October 23-25, 1996. A pen pal on another continent. (#106)

August 30, 2021December 19, 2021 ~ Greg Dennison ~ 4 Comments

The way people communicate has changed radically over the course of my life. When I was young, telephone calls outside of one’s own city cost a lot of money, so when friends moved away, I often never heard from them again. Writing letters in the mail was an option as well, for people committed enough to do so. In high school, my friend Catherine went to Austria for a year to be an exchange student, and we wrote letters the whole time she was gone. When the young people of today have friends who move away, they stay in touch through texting and social media. Some of them have thousands of followers on social media all over the world, some of whom they have never met before. Many of them do not want to be bothered with traditional voice-based telephone calls, and many of them do not know how to address an envelope or use a stamp.

I attended the University of Jeromeville during an awkward transition period when both of these worlds existed simultaneously. Some of my friends used email, some of them communicated by writing letters, and some I never heard from again once I moved. I spent a lot of time on text-based Internet Relay Chat, usually looking for girls to talk to, because I was not good at meeting girls in real life. I stayed in touch with some of them by email, but I also sometimes got handwritten letters from them. Sometimes we wanted to exchange photos, and in an era when flatbed scanners were relatively uncommon and digital cameras were not yet mainstream, it was easier to send a photo in the mail. Other times, someone I know would lose access to email temporarily, and stay in touch by writing letters. That was the case for many of my university friends when they went for the summer. That was also the case with Laura Little, although her story was a bit more interesting.

I met Laura on IRC in the spring of my sophomore year at UJ. She was seventeen years old, and she lived in upstate New York, on the other side of the United States from me. In one of our first conversations, she told me that she was going to be leaving in July for a year, to be an exchange student in Switzerland, where she would not have Internet access. I had been getting letters from Laura regularly since she left; she had a difficult transition to life in Switzerland, and her German was not good, so she wanted to get letters to read in English.

Laura and I had never met, obviously. I did not know what she looked or sounded like. Right before she left for Switzerland, a romantic interest named Adam whom she also met on the Internet had come to visit her for a few days. Whenever she mentioned Adam, her answers were a bit inconsistent and evasive; first she said they had a good time but decided to just be friends, but then in the next letter she said something about having to get her mind off of what happened with Adam, and then she said something about regretting what she did with him, that she felt stupid and that she should have known better. Clearly I had not gotten the entire story, so the last time I wrote to her, I asked exactly what happened.

I got home in the late afternoon after a long Wednesday of classes to find a letter from Laura on the kitchen counter next to the phone; one of the other roommates had apparently gotten the mail earlier. Shawn was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher. When he saw me pick up Laura’s letter, he asked, “Hey, who are all these girls who write letters to you? You’re getting letters from all over the world! You’re a ladies’ man!”

“Not exactly,” I said. “Laura is someone I met on the Internet; she’s from New York but studying in Switzerland this year.” I conveniently left out the part where she was only seventeen. Even though that was only a three-year age difference between Laura and me, Shawn was turning twenty-three next month, so to him, she would seem significantly younger.

“And you got a letter from Hungary last week.”

“That’s Kelly Graham. You know Kelly. She was roommates with Haley Channing and Kristina Kasparian last year, on Baron Court. She’s studying abroad in Hungary this year.”

Shawn thought for a minute. “Kelly! Oh yeah. And don’t you have a girlfriend back home?”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah. That girl from Gabilan who has written to you like four times already. That’s where you’re from, right? Plumdale is right near Gabilan?”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Cecilia, or something like that.”

Cecilia? From Gabilan? I laughed loudly as I figured out who Shawn was talking about. “That’s my grandma!” I said.

“Your grandma!” Shawn laughed. “This whole time, I thought you had a girlfriend back home.”

“I wish I had a girlfriend back home who wrote me as often as Grandma did.”

“She sure likes to write.”

“She does. And my cousin Rick, the second-oldest grandchild, went away to North Coast State this year, so he’s gonna get just as many letters from Grandma now too.”

“That’s nice of her, though.”

“Yeah, it is.” I walked upstairs to read Laura’s letter. Laura had very small handwriting; she sometimes wrote in cursive and sometimes printed, sometimes both in the same letter, and she often did not bother to separate her letters into paragraphs. This letter was handwritten on tan stationery, with a typed paper inside the envelope as well. The typed paper appeared to be a math assignment of some sort.

Greg,

Guten tag! Meine Deutsch ist besser. (My German is better.) I understand more than I did before at least. I’m doing well. The weather here is getting colder. I just spent 200 francs on sweaters and a long sleeve shirt. My mom would kill me if she found out how much money I spent. I’m supposed to be taking this test, but it’s a take home test so I’ll make a copy and send it to you. I’m so lost and I have told the teacher that I don’t understand any of this. He just told me to do my best but I just sat for half an hour debating if I did the problems correct but I left half of them blank because I don’t know what to do. Maybe you can help me. I’ll write what it means in English if I know it. I would really appreciate it if you could help explain these. I know it is really sad how lost I am. I told my mom about you and said that I was going to ask you for help with math, and she says thank you. I do too. So anyway, last weekend I went away on a trip with the other exchange students in my program and I got to talk in English all weekend. It was so good. We went to the mountains and in the morning we took a cable car to the top of a mountain and it snowed. I love it. And we had a big party that night. It was cold, but we had a snowball fight and took a lot of pictures. We have Herbstferien here, it’s a fall school holiday, I CAN’T WAIT! I’m going to go skiing, I’ve never been before. I hope you don’t think different of me after I tell you what happened with Adam because I know it was a mistake and I should have just been friends with him but I’m so stupid. Sometimes when I’m put in a pressure situation I don’t think straight. Only you and one of my friends back home know about this because I don’t want anyone to know. I was so stupid to let it happen but it’s too late to fix it now and I just want to forget about that.

I had a feeling I knew what was coming next. It was pretty obvious where she was going with this. I continued reading.

Well I kinda slept with him. Only once though but we also did some other stuff. I don’t want to say anything more, I’m so stupid to let it happen. But on a lighter note I got my ear pierced at the top. It didn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would but I couldn’t sleep on that side for a few days. One of my friends from school here and I got it done together. I like it. I’m not feeling homesick as often. I know how to prevent it now and I don’t think it will happen again. I know my writing is messy but I haven’t slept much. I hope you don’t think of me different because of all that. Oh yeah, you’ll be happy to know my butt doesn’t hurt as much when I ride my bike to school. I’m happy now but I can’t ride long distances like you do sometimes. How are you? Have you met anyone yet? It made me sad when you said you felt like giving up on girls. Just talk to someone. Ask her to coffee or ice cream or lunch or something. And tell me all about her. Any girl would be lucky to spend time with you. I hope to hear from you soon.

