Madison is saturated with sweatervesty, hair gelled, overpriced espresso miel gargling frat sympathizers. They are matched one-for-one by sweatpantsy, swoopy haired, mascara laden, milk-fed midwestern women who wear furry australian boots as if the Australians know more about snowtrudging than Wisconsinites. Among their numbers is the occaisional wire-haired, electric-eyed, rope-belted socio-intellectual outlier. Despite his peculiarly soothing solidarity, my indented contour cauchy integrals and I still feel vaguely displaced here. We know a better place to study, and so often daydream of a pair of those square chairs in a 3rd floor window on the southern wall of the Reg, gazing over our knees at the sheets of snow that crack and slide geologically slowly down the orange rooftops, over the faces of gargoyles.


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We would move to pass resolutions advocating the formation of committees to serve as portals for discussion, reflect upon tasks, and monitor the development of deliverables.



These metric kilotons of jargon were brought to you by the perfectly good intentions of bureaucracy.



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A long time ago you turned off a lamp totally by accident.
Were we listening to mirah then, or was it later, with the absynth? I suspect we were listening to Miles Davis that first night. You did so melt for Miles...
And we were in the dark so suddenly, but you were too fast on the draw, too fast to reach for the light. I should have known then the fate my chest would know, but I thought only how I was too scared to touch your hand. It was best anyway that I didn't, since you had no love in your soul for me. I saw in your eyes, I think now, only the love that had spilled over from other loves. It took me too long to realize your heart was flash flooding, and years went by while I listened to mirah, thinking of absynth.

Now you've returned to me, or a man too strikingly like you, who turns off the lights on purpose, and holds my hand as if I were already filling up his heart.

What will I do with this song now? Can I listen again, or should I alert the weather service: Flash floods imminent, hearts awash...



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... the high today is only 62° after all, and physicists are too scrawny for such enthusiastic temperature control. Have a heart, or maybe consider supplying us with blankets...




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Ostensibly studying in the Classics Cafe, a room of impressive academic grandeur complete with wood paneling on the walls and ornate fleurs on the ceiling, I took a little break and laughed out loud at xkcd, just in time to confuse the man sitting down next to me at the big oak table. He thought I was laughing at him or something, and hesitated with his hand on the empty chair asking, "Oh, um, oh, is it okay if I sit here?"
I looked up, and there, baffled by my insolence... was the head of the Philosophy department.

And as I stuttered an "Of course, of course Dr. K-K-Kremer... " little did I realize how difficult it would soon become to resist the overwhelming urge to tap the Jurrassic Park theme song on different parts of the table between us...




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