i was supposed to go to work, but i was throwing up in my mouth at 3am, so i felt alright about calling out because how can i be expected to stand and move lenses around and take measurements when i am coughing so horribly? However of course i was well enough to smoke weed on roofs and walk around town at night. i did so with a girl i met at an archive sale (her name is evelyn) who i think is a better writer than i am, and i rarely think people are better at things than i am. i brought her to ferris dining hall, which was serving mussels and herb-encrusted salmon. evelyn found this equally as decadent as i found everything about ferris dining hall and columbia university in general freshman year. we sat and ate, marveling at the decadence, our two leather bags with furry keychains hanging side by side, and when i saw a physics major, i waved and said, Hi! since i am trying very hard to be friendly as of late. he responded, Hey! Ferris isn’t that bad today, and i just had to laugh.

after dinner, we sat on low facing butler, and i spent most of the conversation complaining about columbia, the institution that has opened so many doors for me that pay me so much money. i should be grateful – i am grateful, but everything i have received comes at the cost of my dignity and happiness. there is a reason why pretty much anyone whom i hold in any regard is either on leave, considering taking leave, or has been told to take leave. i am reminded constantly that i am Weird and Different and Gay and Woke and Poor and Wrong here, and it was sobering to be reminded that hating columbia is a main topic of conversation for me, that hate is such a large part of who i am. i hate that i have so much hate, but i also don’t know how i can feel no hate for a school where the administration enacts violence on its own students, where the students police each other for cool points and rich points instead of love points and creation points, where i can go around knocking on doors to ask if i could use people’s microwaves only to be met with purposeful silence or refusal. am i crazy? am i crazy for wanting people to be open? is that a crazy thing to want? i am oscillating wildly between Of course not, people should be kind, people should be open and welcoming, people have been open and welcoming all my life before columbia university, and Yes, i am crazy for expecting things of people, because people rarely do things without an Incentive. do people do things without a profit incentive anymore? God, i feel so out of touch. i am out of touch. i am out of touch with everything, and i am oscillating all the time. i am simultaneously too homophobic for my barnard friends and too queer for my columbia friends, too sensitive for my columbia friends and too callous for my barnard friends; i am wrong everywhere i go for opposite reasons. i don’t like the music my roommates play because they like drake and vampire weekend and fred again and they think bladee is “ahh,” and i don’t like the music my girlfriends play because they like lil peep and describe 2hollis as “good music” and bladee as “racist redpill boy music.”

it was so nice though, to sit with evelyn on the roof and to play my favorite song of the moment (rented starship by rooster), always met with groans for its classlessness from my columbia friends and for its masculinity from my barnard friends, and to hear, Wait, i love this song!