❤ Laura

I was not entirely sure how to react to what she said about Adam, although I had a feeling that was what she was going to say from the moment she told me in her last letter that she regretted what she did. Part of me was disappointed that this happened; Laura was not the kind of nice Christian girl I was hoping to meet. She had never claimed to be Christian, though, so that was just wishful thinking on my part.

But I also did not blame her or Adam one bit. If I had been Adam, I probably would have been having fantasies about going to bed with Laura the whole time I was visiting her, even though I knew it was wrong. I must admit, I had had those fantasies about her before, although I could not bring myself to tell her that, of course. This sounds paradoxical, but such are the trials of a lonely, girl-crazy Christian young adult like me.

I only had one class the next day, and one of my students for my tutoring job did not show up, so I had plenty of time to get homework done during the day. After dinner that night, I went upstairs to my room and began writing my next letter to Laura.

October 24, 1996

Dear Laura,

Thank you for your honesty. Don’t worry about me thinking differently of you. Everyone does things they wish they hadn’t afterward. And please don’t call yourself stupid. You aren’t. You said you regret what you did, so learn from this. You told me that you know you don’t think straight in pressure situations, so when you know you’re going to be in a pressure situation, set boundaries in advance. If there’s a guy who likes you, for example, don’t be alone with him if you don’t want to feel pressured.

I wish I got a fall break. That sounds like it’ll be fun. I’ve never been skiing either. I don’t know if I want to try it. I’m not usually good at things like that where I have to keep my balance by going fast, and I would probably just get frustrated. But tell me how it goes. Your ear piercing sounds cute.

I started going to a new church a couple weeks ago. I really like it. A lot of my friends from Jeromeville Christian Fellowship go to that church. But I don’t want to start going there just because I have friends there. That shouldn’t be what church is about. So I decided for the rest of October to go to both churches every Sunday and pray about it. So far I like the new church. People there seem more serious about following God and reading the Bible.

Things are going well at the apartment. I’m adjusting well to having roommates. Four of us share a three bedroom apartment; Shawn and I share the big bedroom. It hasn’t been a problem so far. We both get up early for class, so I don’t have to worry about waking him up or him waking me up. Brian is really nice too. The fourth guy, Josh, he works weird hours, and I don’t see him very often.

I don’t have a girlfriend. I’m not good at meeting girls. I feel like I have a lot of acquaintances these days, but I’m kind of on the outside of a lot of my friends’ social groups. There’s this one girl I know from JCF who I would love to get to know better and spend more time with. She’s really sweet and she has beautiful blue eyes. I just don’t know what to do, though. I don’t get to talk to her very often, and lately she’s been acting a little different. I’m not sure why. Last week at JCF she was talking a lot with this other guy, but I couldn’t tell if they were together or anything. I met her in January when I was having a really hard day, and this guy invited me to hang out with some of his friends, and we hung out at her house. A couple months ago, around the time all the year leases run out, I rode my bike past their house and everything was dark, and that inspired me to write a poem. I’ll send it to you. It’s a Shakespearean sonnet; I’ve always liked that format for poems.

I continued writing, telling her all about trigonometric ratios on the next page, which apparently her mom wanted to thank me for. I wondered exactly how much Laura’s mom knew about me. I told my mom very little about all the girls I had met on the Internet, although she knew about one, Molly from Pennsylvania, because Molly wrote me letters the summer after freshman year when I went home for the summer.

Next I opened a file on my computer called “2234.” This was the title of the poem I had mentioned in my letter to Laura, about a time when I rode my bike past the house where Haley and her roommates lived, but Haley was home for the summer and everyone else had moved out by then. I titled the poem 2234 after the address of the house, 2234 Baron Court. I printed the poem and put it on my desk with the rest of Laura’s letter, which I would mail in the morning.

“2234”
by Gregory J. Dennison, 1996

Inside your walls, that January night,
My life began again, in joy and love;
My brand new friends had shown to me the light;
Set free from gloom, I praise my Lord above!
Today your door is locked, your curtains drawn,
Along your quiet street you make no sound,
Your residents, and all their friends, are gone,
No sign left of the friendship I once found.
But though the cast has left, the show is done,
The drama rests forever in my heart;
This friendship still is shining like the sun,
We’re miles away, but not so far apart;
Though now, O house, you’re empty, cold, and dark,
My night in you forever left its mark.

I took a long time to fall asleep Thursday night. I kept thinking about Laura, having sex with Adam and partying with all of the other exchange students, probably getting drunk in the process. I wondered if she made any other decisions she regretted on her weekend with the other exchange students. I knew consciously that that line of thinking was horribly judgmental, and that I was being a bad friend by entertaining those thoughts, but I could not help it. I woke up tired Friday morning, still dwelling on these dark thoughts.

I was not feeling angry with Laura, though. My brooding was directed more toward myself, at my failures with girls, and at a society where fake people with loose morals always got the girl or guy they were after, and guys like me were ridiculed and made outcasts. I did not know how meeting girls and dating worked. Laura tried to encourage me, but her suggestions just were not easy for me. I did not know how to talk about things that girls would be interested in, and sometimes I felt like I was on the outside, or at best on the outer fringes, of cliques that seemed to spend a lot of time together.

During a break between classes, I went to the Post Office to mail Laura’s letter. There was a small Post Office in the Memorial Union building, around the corner from the campus store. Four people were in front of me in line, and with two friends in Europe that I was writing to that year, I had spent enough time in this line to know that I would be here for at least fifteen minutes. Usually only one employee worked at the desk, and whenever he had to get something behind the desk, or place a package where the outgoing packages went, he seemed to move so slowly that I wondered if he was exaggerating his slow movements on purpose. Did he have special training to learn how to work so slowly and inefficiently? If I had been working behind that desk, I would be moving a lot faster, just because it was in my nature to get things done. It probably would have saved time to buy stamps in the denomination of what it cost to send a letter to Europe, but sometimes I wrote long enough letters that it cost more, and I would have had to stand in line anyway to get the right postage.

I finally mailed my letter and walked toward the other end of the Memorial Union looking for a place to sit. I was thinking about Laura’s encouragement to talk to girls and not be afraid, and as if on cue, I saw Haley walking toward me. Before I could overthink myself out of it, I said, “Hey, Haley.”

