Groggy awakening back in my dorm after winter break went by in a holy daze of food and drink. At Christmas Mass, Father Dennis’s homily was about finding photographs of family Christmas trees when he was a kid, which he had not known existed and found it odd, but rationalized that it was an attempt to hold on to a feeling—the piney scent and sappy touch of carrying a fresh tree home, and the taste of eggnog amid warm familial conversation about memories associated with heirloom ornaments as the tree is dressed. He said that was the reason he never bought a synthetic Christmas tree, despite the price, flammability, and environmental impact. Tom told me about a kid he was playing basketball with who smoked K2 spice before a game and then vomited on the court and got taken to the ER.  At my checkup, Doctor Mayer said lack of inflammation markers was encouraging, Humira holding steady, though immune system compromised, can’t shake this winter cold, sweat between the covers, pull them back for ventilation, but then I’m freezing, need a warm shower. Slept too late with Benadryl, missed Intro to Bio at ten o’clock, only other class today is cancelled, teacher said she can’t drive, lives on top of a ridge where the road is iced over. I’d celebrate a cancelled class in high school, but now we’re paying, taking out student loans that accumulate interest, should get a refund. Cold congestion, dormant due to antihistamine, coming alive, phlegmattack huhhtchooOh and feverish frisson, don’t know if I’d go to class anyway. Grab my towel and flip flops and walk down to dorm bathroom, open the door to a septic smell and empty my morning stomach. Walk past the sinks to the shower behind curtains, run the hot water, inhale the steam, cough to clear the catarrh sptuh down the drain… hope this damp petri dish gets disinfected. 

Back in the quiet room, haven’t seen Paul in a couple days, staying at his girlfriend’s, he’ll probably stop by and grab a couple things at some point. Two assignments for tomorrow, essay for Western Civ and read for Intro to Linguistics. Can’t do the Bio homework, didn’t buy the book yet, try to find a PDF on the internet maybe. Textbooks were a rip off last semester, spent a hundred dollars to be used intermittently over three months, sold them back to the store at a fifth of the original cost because now there’s a new edition that’s been updated, scientific progress goes ka-ching, teacher said we could get an old used version on Amazon, why can’t he just scan and upload? Getting by in the class so far, haven’t had much to do in the textbook, but homework is starting to pick up. If you borrow from a classmate who paid, they feel like you’re ripping them off, when really it’s the institution. Should organize bookshare, contribute one textbook, access to the rest. Fortunately, a lot of the texts for English classes are in the library, see if I can piece together the American Anthology. 

Living in these small dorms is not so bad when you can be outside and use the campus, town, and surrounding woods, but winter contracts to this beige box. Frigid Thursday out the window, snow glossed with ice, empty quad, nothing moved upon the whiteness. Bare deciduous trees, only color from a couple of evergreens, Peter Pans among the lost boys. Easy escape through the screen, Halo or StarCraft? Should get myself what I need from the outside world, first to the library for the Linguistics text, then stop by the Health and Wellness Center for my Humira dose, and then grab lunch to go from the dining hall. Grind and twist a small joint for when I get back, but need to override impulse to play video games and just work on that paper for Western Civ that’s past deadline, could fail if I let myself get too far behind.

 Jacket on, headphones jacked, iPod click to Neon Bible, down the hall and out through the student lounge, all words will lose their meaning… across campus, cotton overcast, sunlight momentarily refracted through thin gauze. Only a couple bundled figures walking on campus, can’t see their faces, hunched over to maintain warmth, stresses the upper back, rush of cold air as I stretch my shoulders, crack my neck, and continue across the quad to the library.

            Through the book detector threshold: individuals behind the apple icon of their macbook, light conversation from group projects, queue of students at the printer churning out homework before the next class. Log on to a computer with my student ID password, search catalogue for CALLNO… P121.S2813. Upstairs, quiet study, nothing but a fluorescent hummm sound of silence, searching back in the stacks, thought it would be in this aisle, instead there are college yearbooks going all the way back to 1915, some early years missing, 1922 tattered, have a look before it deteriorates. Photos of seniors in suits, silly odes next to their name contrast austere countenance, guess smiling wasn’t in fashion. Old photos of campus, recognize some of the places and buildings, with accompanied rhyme.

Library:

O, place of comradeship with books! where we

Allegiance pay to poet and to sage,

Bowed gently o’er our volumes, well content

To pay to “Silence” willing “seigniorage.”

