Everything from things as trivial as when he used a separate quote in two different stories in a Journalism class, from the time he made a Nina cry when he told he didn’t love her and was incapable of doing so. The guilt and unease circled through his brain, and he started to question the meaning of happiness.
He lay in the room, it was dark, and the movie was coming to a close. He had forgotten that he ordered pizza, and wondered when the hell it was going to be there. He looked at the clock. It was 2:45 in the morning, he had fallen asleep at some point.
“Damn,” Milton said to himself in a hazy mutter, “I coulda gone for that fucking pizza.”
His minds were clearer than hours previous, and he made a strong decision to lay off on the grass for the time being, it was doing no good for him. He noticed the red blinking of his cell phone and saw that he had two messages.
The first message was from his “editor,” who was in fact a family friend and could give a fuck less about anything he wrote, much less actually believe in the words that he was trying to express.
“Hello Milton, wondering how the writing’s coming along, I have lots of publishers lined up willing to read your work.”
Milton thought the suggestion absurd; she had never even read his fucking work.
Another message came from his father, the usual bullshit. His father was proud, misses him, etc.. In fact his father was too holed up in his girlfriend’s apartment and his financial woes to actually truly care what he had been up tp.
Milton felt uneasy, all he wanted was some comfort. He took a bottle of Beck’s and swigged it down fast, the cold metallic taste hitting curdling his stomach. He decided he would need something stronger.
He walked outside into the cold darkness, the streets were deserted, and he knew it would be awfully hard to get a cab. He made a call to his usual guy, Ritchie, who could him a drive down to South Boston where he could get a couple of Xanax.
The drive, though only 20 minutes, seemed long. Milton’s thoughts became no less negative, he was lonely, and confused, and felt as if he might be experiencing some sort of final stage of puberty. Everything was changing, except unlike the 12 year old woes of nocturnal dreams and pubic hair, he noticed it was the world and his life that was changing, while his body, and his soul, remained ever the same. They seemed to hit every street light on the drive, the yellow lights kept telling him to slow down, but he knew that that was exactly what he had been doing wrong. Speed limit read 35 mph, no one in this country drives at such absurd speeds, no baby we’re at 60 on the freeway at least, and fuck who ever thinks they can stop us, he thought. People don’t think, they just go, whether on green, yellow or red, but Milton, he wanted something else.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Post-Undergrad part 3
Milton was not living the bohemian existence that he had at once envisioned for himself.
He was a lowly failing novelist and no luck journalist, and he had trouble identifying himself as a writer at all anymore. He remembered himself as a young man of 19 (he was only 23, yet he didn’t feel any youthful exuberance) having daydreams, more like delusions, of himself as a cutting edge underground artist. Maybe playing in an obscure art-noise punk band that got rave reviews by all the hip reviewers on their blogs, or perhaps writing scripts for new abrasive television shows that would only have a chance of being played on HBO if anywhere, or a writer, writing great pieces of literature that only a few would understand and even less would love. He was beginning to accept his mediocrity, and his impotence in the face of becoming what he truly desired to be.
Instead he was nothing more than a civil servant, 1/10 of what he used to be. He had been through so much in the last few years. He had loved and lost, picked up and kicked drug habits and graduated school with a decent bit of honor, and yet he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that he was in some way a coward, the opposite of the great heroes of literature that he admired.
“Hamlet I am not,” he thought, nor Ulysses, nor Atticus.
He was bored and had some extra cash on him from the weed he had been selling. Though he loathed the idea, he called up Bob and asked him if he was interested in heading to a strip club he knew of in Brockton.
To his astonishment, Bob had a date.
“A date,” Milton said, “That’s great,” barely hiding his disgust at the idea.
Milton slammed his phone back of the hook without bidding his friend farewell. The heat rose in his face and a dip pit had formed in the most compact area of his bowels. He felt for a minute that he was going to violently vomit.
He paced around the room with magnificent exasperation, literally working up a sweat as his worked his way up and down through the monotonous repetitions of step. How was it that Bob, fucking pizza boy Bob, has a date? Was he lying? No, Milton thought, for all his defects of character, Bob was not a liar.