Haley stopped and looked up at me with her bright blue eyes, smiling. “Hi,” she said. “What’s up?”

“Not much,” I said. “Glad it’s Friday.”

“I know! I had a big midterm yesterday. It was a long week.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Hey, what are you doing this weekend?” The words just came out; I was not sure where I was going with this line of conversation, but it felt right to ask.

“Not much. But I’m going to play games at the Albert Street house tonight. Did you hear about that?”

“I don’t think so.”

“After JCF tonight. Just hanging out and play games. I’m sure you’re invited.”

“Eddie and Raphael’s house? That Albert Street house?”

“Yeah. I have to get going, but will you be at JCF tonight?”

“I will. I’ll see you there?”

“Yeah! See you there!”

I did go to the game night after JCF that night, and it was a lot of fun. About ten of us were there, and we played Uno and Taboo until well after midnight. Nothing special happened between me and Haley, although we did get to talk a bit more. That felt like progress. Maybe next time I would ask her to do something specific, just me and her.

After the game night ended, I headed home on the nearly empty streets of Jeromeville under the dark night sky, driving over the overpass with trees on it and flipping around the stations on the car radio. As I heard Alanis Morissette singing about how “you live, you learn, you love, you learn” in her pain-inducing voice that sounded like the sound some sort of bird would make as it was being stabbed, I instinctively reached over to change the station. But just before I pressed the button, I stopped. Maybe Alanis was right. I was living my life and learning from my missteps and mistakes. And so was Laura, on another continent. I was not doing myself any favors when I got down on myself because of my social and romantic failures, and neither was Laura when she called herself stupid because of what happened with Adam. Laura was my long-distance friend, and friends were there to encourage each other, and help each other learn and grow.

Dear readers: What are some experiences you’ve had with learning not to be so judgmental? Or learning from your mistakes?

Also, I know this is a day late. I might be taking an unplanned week off from writing here and there, because I’m behind on real life right now. Next time I skip a week, you can always read an episode from the archives.

January 19-20, 1996. A dangerous glance. (#67)

October 25, 2020December 19, 2021 ~ Greg Dennison ~ 23 Comments

A few months ago, during October of my sophomore year at the University of Jeromeville, I had gotten involved with Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, a chapter of an international nondenominational organization called Intervarsity. JCF had weekly meetings on Fridays with worship music with someone giving a talk about the Bible, and attending these was the extent of my involvement so far. I knew that there were also small group Bible studies and a few retreats every year, but I had not gotten involved in those yet.

As a relative newcomer to the group, I was still learning the etiquette. Some people stood up during worship, some waved their hands, some sat quietly. I was having trouble doing any of those right now because I had to pee, and I was not sure if getting up to use the bathroom during the music was frowned upon. I walked quickly to the bathroom as soon as the last song and closing prayer ended, and when I got back to my seat, Liz and Ramon, Jason, Sarah, Caroline, and Krista were standing where I had been sitting. I stood quietly next to Sarah. All six of these people had been in my dorm freshman year, and they were how I first knew about JCF.

“Hey, Greg,” Sarah said. “What are you doing tonight?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“We’re going to 199 Stone to see Dangerous Minds. You want to come?”

“Sure,” I said. “When does it start?”

“10. We don’t need to leave quite yet, but we should probably leave soon, to get there early.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Good idea.”

A little while later, the seven of us left Evans Hall and walked to Stone Hall. Evans and Stone were right next to each other on Davis Drive, so we did not have far to walk. A division of the Associated Students organization called Campus Cinema used the large 400-seat lecture hall in Stone as a second-run theater on weekends, showing movies that had played in theaters a few months earlier but were not released on video yet. Tickets were three dollars, less than even matinee prices at actual theaters.

Two lines extended from the front of the building, a relatively short line of people waiting to buy tickets, and a longer line of about 50 people who already bought tickets and were now waiting for the earlier show to get out. The seven of us paid for our tickets and moved to the back of the longer line. “This is based on a true story, right?” Krista asked.

“Yeah,” Sarah replied.

I did not know a whole lot about this movie, except that it was about an inner-city teacher, and that the song “Gangsta’s Paradise” came from this movie. I only knew that song because of Mark, my younger brother who loved gangsta rap. I did not realize that the movie was based on a true story.

About five minutes after we arrived, more people trickled in and moved to the back of the line where we stood. At one point, I spotted a familiar face walking toward me, and my mind flooded with thoughts. What do I say? I have not seen her in a while, and our last conversation was kind of awkward on my end. Maybe I should–

“Megan!” I called out, waving, interrupting the voices in my head.

Megan looked around for the source of the person greeting her. She saw me and smiled. “Greg! How are you?”

“I’m doing ok. Classes are going well. How are you?”

“I’m great!”

“How’s your building?”

“It’s good. It’s a pretty calm group of people so far. There hasn’t been a lot of drama. I have to go, I need to find the people I’m meeting here, but hey, it was good seeing you!”

“You too!” I said, smiling. Had I been asked yesterday, I would have said that I was making progress in getting over Megan. When she mentioned two months ago that she was dating someone, I was devastated, but I did not think of her as often since I did not see her as often anymore. Last year, she was an RA in a dorm in the same campus residential area as mine, and I saw her frequently around the dining commons. This year, she was an RA in a different residential area, and I lived off campus.

As I stood there in line, I found that I could not help but wonder if Megan and this guy were still together. Maybe that was who she was meeting. To my knowledge, Megan had no idea how I felt about her, since I never knew how to tell girls that I liked them. In the time since I found out that Megan had a boyfriend, I had also found out that another girl I liked had a boyfriend; this was a common theme in my life.

I saw a crowd of people leave the building as the early show ended, and a few minutes later, our line started moving. We climbed up to the building’s front entrance, walked across the lobby, and then down the aisle of the lecture hall. “Is this okay?” Liz asked as she gestured toward a mostly empty row in the center section toward the back.

“Sure,” I said, nodding. The others assented as well, and we sat down in seven consecutive seats. I watched as advertisements for other Associated Students services flashed on the screen, mixed with a few silly announcements. “Want to learn to be a projectionist? So do we,” one of them said. I laughed.

