. The last time we lived together was the summer after his senior year of college, and after my completion of the seventh grade. He had been with his girlfriend, Sara, for over a year, while I had just been rejected by Kelly Wheatley, the first girl I ever asked out. Hell, now I'm with just my second girlfriend while Ray is living with his second fiancée. It's not like I would expect Ray to make fun of me or anything, but when your experiences are that different, it's a little awkward. “She's busy too, but we're making time for each other.”

“It's good when you're both busy—especially early on. It keeps you from getting bored with each other.”

“So how's everything with you and April? You two staying busy?”

Ray chuckles. “Eh, busy enough, if not as busy as we'd like to be.” Ray scored his BA a year early, and signed on to teach English to high school kids in Japan for the for the following two years. Before he left he was newly engaged to Tracy. From what I can gather, they talked on the phone once a week and sent letters and care packages back and forth. They stuck it out for over a year, before Ray got to know April—another American teaching abroad.

So Ray left Tracy for April. I haven't heard from Tracy since, and Ray proposed to April a month after they returned to American soil—two weeks after they moved into an apartment together in LA, about a half hour from where she had grown up. My folks said Ray might have been rushing things. He tried to explain the way that being overseas in that context was such an isolating situation, and how he came to feel as though he had known April for years.

In any case, April decided to pursue her aspirations for movie stardom and Ray was content to live somewhere new. “April's been getting a couple spots in commercials and she's going to be auditioning for a supporting role in a movie next week.”

“Really? What's the movie?”

“It's a stupid sci-fi flic. She just wants to get her face out there, you know?”
“Yeah, I guess that's what she has to do.” I have no idea about what she has to do. “And how's your work going?”

One way or another, Ray talked his way into an internship at a production studio for a small film company. He graduated with a BA in English, and prior to this job, didn't have experience or formal training in any aspect of film. Joining April in LA, he thought he would try something different.

“It's interesting work. Of course I'm getting somebody coffee as often as I'm actually working with any of the equipment. But when I do get to do real work, they're actually teaching me stuff, and from what I gather, that's more than most gigs like this will give you.”

It's good to catch up with my brother, and I regret to cut the conversation short. Taylor's not a big campus, though, and after a couple more minutes I'm at the dining hall, standing beside Emma and her roommate. I wrap up our talk then.

February 11, 2006

I don't know Chris Bell particularly well. That doesn't matter on this Saturday night, when Chris has extended the open invitation to our floor of Smith Hall, and all of our friends, for a party at his parents' house. The house is about a five minute drive from campus, so he's seeing a pretty good turn out.

Emma brings a couple girls from The Off Beats to join me, Dave and his date, a girl I've never seen before. She has long, curly red-brown hair, glasses and an eyebrow ring, and goes by the name of Josephine. Without cars or much faith in anyone's capacity to drive by the end of the night, we have taken the 15 minute walk to get here. We can hear a bass line from a few houses away, and the music is fully audible by the time we reach Chris's driveway.

I have to doubt this is Chris's first party of this sort. His folks are away this weekend just as I guess they must have been more than once in his later years of high school. He has two beer pong tables set up just inside, where I recognize faces from my floor tossing little white spheres toward Solo cups with varying degrees of skill. I've only played a couple times in my life, but have a decent shot myself. I think about getting in line for a game, maybe getting Emma to play with me. We'll laugh and drink, poke fun at one another's shots—both be feeling a little
lighter by the end of the game.

There is a keg set up at the far side of the room, just inside the kitchen. We head over there, and pay one of Chris's friends three bucks a piece for our own red cups. Once we have drinks, Dave and Josephine disappear. Emma and her friends decide that they want to dance and join the people doing just that alongside the beer pong tables, by the staircase leading to the second floor. Most of the music we hear is rap, with sprinklings of pop or classic rock. I'm generally not a fan of the kind of music we're listening to, but then it is a party and it sort of fits. A guy I've never seen before starts to dance with us, his chest to Emma's friend's back. She presses back into him.

Before long, Emma is dancing closer to me. One beer turns to two, to three. I can feel Emma's hot breath on my neck when she looks up at me, and feel her hair on my cheek when I bend to her. She smells amazing. She runs a hand through my hair, slowly working her way up and down. I run my nose from her neck, up the side of her face, to her forehead. She kisses my cheek. Her friends have dispersed when we weren't looking. She starts her fourth beer as I'm half way done with my fifth. Neither of us have the highest tolerance, and we've all but stopped dancing. We work our way past the keg, into the kitchen, and I press her against the wall, kissing her as hard as I ever have.