Milton tried to calm down, he ordered himself a pizza and opened up a bottle of Beck’s. He through on a movie, some trash with Lindsay Lohan that was on the television, and felt himself compliantly tuning in as if to fill the time. He rolled up some weed into an empty hollowed cigarette and quickly puffed away.
The joint had not offered him solace and comfort as he expected. Instead, his thoughts of paranoia became more apparent, Bob’s potential for sex all of a sudden a metaphor for his entire existence.
Flashes of guilt and hard memories raced through his mind.
He was a lowly failing novelist and no luck journalist, and he had trouble identifying himself as a writer at all anymore. He remembered himself as a young man of 19 (he was only 23, yet he didn’t feel any youthful exuberance) having daydreams, more like delusions, of himself as a cutting edge underground artist. Maybe playing in an obscure art-noise punk band that got rave reviews by all the hip reviewers on their blogs, or perhaps writing scripts for new abrasive television shows that would only have a chance of being played on HBO if anywhere, or a writer, writing great pieces of literature that only a few would understand and even less would love. He was beginning to accept his mediocrity, and his impotence in the face of becoming what he truly desired to be.
Instead he was nothing more than a civil servant, 1/10 of what he used to be. He had been through so much in the last few years. He had loved and lost, picked up and kicked drug habits and graduated school with a decent bit of honor, and yet he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that he was in some way a coward, the opposite of the great heroes of literature that he admired.
“Hamlet I am not,” he thought, nor Ulysses, nor Atticus.
He was bored and had some extra cash on him from the weed he had been selling. Though he loathed the idea, he called up Bob and asked him if he was interested in heading to a strip club he knew of in Brockton.
To his astonishment, Bob had a date.
“A date,” Milton said, “That’s great,” barely hiding his disgust at the idea.
Milton slammed his phone back of the hook without bidding his friend farewell. The heat rose in his face and a dip pit had formed in the most compact area of his bowels. He felt for a minute that he was going to violently vomit.
He paced around the room with magnificent exasperation, literally working up a sweat as his worked his way up and down through the monotonous repetitions of step. How was it that Bob, fucking pizza boy Bob, has a date? Was he lying? No, Milton thought, for all his defects of character, Bob was not a liar.
Milton tried to calm down, he ordered himself a pizza and opened up a bottle of Beck’s. He through on a movie, some trash with Lindsay Lohan that was on the television, and felt himself compliantly tuning in as if to fill the time. He rolled up some weed into an empty hollowed cigarette and quickly puffed away.
The joint had not offered him solace and comfort as he expected. Instead, his thoughts of paranoia became more apparent, Bob’s potential for sex all of a sudden a metaphor for his entire existence.
Flashes of guilt and hard memories raced through his mind.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Athletes v. Academics at UA part 2
C.A.T.S. offers athletes a study table, in which athletes are taught time management and prioritizing, and even obliges athletes to maintain study calendars to keep up with what school work that needs to be completed on a given day. Men’s Tennis player and Family Studies junior Geoff Embry said, “Not every athlete has study hall but the ones who do are in it for six to eight hours per day with a mentor. It’s awesome to be able to get your work done and not have that much to do when you get home.”
“When student athletes arrive to school in their first semester, and I think this is generally true of most students coming into college, their study habits are insufficient for the college workload,” said Meade.
C.A.T.S. also offers content tutoring with tutors that specialize in certain challenging subjects, such as Math, Economics, Foreign Language and others. They even have a satellite writing team trained by the writing program but working out of C.A.T.S. for athletes, who can’t find time in their schedules to make it down to the Writing center, said Meade.
The C.A.T.S. Life Skills program is designed to help athletes become more active outside their academic and athletic work. Associate Athletics Director and director of Life Skills Becky Bell said, “We want our athletes to be “life champions”. We want them to get more involved and take more initiative for a broadening university experience.”
Life Skills encourages athletes to get involved with internships, volunteer in the community and do things that go beyond the normal athletics and academics requirements to ensure a better resume come graduation.
“Do a little overtime and you’ll be prepared when you graduate,” said Bell.
Athletes involved in the Life Skills program have received numerous awards over the years, including three this year. Lacey Nymeyer of the women’s swimming team was awarded NCAA Woman of the Year, Craig Sheedy of the men’s swimming team has been awarded with the NCAA Walter Byers Award and freestyle swimmer Justine Schluntz has been given the University of Arizona Senior’s Award.