I looked around me at people filling in the seats. I saw Megan and her friends walk past us; they sat three rows in front of us. I looked back up at the screen, watching the advertisements, occasionally looking around but unable to stop myself from glancing at the back of Megan’s head. She was talking to one of the people she came with, an Asian girl with shoulder-length hair; they were laughing about something. Megan put her arm around the girl and leaned forward, and they kissed on the lips. Megan pulled back, smiling, then leaned toward the girl and kissed her again, leaving her arm around the girl after their lips separated.

Wait, I thought. What just happened?

Megan never told me that she had a boyfriend. Her exact words were “the person I’m dating,” and apparently the person she was dating was a girl.

The movie started, and I tried to pay attention to what was happening on the screen. Although it was dark in the building once the movie started, I could still see the outline of Megan and her girlfriend cuddling. I tried to look away. Looking at her felt wrong. Not only was she in a relationship, but it was a same-sex relationship, and that she was not even into guys in the first place. I forced myself to watch the movie, at times even putting my hands over my face to cover just enough of my field of vision so as not to be able to see Megan and her girlfriend.

I became more absorbed in the movie as it went on, watching Michelle Pfeiffer’s character, Ms. Johnson, struggling to connect with the city kids in her class and relate to their experiences. In one scene, the mother of one of the students called Ms. Johnson a vulgar name and told her that she should not teach these students to be academically successful. I could not understand how someone could possibly have such low expectations for her own child. I would have just as hard of a time as Ms. Johnson understanding the world that these students lived in, and she was much more patient with the students than I would have been.

At the end of the movie, Ms. Johnson’s character was unable to save one of the students from the dangers of street life. She seemed to feel that all her efforts were futile. Futility felt familiar tonight. All of my efforts to get closer to Megan, the late night conversations, sitting with her and her friends in the dining hall, exchanging birthday cards, the time we had lunch and hung out in her room, none of that mattered. I did the best I could, but I was doomed from the start just because I was a guy.

When the movie ended, people began standing and filing out of the theater. I realized that I could turn toward my friends so that Megan would be behind me, and I would not have to see her as she left the building with her girlfriend. But I also did not want to be conspicuous or rude about this. I stood facing forward as I normally would, waiting for the people around me to leave,and as Megan and her girlfriend walked up the aisle past me, I made eye contact with Megan and waved.

“Good night, Greg,” Megan said. “Have a good weekend!”

“You too,” I said, trying my best to act the way I always did, hiding the disappointment in my voice. I turned to my left, to the people I came with.

“What did you think of the movie?” Sarah asked.

“I liked it,” I said. “Sad, but that’s life sometimes. Sometimes, no matter what you do, things don’t work out.”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” Krista added. “But I thought it was cool how much effort she made to relate to the students.”

“It wasn’t bad, but there are already a lot of movies like this,” Jason observed. “Kids from rough neighborhoods and teachers trying to relate to them.”

“Yeah,” Krista agreed.

“You ready to go?” Liz asked me. I realized that I was standing closest to the aisle, so I would have to leave first in order for the others to get out. The crowd of people filing out had begun to thin, so I nodded walked toward the aisle. We stood outside in the cool night for a few minutes, talking about weekend plans and classes. Eventually, we all said our goodbyes, and I walked back to my car and returned to my apartment.

The next day was Saturday, and I did not have to wake up early for class. I lay in bed for over an hour after waking up, processing the events of the previous night. Megan McCauley was a lesbian. I saw her kissing a woman. Sometimes, in the back of my mind, I was still holding out hope in my mind that things would not work out with the person Megan was dating, and that I might have a chance with her. Last night had put an end to that hope. All it took was one look, last night while I waited for the movie to start, for what hope I had left to be put to death quickly. I supposed, though, that finding out the way I did had its advantages. Had I actually been brave enough to ask her out, she would have had to tell me that she did not like guys, and that interaction would have been awkward and embarrassing.

I put on a sweatshirt and went for a bike ride, trying to clear my head. I rode south on Andrews Road toward campus, intending to ride the entire length of the University Arboretum east to west. But as I approached, I realized that my route would take me right past Carter Hall, Megan’s dorm, and the North Area Dining Commons where we had met for lunch in September. I turned left on Fifth Street and entered campus on Colt Avenue instead. I did not want to ride past Megan’s building and think about her and her girlfriend in bed together. But it was too late; the thoughts were already there.

One look. All it took was one look to ruin my hope and my weekend. What if I had not looked up while I was in line and seen Megan outside of Stone Hall? Or what if I had made an effort not to look at her once I got to my seat? What if I had not gone to the movie last night at all? Then maybe I would have still been blissfuly unaware of Megan’s sexual orientation, and I would not have felt this awkwardness over having spent a year of my life having a crush on someone whom I did not even realize was not into guys at all. One look can turn happiness to sadness. That sounded poetic.

I stopped when I arrived at the east end of the Arboretum, behind the art and music buildings. Perhaps my mind was giving birth to another poem; I had been writing a lot lately. I did not like the “happiness to sadness” part, though. I continued riding my bike a short distance through the Arboretum and sat on a bench overlooking the small lake next to Marks Hall. The sky was blue, without a cloud in sight, but it was still January, and many of the trees in the Arboretum had shed their leaves. One look can turn summer into winter. No, that was not quite right. One look can turn the blue skies into gray. Iambic pentameter, very Shakespearean, but still not quite right.

One look can turn the daytime into night.

That was it. That was going to be the first line of my poem. Two years ago, in high school, we had studied Shakespeare’s sonnets, and I had become fascinated with their rhythm and rhyme pattern. I also found it interesting how much had been speculated over the years regarding who they were written to, or about, although I had not studied this in great detail. I continued my ride west through the Arboretum, thinking about how one look ruined my night last night, and how if I were to gouge out my eyes, I would not be able to see uncomfortable truths in the first place.

When I reached the oak grove at the end of the Arboretum, I continued on Thompson Drive across Highway 117 to the rural part of campus, past the sheep barn in the middle of the agricultural research fields. At the south end of Hawkins Road, I stopped again and stood for a few minutes. Olive trees lined both sides of the road. Behind me was Arroyo Verde Creek, with oaks and sycamores and various small bushes along its banks. Riding my bike on this route always made me feel so peaceful. Despite still being on a large university campus, I felt like I was miles and miles from civilization, not worried about girls rejecting me, or upcoming exams, or my uncertain future.