Keep searching, find P1… finger through the books, finally found, Course in General Linguistics, Saussure. Back downstairs check out with the quiet girl that sat in back of BritLit. Could do that job even if not feeling well, consider applying.

…take the poison of your age, don’t lick your fingers when you turn the page…

Back outside, quad grass frosted, earth stood hard as iron as I walked over to the Health and Wellness Center, “Flu Shot Available for All Students, $15,” hours above, lunch from 12-1, should be back by now, pause iPod and walk in, greeted by the smiling receptionist. “Hey, I’m here for my medication,” “Okay, here’s the sign-in sheet. Thanks, nurse Connie will be with you in a moment,” sit down in the waiting room, daytime television, The Price is Right, inflation estimation, calculate capitalism to win a brand new car. Cold sunlight from outside glaring white bar on the screen. Skinny brunette student walked out of the exam room, smiled at the receptionist as she bundled and walked back into the cold. “Okay, the nurse will see you now.” Up from the vinyl upholstery and across a beige carpet, through the door, closed behind.

“Hey honey, how’s it going?”

“Blech, I’ve been better, this cold’s been bothering me a while.”

“You’re sure it’s not the flu right?”

“Yeah, pretty sure, I don’t feel too bad, just congested in the face.”

“Alright, have you considered getting a flu shot?”

“I thought that I shouldn’t cause the Humira is an immunosuppressant.”

“Well, that’s probably why you can’t kick your cold, but the flu shot isn’t a live virus so you should be okay, and it’s been going around campus so you’ve got to be careful because you’re particularly susceptible.”

“Oh, okay, maybe I should get it then, I’ll ask my doctor. Did you get my Humira shipment for the month?”

“Yep, it came in yesterday, I signed for it myself, it’s waiting in the fridge, you’re due for a dose, right?”

“Yep.”

“Well come on back and have a seat.”

She went into the refrigerator and took out the branded Humira packaging,

“Alright, ready?”

“Yep.”

I took down my sweatpants to expose my thigh, cold alcohol swab, skin pinched for surface area, inserted and pushed owww… all done, a little sore, pants back around waist.

“Not too bad right?”

“No, the expectation is the worst part.”

 “I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you this, but I actually showed it to a girl who just got diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, I told her the Humira was working for someone I knew.”

“Yep, still working, for the most part. Sometimes get cramps and other symptoms, but it’s pretty good. Who has ulcerative colitis?”

“Ah, I can’t tell you that, you know, HIPA.”
“Right.”

“Well, let me take your temperature, see if your cold is warm.”

“Yeah, been feeling a little feverish.”

 Cold stick under the tongue. Wonder if it’s that girl who walked out, maybe I can look at the sign in sheet on the way out.

“Okay, it says 100.6, temperature but it’s not a fever, so I don’t think it’s the flu, but please come back if it doesn’t go away. I’ll give you some Advil and Benadryl.”

“Do you have Tylenol instead? Doctor says the Advil is hard on my stomach.”

“Oh? Is it? Alright, well we have some of that too.”

She threw a few individually wrapped pills into a plastic bag and handed them to me.

“Here you go, is there anything else bothering you?”

“No, that’s it, I’ll come back if I start feeling worse.”

“Alright honey, well I hope you feel better! Good luck with your classes.”
“Thanks Connie.”

Back out past the secretary, “Feel better!”

Glance at the sign-in sheet, Jessie signed in just above me, that was her who walked out. Maybe her.

“You’re all set, you don’t have to sign out or anything.”
“Oh, okay, have a good one.”

Could walk down a couple more blocks to the EcoHouse, wonder what they’re up to? Hibernating, hopefully see them in the spring. I shouldn’t be interacting anyway, probably contagious, Paul’s smart to avoid our room. Walking over to the student center, up to the made to order café, recognize a couple faces but pretend not to see, better to socialize when healthy, avoid eye contact. Sandwich buffet best option, can’t mess up cold cuts too bad, locked into a plastic clam shell, side of chicken soup and a ginger ale. Go down to the basement and check my mailbox that I share with a stranger, nothing for me.

            Walk back to the dorm, put down my food and medication and grab my joint, down the street in back of the dorm that runs along the empty soccer field. Have to be more careful in the middle of conservative Pennsylvania than in NYC, but can hide in plain sight if smoking solo, could be a cigarette, people assume you’d hide, just watch which way the wind is blowing. Baseball players got caught huddled in the outside service staircase that goes down to dorm basement, what else would they be doing there. Put up my hood, cup my hands and light the end, inhale before the flame fizzles, couugghgh, not good for congestion, put in a large crutch filter to keep the flame further away. Another inhale as I looked out at the turf soccer field, team won three games during the fall season, watched a couple before it became too depressing, hard to live vicariously through a losing team, I should have been starting… my body is a cage.