The Woman of the Year award is the third of its kind awarded to a University of Arizona student since 1994; no other Pac-10 school has any, according to Bell.
Many students on campus seem to believe that student athletes have it easier than non-athletes. Classes like History of Rock and American Popular Music have many athletes in them, but this is most likely due to the fact that athletes get priority registration and are able to sign up for classes first. This class in particular is not seen as an “easy A” but instead a class that generally all students on campus are interested in. Embry said other popular classes include Astronomy, Oceanography and Nutrition, none of which are traditionally “easy” courses.
Meade said, “There’s a perception that athletes get more perks than other students. But, they have demands placed on their time. The glamour of being a college athlete is not what it is perceived to be. They have three hours of practice, weights and by the time they shower and have dinner by 7 p.m. they still have not even gotten to their school work.”
“I don’t like the fact that students think athletes have it easier academically then other students,” said Embry, “It’s not like there’s any professor who’ll grade us easier because we play sports.”
Athletes are given priority registration because they need to plan their school schedules around an already rigid sports schedule.
When asked about the stigma of athletes having an easier time than other students, Davis said, “Yeah, we get it. But it doesn’t bother me because I know we work hard, when our grades are poor we can’t play.”
“When student athletes arrive to school in their first semester, and I think this is generally true of most students coming into college, their study habits are insufficient for the college workload,” said Meade.
C.A.T.S. also offers content tutoring with tutors that specialize in certain challenging subjects, such as Math, Economics, Foreign Language and others. They even have a satellite writing team trained by the writing program but working out of C.A.T.S. for athletes, who can’t find time in their schedules to make it down to the Writing center, said Meade.
The C.A.T.S. Life Skills program is designed to help athletes become more active outside their academic and athletic work. Associate Athletics Director and director of Life Skills Becky Bell said, “We want our athletes to be “life champions”. We want them to get more involved and take more initiative for a broadening university experience.”
Life Skills encourages athletes to get involved with internships, volunteer in the community and do things that go beyond the normal athletics and academics requirements to ensure a better resume come graduation.
“Do a little overtime and you’ll be prepared when you graduate,” said Bell.
Athletes involved in the Life Skills program have received numerous awards over the years, including three this year. Lacey Nymeyer of the women’s swimming team was awarded NCAA Woman of the Year, Craig Sheedy of the men’s swimming team has been awarded with the NCAA Walter Byers Award and freestyle swimmer Justine Schluntz has been given the University of Arizona Senior’s Award.
The Woman of the Year award is the third of its kind awarded to a University of Arizona student since 1994; no other Pac-10 school has any, according to Bell.
Many students on campus seem to believe that student athletes have it easier than non-athletes. Classes like History of Rock and American Popular Music have many athletes in them, but this is most likely due to the fact that athletes get priority registration and are able to sign up for classes first. This class in particular is not seen as an “easy A” but instead a class that generally all students on campus are interested in. Embry said other popular classes include Astronomy, Oceanography and Nutrition, none of which are traditionally “easy” courses.
Meade said, “There’s a perception that athletes get more perks than other students. But, they have demands placed on their time. The glamour of being a college athlete is not what it is perceived to be. They have three hours of practice, weights and by the time they shower and have dinner by 7 p.m. they still have not even gotten to their school work.”
“I don’t like the fact that students think athletes have it easier academically then other students,” said Embry, “It’s not like there’s any professor who’ll grade us easier because we play sports.”
Athletes are given priority registration because they need to plan their school schedules around an already rigid sports schedule.
When asked about the stigma of athletes having an easier time than other students, Davis said, “Yeah, we get it. But it doesn’t bother me because I know we work hard, when our grades are poor we can’t play.”
Athletes v. Academics at UA story part 1
C.A.T.S, or Commitment to Athletes’ Total Success, consistently tries to raise standards for academics among athletes through the offering of tutoring and advising that better allows athletes to manage their schedules.
Despite a poor rate of graduation among athletes that was reported on in the Wildcat earlier this year as being the fourth worst among athletes who entered school during the years of 1998-99 and 2000-01, academics among athletes on campus seem to be improving. C.A.T.S. institutes a number of programs to help improve academics among athletes for the future.