In Mr. Jackson’s AP English class at Plumdale High, we studied a few of Shakespeare’s sonnets in detail. Sonnet 29, the one that begins “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,” was my favorite. Today I felt like I was in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes. Life just sucked sometimes. Shakespeare used fourteen grandiloquent lines of iambic pentameter to say, essentially, that when he felt discouraged, hopeless, or envious of others, he simply thought of a certain special someone, and having this person in his life was more important than everything that was bringing him down. Scholars had spent centuries speculating about the identity and gender of this special someone and the nature of his or her relationship to Shakespeare.

But, now that I took the time to get out of my head and think about things, there was no mystery to the identity of my special someone, or in this case, multiple special someones. Sure, I had never had a romantic partner. Megan had a girlfriend. Sabrina Murphy had a boyfriend. Back home, I never got anywhere with Rachelle Benedetti or Kim Jensen or Melissa Holmes or Jennifer Henson or Annie Gambrell. But I had people who cared about me, and that really was important. Sarah and Krista and Liz and Ramon and Jason and Caroline had invited me to the movie last night. Taylor Santiago and Pete Green and Charlie Watson always welcomed me to their apartment when I just needed to get out of my apartment and interact with human beings. I had my friends from the Newman Center, I was making new friends at Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, I made friends in my dorm last year, and I had a few friends from classes or just from seeing them around campus. Sure, none of these people was my girlfriend, but they cared about me, and in my darkest moments, they had been there for me.

As I rode my bike back home, I continued thinking of ways to put my feelings into iambic pentameter. I was now modeling my poem on Sonnet 29, using the first eight lines to lament the illusion-shattering experience of seeing Megan kiss a girl, but then reflecting on the positive things in my life in the final six lines. I wrote down what I had so far when I got home, then after making lunch and spending a few hours studying, I logged onto an IRC chat in one window with my poem open in another window, writing my poem as I waited for people to reply to my messages. I finished a little after midnight.

“One Look”

One look can turn the daytime into night,
A happy day into a tedious chore;
One misdirected glance, and all’s not right,
The ships I’ve tried to sink arrive at shore.
I think that I will gouge out both my eyes
And lay this possibility to rest;
No more will I see through some grand disguise
To find that things are not as I’d have guessed.
But then my eyes would shut to all the love
My friends have shown in times of great despair,
And blind I’d be to gifts from God above,
And times I’ve persevered when life’s not fair;
One painful sight is quite a modest price
To pay to live a life of things so nice.

Megan and I did not stay close for the rest of the time we were at UJ. I had of course not ruled out the possibility that she was bisexual, interested in both women and men, but that was not something I wanted to think about, and it was beside the point. Although I did not grow up with much exposure to the LGBTQ community or lifestyles, I did not reject her out of prejudice. We had already started growing apart now that I did not eat at the dining hall anymore. I also made less of an effort to stay in touch with her once I found out she was dating someone, because I knew she would not be interested in me. I did not avoid her intentionally; I still saw her on campus over the years and said hi occasionally. But we just ran in different circles, and sometimes people just naturally grow apart.

After this, I only have one more specific memory of an actual conversation with Megan. It was early in my senior year, her fifth year, when I passed her on the way to class. She told me she had two more quarters left to finish her undergrad degree, I told her about what I had done over the summer, and she told me that a friend of hers had done the same thing as me a few years earlier. Additionally, in 2014, I was looking at the website for a place where I had a job interview coming up, and I saw a mention of an employee named Megan McCauley . I do not know if it was the same person, but Megan’s degree was in chemical engineering, and this person’s position was related enough to chemistry that it was possible. No picture accompanied the name. I decided to let sleeping dogs lie and not try to figure out if this was the same Megan McCauley; it did not matter in the end, because I was not offered the job. If Megan and I are ever meant to cross paths again someday, I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

January 25, 1995. Writing dirty limericks. (#21)

June 19, 2019December 19, 2021 ~ Greg Dennison ~ 3 Comments

I walked across the street from Wellington Hall to the Memorial Union. I had just finished my first math midterm of winter quarter, and I felt good about it. The topic of the test was partial derivatives, and while I had never learned about partial derivatives before, or even heard the term until a few weeks ago, everything we had done so far had seemed fairly straightforward.

I liked this math class so far. None of my IHP classmates were in my class, but there were a few familiar faces from last quarter, including Andrea Briggs from Building B and Jack Chalmers from building F. The instructor was a tall blonde woman named Shelley Bryce. Like Jimmy Best from my last class, Shelley was a graduate student in the mathematics department. She was a bit more reserved than Jimmy Best, and she seemed less comfortable in front of the class, but I still understood everything so far.

I had a two hour break before chemistry class, so I rode back to my room. I turned on the computer and checked my email. There was only one message. It was from Brendan Lowe, who lived upstairs in room 322 and had a really sick sense of humor. The subject of the email said “FW: Fwd: Re: FW: FW: Dirty limericks.” In other words, this was going to be something wildly inappropriate that he received from someone else and passed on to the rest of the IHP, just as he did at least once a day on average. Hopefully, he took Karen Francis off of his forwarding list; I learned the hard way a couple weeks ago that Karen did not like getting chain emails like this one.

The dirty limericks that I read were so funny, and caused me to laugh so loud, that Aaron heard me through the wall and asked me later that day what the commotion was.

My chemistry class that day was about easy stuff, so I was really only half paying attention. The other half of my brain was attempting to think up my own dirty limericks to go with the ones that Brendan had shared. I started thinking of words that could rhyme. I thought of names of places, so I could use them in the first line. “There once was a man from Jeromeville,” I wrote; I crossed it out a minute later when I realized that nothing rhymes with Jeromeville. I tried thinking of other towns nearby that might be easier to make rhymes with, and after about five minutes, I scribbled this:

A pretty young girl from Blue Oaks
Made a dildo from bicycle spokes.
Now she’s doing all right
‘Cause she gets some each night
But she always complains how it pokes.

Next, I started thinking of body parts. Penis. Dick. Cock. Wiener. This could work. By the end of class, I had another one written in my notebook:

There once was a man named McGee
With a small dick that no one could see.
I’d bet, I’m no liar
That unlike Oscar Mayer,
This wiener you’d not want to be.

Earlier in the week, I had been sitting at the dining commons with Gina Stalteri and some others from my building. I walked up to the table as Gina was making a joke about a tool that was designed to measure a guy’s penis size. Later, she started talking about her roommate Skeeter frequently staying up late on an IRC chat talking to some guy in another state. Skeeter’s real name was Jennifer, but everyone called her Skeeter because one of her friends from childhood had thought she looked like Skeeter from the Muppet Babies cartoon. I could definitely see the resemblance. Also, having a distinct nickname made life easier when you had a common first name like Jennifer.