Heat blasting back inside Sherwood couugguughhhgh sip the chicken soup, no sign of Paul. Album over, apprehensive and more rigid than Funeral, natural progression of hope to cynicism. Noise down the hall, done interacting with the world today, maybe an episode of The Wire while I eat my sandwich, missed the season premiere, need to catch up before the finale. Institutional chain of command like a game of telephone that keeps leaders insulated and lets them feign ignorance. Adherence requires adopting moral standards of the institution. Sticking to your own code, like Omar or clean Bubbles, is heroic, at least in western culture where more value is placed on the individual, need confidence to take a chance on yourself, Caesar cast his die and crossed the Rubicon… have to get to work on that paper, jot down notes, Wikipedia brainstorm:

He turned the Republic into an Empire, cult of personality, pushed aside the crown offered him with the back of his hand, knew the implications of apotheosis but did not beware the ides, senatorial conspirators’ desperate attempt to restore the Republic and prevent another Tarquin or any other to reign at Rome, but they failed to consolidate power and calm the rioting plebs, his friendship with the people proved an ornament and a safeguard, not a detriment, as they bequeathed the throne to his chosen heir who would end civil war and induce Pax Romana for two centuries, enough time to spread Latin roots from the Eternal City, aqueduct and Appian way, first megalopolis to reach one million citizens, render unto Caesar, render unto God, taxes and death, in return give the masses their daily bread for months and years, calendar set to the sun, Plautus complained “when I was a boy my stomach was the only sundial, the best and truest,” Julius’s calendar was adopted in AUC 709, then Augustus constructed his monumental Solarium, July then August beginning twenty centuries of authority and veneration, Before Caesars, Anno Dominion, year number retrospectively correlated to Jesus of Nazareth, born on the eastern outskirts of the occupied Empire, crucified when he refused to hail Caesar as God, martyr alternative to the JC who made his reputation on bloodshed, as well as the pugnacious Greek Gods who fought each other for Troy, Polytheism to Monotheism as Republic to Empire, despite Brutus and Judas their legacy lives on, competitors vanquished to dust to keep the Empire free from factions, Simony Magus, Bar Kokhba, Nero 666, not the messiah, just naughty boys, all defeated by the Father Almighty, adopted by Constantin to stave off the Dark Ages, worshiped in Latin until the Second Vatican Council, which allowed the evolution of language to appease modern society, institutional upheaval after the World Wars, need a new iteration though the alphabet remains, church and state still bound like Prometheus to his rock, possible Pax Americana after we ended war with nuclear power, winning side spreads their culture, novus ordo seclorum, the new Colossus, military state west across the water from its cultural cradle, accept all citizens to grow the empire, conquer colonize and assimilate to the workforce, if you can’t be a productive contributor you are labeled sick, beware malarial mosquitos from the West Nile, must maintain social control as new crises arise, disbelief in the divinity of increasingly erroneous emperors disseminated, so adopt a singular god who was persecuted by an imperfect prefect, acknowledge that all humans sin but can be forgiven, sweep sodomy under the cassock. The empire’s direct lineage decayed, crumbled, and fell, but the triumphant banner of the Cross on the Ruins of the capitol yet waves—their adopted religion continues to evolve and endure, there was a moment of Rome, and it will not wholly die. 

But what’s my thesis? Currently 2,011 years from the birthdate of Jesus on December 25^th 3AD during the reign of Augustus, church and state inextricably wed by our time frame. Organize into an essay after the THC wears off. Take a couple bites of sandwich, swallow six Asacol with a swig of ginger ale, a couple more bites of sandwich, one Mercaptopurine pill, and finish the rest. Ready for the dreaded iron pill pang through my intestines, bite the bullet and chew into metallic grain so that it’s easier to digest, need my energy, sleeping is giving in, can’t miss more classes, waste of money. Supposed to declare a major that will qualify for a field of employment. Took out student loans, in debt to the government, will need a job to pay them back, need to work full time for health insurance, especially with preexisting conditions, better contribute if you have a morbid aversion of dying. Deliberate day by day, can’t plan for next year, nevermind two millennia. Start this last season of The Wire, press play, “The bigger the lie, the more they believe.”

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