“Our mission is to ensure that student athletes handle the transition from high school to college and that this transition is as smooth as possible,” said director of Director of C.A.T.S. Academic Services for Athletes Mike Meade, “We wish to provide athletes the tools and resources needed given the taxing time demands split between academics and sport.”
C.A.T.S. no longer reports to the University of Arizona’s athletic department. Instead, C.A.T.S. reports to the Division of Student Affairs. Meade says this allows for more academic support on campus outside the athletics department and maintains communication between the athletics and the academic sides of the University.
According to Meade, the reports of low graduation among athletes were for students who are “long gone” from the school, and since then, the academics among athletes has improved.
There is a new measurement for athletes’ academic success since those reports have come out, the Academic Progress Rate (APR). The report, instituted in 2005, measures teams based on athletes’ academic progression from semester to semester, retention of athletes within a given program and the graduation rate after 5 years, according to Meade.
“It’s a better indication of how athletes are doing,” he said.
According to NCAA, collegiate teams that fail to achieve an APR score of at least 925, or a 50 percent graduation rate, can be penalized. A perfect score is 1000.
The University of Arizona’s Men’s Cross Country team posted a perfect score of 1000 in the APR report posted on May 1 of this year, earning them the Public Recognition Award. However, men’s football received a score of 924 in the same report, one point shy of what was needed to pass.
Mike Meade is optimistic for the coming APR report in May, 2010, saying, “We’re looking healthy in the classroom.”
C.A.T.S. utilizes methods to maintain academic success among athletes. They monitor the academic progress among athletes on a regular basis, and professors of athletes are required to give updates on student athletes at least twice during a semester.
“C.A.T.S. is a huge help,” said women’s Soccer player and Physical Education junior Alex Davis, “For freshman and sophomores there is planned and scheduled study hall and it really helps you prioritize when you get to college. The advisors are awesome, and we get both educational and sports advisors and it’s good to get opinions from both.”
“Student athletes are held to higher standards and require close attention,” said Meade, “So if a student dips (in grades) we know about it before things get beyond repair.”
Despite a poor rate of graduation among athletes that was reported on in the Wildcat earlier this year as being the fourth worst among athletes who entered school during the years of 1998-99 and 2000-01, academics among athletes on campus seem to be improving. C.A.T.S. institutes a number of programs to help improve academics among athletes for the future.
“Our mission is to ensure that student athletes handle the transition from high school to college and that this transition is as smooth as possible,” said director of Director of C.A.T.S. Academic Services for Athletes Mike Meade, “We wish to provide athletes the tools and resources needed given the taxing time demands split between academics and sport.”
C.A.T.S. no longer reports to the University of Arizona’s athletic department. Instead, C.A.T.S. reports to the Division of Student Affairs. Meade says this allows for more academic support on campus outside the athletics department and maintains communication between the athletics and the academic sides of the University.
According to Meade, the reports of low graduation among athletes were for students who are “long gone” from the school, and since then, the academics among athletes has improved.
There is a new measurement for athletes’ academic success since those reports have come out, the Academic Progress Rate (APR). The report, instituted in 2005, measures teams based on athletes’ academic progression from semester to semester, retention of athletes within a given program and the graduation rate after 5 years, according to Meade.
“It’s a better indication of how athletes are doing,” he said.
According to NCAA, collegiate teams that fail to achieve an APR score of at least 925, or a 50 percent graduation rate, can be penalized. A perfect score is 1000.
The University of Arizona’s Men’s Cross Country team posted a perfect score of 1000 in the APR report posted on May 1 of this year, earning them the Public Recognition Award. However, men’s football received a score of 924 in the same report, one point shy of what was needed to pass.
Mike Meade is optimistic for the coming APR report in May, 2010, saying, “We’re looking healthy in the classroom.”
C.A.T.S. utilizes methods to maintain academic success among athletes. They monitor the academic progress among athletes on a regular basis, and professors of athletes are required to give updates on student athletes at least twice during a semester.