I had one more class that afternoon, but my mind was still on writing dirty limericks. I kept going back to the things Gina was saying at dinner the other night. And, not long afterward, I had this:

There once was a roommate named Skeeter;
This IRC guy liked to greet her.
If the two ever met,
She may finally get
To use Gina’s new Peter Meter.

I heard the professor saying something that reminded me that I was still in class and had better pay attention. So I started taking notes more carefully and put the dirty limericks aside for a while.

At dinner that night, I looked around for a place to sit. I saw Sarah, Krista, Ramon, Liz, Pete, Tabitha from Building B, and a girl with curly brown hair whom I did not recognize, at a table with one open seat between Liz and Pete. I walked over and asked if I could join them.

“What’s up?” Ramon asked, seeing me approach.

“Hi, Greg!” Liz said. “Come join us!”

“This is Jeanette,” Sarah said, gesturing toward the curly-haired girl. “And this is Tabitha,” she continued, gesturing toward Tabitha.

“I’ve met Tabitha,” I said, as Tabitha simultaneously said, “I know Greg.”

“How are you?” Sarah asked me.

“I’m good. I had a math midterm this morning. I thought it was pretty easy.”

“Have you gotten your payment turned in yet?” Tabitha asked Krista.

“Yes,” Krista said. “I’m going for sure.”

“Good!”

“What are you going to?” I asked.

“We have a retreat for JCF coming up next weekend. It’s at a Christian conference center in the hills outside of Bidwell.”

“That sounds fun! Are a lot of people going?”

“I heard that probably about 50 people from Jeromeville are going. I don’t know how many people are coming from the other schools.”

“Other schools?”

“Jeromeville Christian Fellowship is part of an organization called InterVarsity,” Liz explained. “They have chapters at colleges all over the USA and a few other countries. And the chapters from Cap State and Bidwell State and a few other schools will be at this retreat too.”

“That’s cool,” I said. “Sounds like a fun time.”

The conversation then turned back to classes. Given the fact that the entire rest of the table had just been talking about their church retreat, I figured that now would not be a good time to mention my dirty limericks.

After checking the mail (I had none), I walked back to the building. Gina, Mike Adams, and David were sitting in the common room having a rather loud conversation.

“Charlie told me that last night, he was coming back from a late class, and he walked in on Pat and Karen. They were so loud, they didn’t even notice he came in.”

“Whoa!” Mike shouted. “They didn’t even notice?”

“That’s what Charlie said– Oh, hey, Greg. What are you up to?”

“Actually,” I said, “remember the other day when Brendan sent those dirty limericks?”

“Those were hilarious!” Mike said.

“I know. I’ve been writing some dirty limericks of my own.”

“No way!” Gina exclaimed. “Let’s hear one!” I told her from memory the one about Skeeter, and she opened her mouth as if to say that she couldn’t believe I said that. “That’s great!” she said, laughing hard. “You even got the Peter Meter in there!”

Next, I shared the one about the bicycle spokes; the two guys were listening as well by then. “Ouch!” Mike exclaimed. “Who would do that? I mean, it isn’t like it’s hard to find a dildo! Why make one from bicycle spokes? That’s brilliant!”

“Did you write any other ones about people from here?” Gina asked. “You should write one about Karen and Pat.”

“That would be funny!” I said. I started thinking aloud. “There once was a girl named Karen… what rhymes with Karen?” I sat and thought. “There once was a girl named Karen, at whose tiny breasts Pat was starin’.” The three of them laughed, but I said, “I don’t really like it. I think I can do better than forcing words that don’t really rhyme.”

The others started talking about something else, but I continued to work on my poem about Karen. What else rhymes with Karen? Maybe I could do something better if Karen wasn’t the word that I was trying to rhyme. Hmmm…

“There once was this girl, Karen Francis,” I said, “who always let Pat in her pantses.”

“Pantses!” Gina said, laughing. “This is great! I didn’t know you could write like this!”

“I really didn’t either. I tried making a few Weird Al-type song parodies as a kid, but they were terrible.”

“So what’s the rest of it?”

“I haven’t thought of it yet. Maybe it’ll come to me if I take a walk.”

“Go for it.”

I left Building C. It was dark by now, and cold outside. I should have brought a sweatshirt. I could always go back and get one if I end up being out here a long time. I walked from one end of the South Residential Area to the other, in between the twelve identical lettered buildings, the trees planted around them, and the grassy area in front of the dining commons. I heard the faint sounds of music playing from some of the buildings. It was a clear night, but I could only see a few very bright stars, because of the light posts along these walkways. The moon was not out. I contemplated what the rest of the poem could be about, and I kept coming back to what Gina had said about Charlie walking in on Karen and Pat. I thought of other words that rhymed with Francis and pantses. And over the course of about five minutes, as I wandered between the buildings of the South Residential Area, it came to me.

I returned to the common room of Building C; Gina and Mike and David were still there. As soon as I made eye contact with Gina, I began reciting my poem:

“There once was this girl, Karen Francis,
Who always let Pat in her pantses.
Charles came in and said,
‘Stop using my bed
For doing your horizontal dances!’”

“Horizontal dances! Where do you come up with this stuff?” Gina asked.

“It just kind of came to me.”

“You’re hilarious! You should keep doing this.”

“Thanks.”

“I didn’t know you wrote. You’re a math guy. Have you ever thought about doing anything with your writing?”

“Not really. This is new to me too.”

“Well, I think you’re hilarious. I need to go study, but this was fun. Thanks for the laugh.”

“You’re welcome.”

Gina, Mike, and David all climbed the stairs. I followed them, getting off with Mike on the second floor as Gina and David continued up to the third floor. Writing for fun really was pretty new to me. I did have a creative side going back to my childhood. As a kid, I often got great ideas for video games, but my limited programming skills and the limited hardware capabilities of the Commodore 64 left almost all of my video game ideas unfinished. In my teens, I would draw comic books and copy them on the copier at my mom’s work; my brother and some of his friends got involved in my little publishing business too. But my artwork was terrible, and the story lines were shallow and childish. Mom probably saved a lot of those in a box somewhere in the attic, but I haven’t looked at them in decades.

