My favorite Swarthmore moments from senior year back

An evening as it happened...
its snowing outside, silently and sparklingly. 9:20 pm on a Thursday, the time that normally I would be in orchestra, but the strings need sectional work on the third movement of beethoven 7 and daniel said that he'd let the winds go early if we ran through the first movment and it sounded good. so we did and it did and we were let free and hour and a half early. nori and I went to kohlberg for hot beverages, me on my way home to work on seminar presentation things and nori on break before sectional. alyssa walks up, coat over arm, looking a little smug unintentionally, but in that way that cant be helped when pleasant things are going her way. hey, yo, what's going down? poetry reading a few minutes prior, nori wants to know the lowdown on a few nights ago (I heard that you rented four episodes of my so called life but only made it through a couple, no I said that they only SAW a couple, but they all played). quick rundown before she takes off for the second half of orchestra. alyssa suggests that I go to the poetry reading reception in the faculty loung (never been in there, wow, it's pretty posh). sushi and andrew and julie there to greet us and we sit talking of italy, and wasabi attacking alyssa's nose and book binding and overly artsy-craftsy poems. disbanding after alyssa is wonderfully full of non-fish sushi and with newly cleared sinuses, making her eyes tear up.
we walk out of kohlberg to find a much stronger snow fall happening, althought he path around the perimeter of kohlberg is just wet, its confused, says alyssa. ooh, sparkling! toward mccabe we go, glowing in its fortress-like majesty in the dusting of new snow. poker is going on in the basement, but we don't know quite wereh . joe points us downstairs, into the basement of the building (room one). we descend, alyssa asking if I've ever been into the closed stacks (no) or the treasure room (we havve a treasure room?!? do they have treasure? no, but they have rare things and old things. cool, but they should have treasure. I want treasure). we find eve (knitting near her elbow), samantha (person I don't know), joel (heehee) and dave (the bar is back here, on the shelf... eve: the bar is also over here (and pours herself a glass of wine)). alyssa scoots around the table to sit next to joel and partake of the playing.

eve: are we playing pennies? dave: I was thinking more along the lines of nickle dime quarter. eve: ok. alyssa: I didn't bring anything. dave: we can break bills. I take off again to rid myslef of the weight of the oboe on my arm. up the mccabe stairs again, see joe on his way down, direct rebecca to the right room (she already knows) and exit into the snow again. about a half inch has fallen at this point and everythirdd step Itake slips a little under me. as I pass under the lights edging the pabth back to worth, the snow falls, lit like the visual version of radio static on a station that wont come in clearly but is playhing your favorite song, so you listen anyway, and it's a little more beautiful because of it. the feeling of the bygone days of swarthmore already over taking me although it's only the third week of classes, but it is my last semester. there's something delicious about Thursday night poker going on, bootleg style with prohibition alcohol in the basement of mccabe, the supposed fortress of knowledge. something wonderful about the occassional baking of scones and drinking of tea as we read the new york times and expound on our president's idiocy. something unreal and a little too classy for this life about playing beethoven and cooking vegan meals. the swarthmore life that wont replicate itself in any other place or time, but somehow seems to continue the tradition.

I can see pictures of these people in black and white being poured over in decades to come by future swat students who are doing the same thing at the same times, and believing that they are the first to play poker in the basement of mccabe or read poetry in kohlberg, or at least it's different the time that they did it. we have connected ourselves into the tapestry that is swat culture and I love it. poker calls. I'm bringing my camera.

two hours later, back from extended talentlessness at playing cards and losing the majority of my silver change, the snow is still falling, a few inches deep of pure crystalline ornamentation, so perfect that between mccabe and willets I laid down and made the most perfect snow angel, thinking the lodge two quote "we should have layed down and made angels" about the flour fight in the basement. two hours of sitting in the literal bowels of mccabe, jim beam on the table, the far corner away from the window, joe, alyssa, joel, dave, laurel, me, rebecca, and samantha hunched over little piles of coin, stating things like: "my how time flies when you're drinking whiskey", "Shut up Alyssa." and "am I going to get lynched in my sleep?" "You can't get lynched in your sleep, we have to at least wake you up" "it's too bad we cant smoke" "time to get out the greenbeans." we are a yearbook spread in the making.


"You are a greyhound! Be a greyhound!" -Jeffrey Murer
As I was walking up the path behind Willets one afternoon, just as I came to the top of the hill, I caught sight of Jeffrey Murer walking his Italian Greyhound. Italian Greyhounds are very very small versions of their fullsized racing counterparts and for all intents and purposes, are goofy looking dogs. They prance. They look like windup toys. Murer was dressed in a suit and baret, goading his little dog on (or rather, pulling it along), doing no small amount of bouncing himself, imploring his pint-sized pup to "Be a greyhound! You are a greyhound!"

Ben Camp looking for marriage: Dinner, Sunday 27 April, 2003. we're sitting in the middle room, at the second table from the door. Andrew Stout, Hollis, Andrew ?, Blair Cochran, Julie Gregorio, Nori, me, and Megan. Ben Camp and guy whose name I have forgotten come over with a guitar. Whatshisface says, ok, we're trying to find someone to marry Ben, so yeah. And proceeds to take notes. Ben starts strumming his guitar and says to Blair, will you marry me? A brief exchange ensues in which Blair turns him down. So he moves to Megan. Something similar. Then to me. I say, well, why should I marry you? He says well, I can play the guitar. More than one chord, too. Nori says, but it's out of tune. He proceeds to tune it and then continues. Says some more stuff, including that, oh, right, he's good in bed, in fact, one girl once said fantastic. I say, well, how long would I be stuck with you? He says, oh, thanks, it's marriage, so for life. I say, nah, I don't think so. So he turns to nori. Same deal. Miffed that the table has turned him down as a whole, he moves on to the next table and runs through the schpeil again. At the third table, we ask him from across the way if he can sing too. So he starts to sing: "Will you marry me? I don't know you and you don't know me, I couldn't tell you your names, but I can play the guitar, or at least two chords, so lets get married." Read the article from The Phoenix that resulted.

April Fools '03
Gabe, in true April Fools' fashion, pulled off a rousing success of an encore performance. He learned postscript overnight and wrote up a bit of script to have all the campus network printers omit certain words from anything they printed. Rather a long and all encompassing list of words that often show up in the work of Swatties. Right in the middle of thesis season. And, even though I knew he was doing it, I forgot and printed out presentation notes for my morning class. Was missing a few key words, which I realized before I got up in front of the class and was able to amend my page while laughing quite a bit .The Phoenix wrote this one up too.