“C.A.T.S. is a huge help,” said women’s Soccer player and Physical Education junior Alex Davis, “For freshman and sophomores there is planned and scheduled study hall and it really helps you prioritize when you get to college. The advisors are awesome, and we get both educational and sports advisors and it’s good to get opinions from both.”
“Student athletes are held to higher standards and require close attention,” said Meade, “So if a student dips (in grades) we know about it before things get beyond repair.”
Monday, November 23, 2009
The madness of college football
College football is madness. Yesterday was the “game of the year”, with even college game day in toe, but when observing the scene, one has to wonder if most of the people there truly care about the result of the game, and the game itself, or the fact that perhaps it’s just another excuse to get deliriously wasted on alcohol and drugs. As far as I can tell, it would have to be a combination of both.
Thursday night, two nights prior to the actual game, is when the debauchery starts. The bars are packed, fraternities are stocking up, and undergrads scour the streets in search of house parties. They claim that binge drinking can be classified as more than 5-6 drinks per night for a man and 4-5 for a woman, which in turn means that seemingly more than 90 percent of the drinking crowd on campus is of the binge drinking persuasion. Are people actually excited for the game? Or are they generally just excited to drink? And sex of course, can’t forget about that, as everyone who goes out partying always has that somewhere in the course of their minds. We are after all, human. So much of our behavior is directed towards the ultimate goal of sex, and the loosening on inhibitions through alcohol and whatever illicit substances are popular on campus at the time are a clear cut example of this.
The party continues through Friday night. Everyone was excited to make it to the ESPN college game day showcase on Saturday morning, but I for one knew my friends and I would be out until at least 3 am, and sure as hell weren’t going to make it out of the house by 4:30 am.
So, you sleep for maybe 4 or 5 hours tops, get up, and instantly start drinking off the previous night’s hangover. Was anyone celebrating the fact that the so called “biggest football game in Arizona history” was going to be starting at 6 pm, or were they generally just content to drink and be with their friends all day. Three bottles of wind, lots of cheap beer and hard alcohol, sitting by the pool; enjoying the fact that for that very moment no essays were due, no tests were to be had and no deadlines were upcoming.
The actual games rolls around at 6 pm, but we had to leave at 4, a total drag to be sitting in the stadium for that long. Arizona played well, though ultimately lost. I was unfortunately of the persuasion to run down to the field way too early, with approximately 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter. When the game was inevitably lost, I was certainly disappointed, if only momentarily. See, these games have no real bearing on my personal life, and it seems absurd to let something so futile bring me down. Instead, I go out, get a drink and enjoy the night regardless of football or not. Am I in the minority? Or am I in the secret majority?
Thursday night, two nights prior to the actual game, is when the debauchery starts. The bars are packed, fraternities are stocking up, and undergrads scour the streets in search of house parties. They claim that binge drinking can be classified as more than 5-6 drinks per night for a man and 4-5 for a woman, which in turn means that seemingly more than 90 percent of the drinking crowd on campus is of the binge drinking persuasion. Are people actually excited for the game? Or are they generally just excited to drink? And sex of course, can’t forget about that, as everyone who goes out partying always has that somewhere in the course of their minds. We are after all, human. So much of our behavior is directed towards the ultimate goal of sex, and the loosening on inhibitions through alcohol and whatever illicit substances are popular on campus at the time are a clear cut example of this.
The party continues through Friday night. Everyone was excited to make it to the ESPN college game day showcase on Saturday morning, but I for one knew my friends and I would be out until at least 3 am, and sure as hell weren’t going to make it out of the house by 4:30 am.
So, you sleep for maybe 4 or 5 hours tops, get up, and instantly start drinking off the previous night’s hangover. Was anyone celebrating the fact that the so called “biggest football game in Arizona history” was going to be starting at 6 pm, or were they generally just content to drink and be with their friends all day. Three bottles of wind, lots of cheap beer and hard alcohol, sitting by the pool; enjoying the fact that for that very moment no essays were due, no tests were to be had and no deadlines were upcoming.
The actual games rolls around at 6 pm, but we had to leave at 4, a total drag to be sitting in the stadium for that long. Arizona played well, though ultimately lost. I was unfortunately of the persuasion to run down to the field way too early, with approximately 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter. When the game was inevitably lost, I was certainly disappointed, if only momentarily. See, these games have no real bearing on my personal life, and it seems absurd to let something so futile bring me down. Instead, I go out, get a drink and enjoy the night regardless of football or not. Am I in the minority? Or am I in the secret majority?