These limericks, along with the depressing poems I wrote a few weeks earlier while I was listening to Pink Floyd, were really the start of my hobby of creative writing for fun. I never wanted to make a career out of it, and it isn’t something I do on any sort of a regular basis. I just have a lot of thoughts in my head that I want to share. Sometimes I just write to make people laugh, like with these dirty poems. But sometimes writing also helps me to sort out thoughts on my mind, and sometimes other people’s reactions to my writing help me see a different perspective on the situations that inspired me to write. Obviously, I still write today, because you’re reading this right now. So feel free to leave comments and help me see the memories of my past from a different perspective.

(Author’s note: Again, these are all real poems that I actually wrote in 1995. Most of the other dirty limericks I found from that time involved inside jokes that were too much to explain now. I don’t even remember some of those inside jokes.)

January 12, 1995. Bricks in the wall. (#19)

June 3, 2019December 19, 2021 ~ Greg Dennison ~ 6 Comments

The British rock band Pink Floyd, a staple of classic rock radio which had been around since the late 1960s, released an album last year, late in my senior year of high school, called The Division Bell. That would be their last album of new material, and their tour last summer and fall was their last tour together.

With increased attention focused on the band, their older material got played much more often on classic rock radio, and I went through a Pink Floyd phase that lasted for about two years. I had my CD of The Division Bell, as well as tapes I had made of a few other Pink Floyd CDs I had borrowed from a few friends in Building C. But during that time, much of my knowledge of Pink Floyd came from their Usenet community.

Usenet was the progenitor of the Internet forum, where people make posts to ask questions or share something and others reply to it. Unlike modern fora, though, Usenet only supported messages in monochrome text; no pictures, formatting, or emojis. I subscribed to a few groups once I got to UJ and started using Usenet, mostly groups for bands and sports teams that I liked. The Pink Floyd group was by far the most active of the ones I followed, and like many active communities throughout the history of the Internet, this group featured many people with strong opinions. There was much arguing on which of Pink Floyd’s songs and albums was the best. Bassist Roger Waters, who was the songwriting heart and soul of Pink Floyd during their heyday in the 1970s and provided lead vocals for many of the songs, had left the band in the mid-1980s, and there was much arguing about whether or not the two subsequent Pink Floyd albums recorded by the other band members were in fact to be considered legitimate Pink Floyd material.

Much of the activity on this Usenet forum, however, was related to a cryptic message that had been posted using an anonymous email address a few months before I started following the group. In June of 1994, someone using the name Publius posted a disjointed message saying that the Division Bell album contained a hidden meaning, and that there would be a reward for whomever solved the enigma. Two more Publius messages followed, and among them was a prediction that something would happen at a certain time at a Pink Floyd concert a few days later. At exactly the time predicted by Publius, the word “ENIGMA” appeared on a screen on stage, suggesting that whomever was writing these strange posts actually had a connection with the band. This led to a great deal of discussion and speculation about the true meaning of the lyrics and artwork for the album. Some of the theories behind the Publius Enigma were relatively ordinary, usually involving the band coming up with this idea to get people talking about the true meaning of the songs. Others came up with significantly more outlandish theories, with one user even suggesting that Pink Floyd had made contact with aliens, and that the reward would be getting to go with the band to the aliens’ home planet.

All of this got me a little obsessed with the possibility of secret messages in songs. Last week, I had made a tape of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, borrowing the CD from Aaron in the room next door to me, and I had pretty much listened to it at least once a day, sometimes more, ever since. The Wall was a rock opera telling the story of a rock star with a troubled past, building a metaphorical wall to isolate himself from the world and others, and eventually becoming a fascist dictator-like figure. It spawned a few hit songs in 1979 and 1980, including their most commercially successful song, “Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2” (often known by its opening line, “we don’t need no education”). This was one of the first songs I ever remember recognizing when hearing it on the radio as a preschool-aged child, along with Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” and Supertramp’s “Take The Long Way Home.”

This was the first week of classes, and I was still getting used to my schedule. Today, Thursday, consisted only of a three hour chemistry lab in the morning. Our first lab today mostly consisted of lab safety procedures, with a very short experiment at the end so that the teacher assistant running the lab could demonstrate more procedures for us. Nothing too exciting. Nothing burned or blew up. The chemistry building, which in 1995 was just called the Chemistry Building rather than bearing the name of a significant individual in UJ’s history, was closer to the South Residential Area than any other building where I had ever had a class so far. Because of this, five minutes after my lab let out, I had already locked my bike, dropped off my backpack in my room, and started climbing the stairs to the dining hall.

I looked at the Asian girl with chin-length black hair climbing down the stairs and tried to remember why she looked familiar, whether or not I had actually met her, or if I had just seen her around the dining commons building. I remembered who she was just as we made eye contact: Tabitha, from Building B, who knew a bunch of people in my building because they were all part of Jeromeville Christian Fellowship. “Hi,” I said as we made eye contact.

“Hi,” Tabitha said as she passed me down the stairs. I didn’t know if she remembered me. Hard to tell.

After I got my food, I looked around for a place to sit. I knew exactly no one in the building, so I sat at a table by myself. I watched people walk past me as I ate alone. Friends laughing about something. Happy couples holding hands. A few other loners like me, but not many. Would I ever be part of a happy couple holding hands? There were times that I was at a table with friends laughing about something, but where were those people today? When I finished eating, I made a huge ice cream cone at the soft serve machine and brought it back to my room. On the way back, I saw Sarah Winters and Krista Curtis walking toward the dining commons as I headed back toward Building C.

“Hey, Greg,” Sarah said. “How are you?”

“Ok, I guess. Done with classes for the day.”

“Nice! See you later.”

I almost thought about turning around and eating lunch again just so I would have someone to talk to today. But that seemed a little creepy and desperate. I was feeling lonely, but there were still at least another ten hours of being awake today. Maybe people would be hanging out in the common room later tonight, or maybe I’d find someone to sit with at dinner.

I had math homework due tomorrow, and I worked on this in front of the computer screen while connected to IRC chat and listening to Pink Floyd’s The Wall yet again. Nothing interesting was happening; there were people in the chat room whom I had talked to before, but not any of the girls whom I had gotten flirty or sexually explicit with in the past. By 2:00, I had finished my math homework, and shortly afterward I got bored with the chat room.

I tried to take a nap, but thoughts that I could not silence kept running through my mind. I let my mind wander in a stream of consciousness. Another brick in the wall. Tear down the wall. Building my own wall. Being alone. Every day is the same. I go to class, I study, I waste my time in front of a computer screen. People talk to me, sure, but I’m not very social beyond talking. I never go on dates or to movies or out to eat or anything like that. Well, maybe occasionally, but today I wanted to do something and no one was around. Would I ever find my way and adjust to this new life? How long would this take?

