Today I paused for a moment in the courtyard of the JFSB to sit on some chilly concrete and inhale a granola bar between class and a journey to the library to study. As I prepared to sit down, I heard the faintest rustling sound over a nearby girl's phone conversation about some sports team or another. I looked around and then down, and saw an enormous beetle (easily three inches--a veritable mammoth on campus) attempting to scurry along the gutter between the courtyard floor and the step on which I was about to sit. I was more confused than squeamish at the sight, though it moved weirdly as it tried to cope with the carcasses of discarded leaves that lined the gutter's entire stretch. Being about their same size, it seemed almost as if it were wrestling with each one in turn, grabbing it in a spindly chokehold and, with much rustling and crinkling, finally subduing its foe and climbing over or under it, only to meet with an identical aggressor immediately afterward. I watched its progress with interest. For one moment I thought it was bested, as one opponent proved temporarily unbeatable, flipping the poor thing on its back, its six legs bicycling in the air. In seconds, however, it hastily righted itself and continued along its jerking, body-strewn path.
I looked up and realized with some embarrassment that I had been captivated by this freakish insect for almost a full minute: standing with my backpack halfway off, head bowed, staring intensely at what I'm sure to passersby must have appeared to be an empty concrete step. I sat down a little sheepishly and ate my granola bar. The rustling grew fainter and fainter off to my left as my friend made its erratic way towards another girl eating her lunch along the same step. I wondered if she would notice the rustling like I did. I finished my lunch before I found out.
Today they were changing an exhibit in the Museum of Art. I looked out from my little perch in the cafe to see a pair of black curtains being drawn to either end of one of my favorite paintings by Brian Kershisnik. And so, it being larger than life, I just stared at it when we were slow. People walked in front of it and hesitated and turned around and stopped. A man was changing lightbulbs above it. It was quiet.
I've had my theories about this boy for a while, but I finally can say with a fraction more surety that the boy I sit by in my 293 American Literary History class is a poet. You wouldn't guess it from looking at him, but I know the signs. He reads, something different every time. He dresses like he isn't, but he is self-conscious. He has a battered black spiral-bound notebook he pulls out of his bag at random times during the lecture and opens it to a blank page and lets it sit. And then he'll write a few words, and underline them. And then he'll scribble them out. And then he'll start on the next line, and write two or three, and let it sit again. And when a person gets up from behind him to go to the bathroom, he'll cover the page hastily with his book, and uncover it again when they pass. And, when they return, he'll cover it again, and uncover it.
I don't particularly like this boy I sit next to. He seems haughty and does not laugh but scoffs. His comments are superficial, even desultory. But, I can just tell he's a writer. Or, at least, wants very badly to be one.
Welp. That proves it. The guy must be a real idiot.
Andvari -- Sigur Rós
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