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Post-undergrad part 2
Milton ordered himself an espresso. He didn’t feel like staying very long, and hoped to maybe find a story that he could freelance to the Boston Globe for the following Sunday paper, though the paper had already rejected everything he had ever written previously.
“Do you ever think about going back to school, Bob?” Milton asked.
` “I think about it, fuck, sure I think about it. But I can’t even payoff my debts to undergrad school unless I save up some more, but yeah, the hell is an architect without a master’s these days?”
“Yeah, me too. I just don’t know about being a reporter, it sounds like a right boring thing to be,” Bob said, “I think I want to go back into maybe creative writing courses, so I can play with language more, not to mention I can’t stand these deadlines anymore.”
Bob nodded, trying to feel sympathy for his friend, but he knew at his heart that his friend had no right lamenting to him when he had to go in for a 9 hour shift at a motherfucking chain pizza restaurant within the following hour.
Milton drank his espresso down with haste; it was warm and soothing, and cheap. He sat around for a few more minutes, staring into his friend’s blank eyes. What had happened to them was so obvious and yet so pathetic, he could barely stand to look at him.
Bob asked Milton if he’d like a sandwich, to which Milton politely declined. Though he did want a glass of water. He drank the water and bid his farewells to Bob, who still had an hour before he had to go to work.
He left the coffee shop and walked out into the cold streets. Boston felt colder every year, he thought to himself.
Early November and the leaves that were at once colorful and vivacious were now fallen to the ground, browned and decaying. He walked through the Harvard campus and felt nostalgic. All these students with so many bright futures, it had only been a year since he was one of them, and in that year he had lost any sense of himself that made him like them.
His college girlfriend, Jane, had already moved onto medical school, and naturally she fell in with a young and talented doctor, or at least this was the version Milton had envisioned. He did not truly know why she left him, but it terrified him to think that he had simply become “boring”.
It was three months after graduation when he got the message, a fucking message, no real goodbyes.
“Milton, I can’t see you anymore, please don’t call back, it’ll just make it harder.”
He was aghast as he listened, for 30 times in a row. For months afterward all he thought about was her, and the blood boiled in him as he knew she was out there living her life and he was stuck doing the same things every day.
`
“Do you ever think about going back to school, Bob?” Milton asked.
` “I think about it, fuck, sure I think about it. But I can’t even payoff my debts to undergrad school unless I save up some more, but yeah, the hell is an architect without a master’s these days?”
“Yeah, me too. I just don’t know about being a reporter, it sounds like a right boring thing to be,” Bob said, “I think I want to go back into maybe creative writing courses, so I can play with language more, not to mention I can’t stand these deadlines anymore.”
Bob nodded, trying to feel sympathy for his friend, but he knew at his heart that his friend had no right lamenting to him when he had to go in for a 9 hour shift at a motherfucking chain pizza restaurant within the following hour.
Milton drank his espresso down with haste; it was warm and soothing, and cheap. He sat around for a few more minutes, staring into his friend’s blank eyes. What had happened to them was so obvious and yet so pathetic, he could barely stand to look at him.
Bob asked Milton if he’d like a sandwich, to which Milton politely declined. Though he did want a glass of water. He drank the water and bid his farewells to Bob, who still had an hour before he had to go to work.
He left the coffee shop and walked out into the cold streets. Boston felt colder every year, he thought to himself.
Early November and the leaves that were at once colorful and vivacious were now fallen to the ground, browned and decaying. He walked through the Harvard campus and felt nostalgic. All these students with so many bright futures, it had only been a year since he was one of them, and in that year he had lost any sense of himself that made him like them.
His college girlfriend, Jane, had already moved onto medical school, and naturally she fell in with a young and talented doctor, or at least this was the version Milton had envisioned. He did not truly know why she left him, but it terrified him to think that he had simply become “boring”.
It was three months after graduation when he got the message, a fucking message, no real goodbyes.
“Milton, I can’t see you anymore, please don’t call back, it’ll just make it harder.”
