The Abyss

Law school is a cesspool, a veritable breeding ground for germs and new and strange diseases. No one cares for themselves properly, because we don't have the time or the fucking will to live. We don't sleep, eat cheap take-out and gas station food from Spazzy's and binge drink on the weekends to forget about how much our lives generally suck, what with the sleep deprivation, deteriorating relationships, impending unemployment, and constant sense that you're about to be competing with your best friends. We feed off of each others' stress. One person stresses about getting turned down for a job. The rest of us flip, because not only are we worried that this awesome student can't get a job, but then we are struck with the horrifying realization that it means that you have to compete for already scarce jobs, with someone who is not only incredibly qualified, but is also your friend. People with jobs lined up can't even fucking enjoy them as they should, because they know that their friends are imagining themselves playing banjo on a street corner for money. Except most of us don't know how to play banjo, so we'd have to settle for playing Guitar Hero, and I don't think anyone would give me any money to watch me play "Hungry Like the Wolf" on "Easy."

So, we sit for hours in close, confined spaces, stressing, and gnawing through stale bagels like a trapped coyote chewing off its own leg. There's no fresh air, there's no natural light. There's no way around it. It's hard. It's supposed to be. "If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great." I have to tell myself this on the days when the only daylight I see is ten minutes on the way to work and five on the way to class. Because when I get to campus, I get the by-product of the price we pay for greatness: a petri dish of exotic, mutating germs. There's the typical coughing and sneezing, the sniffles. Fair enough. But no one can take time off, so we get sicker, and my cough runs into Luke's fever in the elevator, and they mate, and while we hunker down to crank out a complaint and master some sort of understanding of intestate property division on the per stirpes system, the Cough/Fever couple runs into Jenny's body ache and invite it to a threesome. And, despite the fact that we're all supposedly going to die of H1N1, no one wants to chance getting behind unless they've actually got the Hamthrax. That's Karen's sinus congestion comes across the Ache/fever/cough and now we've got a fourgy. And they must be into some kinky shit, because somehow or another, when it comes back around, it's mutated and added inner ear pain.

Everyone feels marginally better, which means it's time to drink like we're auditioning to be Bluto Blutarsky's replacement at the Delta House. On Sunday, we realize that the sore throat someone picked up from a fundergrad at the bar has joined the fun, and we've got a full-on gang-bang goin' on in our throats/heads/noses. And, we incubate. At this point, I'm less concerned with Hamthrax and more concerned that some of my classmates are going to start sprouting tentacles from their noses like some sort of "Alien" movie reject or the stand-in for Davy Jones.

Sunday is also a time to ruminate on the poor decisions made over the past 2 or 3 days. In college, we used to wander into the lounge and compare our drunk bruises (or, as E calls them, "UDI's"). Now, there is a slew of phone calls, and discussions over overpriced coffee to piece together and dissect the weekend. This is usually accomplished by looking through text messages and cameras. I have a friend who carries a camera and cell phone specifically for the purpose of retracing and reassembling the weekend's antics. Today, I'm doing it with the assistance of a "Flipping Out" marathon, and my fantasies of Jeff Lewis becoming my new gay boyfriend. He is, after all, my soulmate.

Thankfully, this was actually a pretty tame weekend for Hurricane Lola. After falling asleep sitting up on my couch (with the result that my right cheekbone is incredibly tender), Finn and I joined the P-funks for a night of killer sangria (which I managed to spill on the carpet), Rockband, and discussion of important topics such as a man nicknamed "Jimmy Horseballs" and the virtues of punctuality. He-funk and Finn are discussing the virtues and flaws of Darcy, the closet gentleman who went from normal speed, to middle-school slow, to way too much for the emotional fuckwittery that is Lola at the moment. He-funk, no doubt prefacing a derrogatory comment about Mr. Darcy's personality, leads in with this "He's a good guy. He's nice, he's polite, he's sweet. He's...punctual." It occurs to She-funk and I that if "punctual" makes the top five in a list of positive traits, it's the equivalent of saying that they have the personality of an empty pizza box. Apparently, he doesn't make eye contact. He-funk continues, "but, he's kind of douchey." Finn jumps into the fray "Is he kind of douchey? How would I know? He never makes eye contact!"

Last night, I think the worse decision I made was trying to sing "Sympathy for the Devil" on Rock Band. I greatly underestimated how many "Woohoo's!" there are at the end of that song. After "The Medium Squad" rocked it out, Finn turns to me and remarks "I'm surprised you're still lucid after that." I'm surprised by two things: 1) that I remained conscious and 2) that someone called me lucid.

And, appropos of of nothing, Keep Fucking that Chicken.