Flashback
There's a certain distinct feeling to mornings spend sleeping in and slacking off. This morning, I took Ryan's advice and skipped my Japanese lab to sleep a few extra hours before coming in to campus. It was magnificent... much better, in a way, that getting up late on the weekend.

I've been floating about in the cocoon of cottonheadedness that comes with having a cold. But this particular cold is special. It seems to have an Echo attached to it. What is an Echo? An Echo is an emotion, a feeling, a taste, a smell, and essence of something that attaches itself to a particular moment so that it becomes similar to all moments before in which the Echo was present. These are often "old" or strong feelings that signify an important time period, memory, or moment. Usually an Echo is important. Sometimes they signify the breaking of a Chrysalis or a tremendous epiphany. More often, they just preclude some realization. I'm not sure if this is an important Echo or not. As far as Echoes go, it only causes me a slight amount of discomfort. And I didn't really have a hard time associating it with where it came from.

This Echo is the Echo of another cold, during another winter. Perhaps the Echo of every winter cold I've ever had. But more than that, it is an Echo of tiredness and the feeling of waking up with sleep still in the bones. It brings back images of the winter of my Freshman year in high school, walking through the dimly lit halls to Biology class. After class I'd meet Lesley in the hall with a cry of Kiyone-oneesama! and we'd hold hands the way best friends do before they're taunted about their sexuality. This Echo brings back mornings in my old house in Michigan when I'd get up for high school in the dark and everything was butt-ass cold. This Echo brings back the few mornings I spent with Justin in his apartment on Capitol hill in Seattle, when we still conspiritorally spent weekends together without telling my parents. There's something about the light in those memories that comes to me now.

I think this is an Echo of settling in. When I wake up and putter around the apartment now, it's more than a temporary house, it's a home. I'm comfortable in my routine. I wonder, too, if the Echo is trying to tell me something else, something that I'm not seeing. Or maybe it's just a comfort in times of turmoil.

God, how much I love college. I love stupidly wild mood swings. I love being passionately in love with everything and hating it oh-so-much. I love having too much and too little to do, shouldering responsibility and blowing it off. I love experimentation and openness. I love sticking to my goddam guns. I love sex and I hate sex. I love and I hate myself. I want it all and I just want silence. I worship this orgiastic life. I have so much HOPE for it and so much FEAR that it will crush me. I am in AWE of existence. I am petrified with ecstasy. Even when I hang my head and weep in lonliness, it's with the greatest appreciation for that sorrow.

I do get a bit tired of the circles. I wake up every morning in the grey light and want to stay in bed. I'm so filled with love and wonder and so heavy with sleep. I look over at my partner and see how beautiful he is. I love every little thing about him. I love my house. I love my cat. I have so much hope for the day. I get up, I go. The middle of the day is a limbo between obligation and voluntary activity. By the end of the day, obligation and routine have won over and are crushing me, crush me, until late in the evening when I just lose my mind and it all goes to shit. After dark, after I've spent nine hours in front of the computer, I'm just tired of all the bullshit. I'm tired of being lonely and ignored. I'm tired of selling out and busywork. I'm tired of hiding things. I just fucking hate it all. I want to be alone. I want to tear it all down. By the time I go to bed, I'm loathe to be touched. When I wake up, it's all gone again and the circle repeats.

Sigh.

Oh well. I guess I like it all in some way.

God, today was so classic. What a beautiful day. It was sunny and crisp and I kept running into people all over campus. I know so many people now... it makes it hard to get things done. I've got two major circles of friends; one from work and the other from the honors college. Usually only about two degrees separate anyone from either group of people. And then I know about a billion random people on the side who usually are friends with some other of my friends and coincidentally or consequently know me.

I walked into the Buzz today and I was struck by how much my life feels like Saved By the Bell. There's that overcurrent of friendship, amity, and innocence with an undercurrent of a twisted history and drama. I can't walk into this coffee shop and NOT know someone there (that's what made me think of Saved by the Bell). I can't walk across campus and not meet at least three people on the way. As much as I'm grateful for this and love the company, it does make it difficult to get things done. It also makes the world feel so much more (comfortably?) small. When I came here I knew NO ONE (except Alex). I thought I'd end up either singly isolated or part of a group of friends (like in high school) that kept itself separate from the others. I never imagined I'd be a part of circles so large, interlinked, and expanding that everyone I know is separated by only a few degrees. It never ceases to amaze me.

I don't know if I'll be able to convince myself to leave here. I'd love to go abroad and learn about myself and the world (not to mention, learn the damn language I'm struggling with)... but I love it here so much. I don't want anything to change when I leave.