He was aghast as he listened, for 30 times in a row. For months afterward all he thought about was her, and the blood boiled in him as he knew she was out there living her life and he was stuck doing the same things every day.
`
Post-Undergrad part 1
Milton was having trouble finding work, and all the ensuing trouble that generally follows a fellow who can’t seem to find his way. He had graduated from Boston University with a degree in journalism a year prior, but the idea of living a life filled with constant deadlines nauseated him. He didn’t know if he wanted to continue his education further, and he wasn’t quite living the bohemian existence that he had in his early youth so envisioned for himself.
His days generally started at around 9 am. He set his clock for 6, but when the buzzer inevitably went off he couldn’t help but groan and flail his weary arms about to shut it off and get another few hours of sleep. He would then look in the want ads. Some jobs certainly appealed to him, such as record store manager, or book store employee, but he never actually made an attempt to get such a job as a result of his own intellectual vanity.
He went jogging in the mornings. It was quite possibly the only time he enjoyed himself, and the only thing that gave him a sense of self worth. While most of his college buddies were already living a dreary existence of marriage of junk foods, he still retained an essence of youth that was most prominent in his physical appearance. He was a lean 6 feet 160 lb, and he was running miles in 5 minutes when he wanted to, as fast and healthy as he was in high school. He caught the attention of women rather easily, though he also lost the attention even more so, especially considering he was dead fucking broke.
He would eventually make his way down to the coffee shop in Cambridge and meet with his friend, Bill. They had graduated together, albeit, from different majors. Bill was into architecture, but the recession left very few people with the cash to build anything, leaving him jobless. He took a job at a local Pizzeria Regina, where the cuisine was adding an excess of fat to his waist, covering up his formerly wiry and toned torso. He noticed this more and more as the days went on, and it had been months since he had a decent lay, let alone a girlfriend.
Bill was already sitting at their usual table outside when he got there. He was drinking his favorite, a child cappuccino, and as per usual the foam was permeated throughout his thick red beard. He was reading a book on architecture with a look of loathe, as if he felt he had to read it as opposed to him actually wanting to read it.
Milton observed his friend for a moment, chucked and sat down.
“What’s on the agenda today, there, Bob?”
“Well you know, got work later, might go see that new Coen Bros movie.”
Bob went to more movies than critics, sometimes he’d even pay his money to see movies he knew he wouldn’t like, just to distract himself from his dreary and dull existence.
His days generally started at around 9 am. He set his clock for 6, but when the buzzer inevitably went off he couldn’t help but groan and flail his weary arms about to shut it off and get another few hours of sleep. He would then look in the want ads. Some jobs certainly appealed to him, such as record store manager, or book store employee, but he never actually made an attempt to get such a job as a result of his own intellectual vanity.
He went jogging in the mornings. It was quite possibly the only time he enjoyed himself, and the only thing that gave him a sense of self worth. While most of his college buddies were already living a dreary existence of marriage of junk foods, he still retained an essence of youth that was most prominent in his physical appearance. He was a lean 6 feet 160 lb, and he was running miles in 5 minutes when he wanted to, as fast and healthy as he was in high school. He caught the attention of women rather easily, though he also lost the attention even more so, especially considering he was dead fucking broke.
He would eventually make his way down to the coffee shop in Cambridge and meet with his friend, Bill. They had graduated together, albeit, from different majors. Bill was into architecture, but the recession left very few people with the cash to build anything, leaving him jobless. He took a job at a local Pizzeria Regina, where the cuisine was adding an excess of fat to his waist, covering up his formerly wiry and toned torso. He noticed this more and more as the days went on, and it had been months since he had a decent lay, let alone a girlfriend.
Bill was already sitting at their usual table outside when he got there. He was drinking his favorite, a child cappuccino, and as per usual the foam was permeated throughout his thick red beard. He was reading a book on architecture with a look of loathe, as if he felt he had to read it as opposed to him actually wanting to read it.
Milton observed his friend for a moment, chucked and sat down.
“What’s on the agenda today, there, Bob?”
“Well you know, got work later, might go see that new Coen Bros movie.”
Bob went to more movies than critics, sometimes he’d even pay his money to see movies he knew he wouldn’t like, just to distract himself from his dreary and dull existence.
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