I wished I had one more year at Plumdale High. I had grown so much last year. I was brave enough to do that skit in front of the whole school. I had people encouraging me, like Melissa Holmes and Lisa Swan and Jessica Halloran, even Catherine Yaras all the way from Austria. Jason Lambert and Stacey Orr and I dominated that debate in government class taking the conservative side. Stacey’s feminist views bothered me at first, but we agreed on a lot of other political issues, and we were friends for the most part by the time we graduated. I did some class competitions at lunch. We lost the overall class competition point total to the sophomores. They clearly cheated, or at least bent the rules, on the competition for best Homecoming float, and everyone who wasn’t a sophomore knew it. I was pissed off about that, and I hated the entire class of 1996. I worked hard on that float, and so did a lot of other people. But a month later, I met Annie Gambrell when I made that video for her group project, and she ended up being my only friend from the year that beat us. Annie was really cute, and a sweetheart too. She wrote a very encouraging and thoughtful message in the back of my yearbook last year, something I would expect to hear from a very close friend rather than someone I had only known for six months. But of course, Annie had a boyfriend, and even if she hadn’t, I probably didn’t have a chance with a popular girl like her.

I sat up. Nap time wasn’t happening. I turned the computer back on and spent the next few hours writing, putting my stream of consciousness to words. And not just any words. Rhyming couplets of iambic pentameter. And not just any rhyming couplets of iambic pentameter; I also hid a secret message in my poem.

When we studied Shakespeare in high school , I had a hard time at first hearing iambic pentameter, because I was used to popular music that had four beats per line instead of Shakespeare’s five. But the form eventually grew on me. Sonnet 29 in particular has always been a favorite of mine. And the secret message in my poem was definitely inspired by the Publius Enigma. I envisioned this poem as the first in a series all telling a story around a common theme, much like how the songs in The Wall told a story around a common theme.

I got up to use the bathroom while I was writing, and I left the door open a crack in case anyone came by to say hi. I doubted anyone would, though. After an hour or so, I had my finished product.

“Almost Extinct”

However hard the lonely young man tries,
Each night he stagnates, tears come to his eyes.
Around him, people moving here and there,
Variety, in his life, very rare.
It’s not much like the past, with lots of friends,
Like those to whom his happy times he lends,
Yes, now he has friends too, but something’s gone;
In this place no one’s there to push him on,
No goofy acting role before his peers,
Friends care, but not like in his high school years,
Like helping him become one of their own.
Under their domination he had grown,
Each day becoming stronger than before.
New friends came knocking on his open door.
Come crashing down, great wall of ninety-six!
End all the hate! build bridges with those bricks!
Do videos! the memories will transcend;
Behold the liberal wonder, now a friend.
Yet suddenly, one happy summer night,
Pure happiness made everything seem right,
In fact, however, that night was the last;
Now all that happiness lies in the past,
Killed off by evil forces time has wrought;
Far, far away, his happiness is naught;
Long gone is all the friendship from before,
Once there, it’s hard to stop that upward soar.
Yet he believes that he might soar again;
Does anybody know exactly when?

“Greg?” I heard someone say from the hallway. Sarah poked her head in the door. “Is everything okay? You seemed kind of down when I saw you earlier.”

“I’m just having a bad day,” I said. “A lot of thoughts running around in my head.”

“Anything you need to talk about?”

“I feel alone, mostly.”

“You’re not alone. You have friends here.”

“Well, like, you guys are my friends, but I don’t really do stuff with you other than classes and living here. I’m not good at making plans with people. I didn’t really have friends back home until senior year, and I wasn’t the one making plans. I would just get invited to stuff. And, I’m not good with girls. I’ve never had a girlfriend.”

“Greg, just be yourself. I know a lot of people in this building care about you. I care about you. And we’re not out there having fun and doing stuff every night. Most of the time we’re studying.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“But I’ll try to make sure you feel included.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“You know some of us here are in a Bible study on Tuesdays. You’re always welcome to come to that.”

“Maybe.”

“By the way, was I interrupting anything? Are you studying?”

“No. I was… well, I was writing poetry about how I’ve been feeling.”

“Really? Can I read it?”

“Sure.” I didn’t feel like my poem was personal enough to hide from people, and I was curious about people’s reactions. I was also curious if she would find the secret message, or be curious about some of my oddly specific descriptions, like the Wall of Ninety-Six. She didn’t find the secret message, which was hidden in plain sight down the left side of the poem, reading the first letters of each line.

“That’s interesting,” Sarah said after she finished reading. “I like it.”

“I was thinking of writing a whole series of poems, kind of telling a story about this guy.”

“That’s a good idea. I didn’t know you wrote poetry.”

“I don’t really, at least not very often. But like I said, I was thinking about a lot of stuff earlier, and it just came out as poetry.”

“That’s really cool. Do you have anything else?”

“Well, I wrote another one a few days ago. A funny one. It’s actually a song parody.”

“I want to see it!”

I opened this file on my computer, which replaced Almost Extinct on the screen.

“Amazing Gas”

Amazing gas, how sweet the sound,
But oh, how bad the smell!
It kills your nose, makes trees fall down,
That’s how my old oak fell.

If there are lots of folks nearby
That you don’t want to see
Just cut the cheese, and they will fly,
The crowd will cease to be.

One man broke wind, his friend dropped dead,
They went for Murder One;
‘Twas just a heart attack, they said,
He walked, but it was fun.

Beware that wind from someone’s ass!
That pow’rful, putrid smell!
But if you want to smell the gas
Just eat at Taco Bell.

“That’s bad!” Sarah said, laughing. “And hilarious! Such a guy sense of humor.”

“I can’t help it. I grew up around fart jokes.”

Just then, the telephone rang. “Can you answer that?” I asked Sarah.

“What? Why?”

“It’s my mother. She’s the only person who ever calls me here. And I want to see her reaction when someone else answers.”

Sarah picked up the phone on the third ring. “Hello?” she said. She listened for a few seconds, and then laughed. “No, it’s not the wrong number. Greg is here,” she explained. She handed me the phone a few seconds later.

“Hello?” I said.

“Who was that?” Mom asked.

“Sarah. She was in here talking about something, and I just wanted to see your reaction when someone else answered the phone.”

“You got me. I was confused. I wondered, did I dial the wrong number? Did I forget Greg’s phone number?”

“I was just messing with you,” I said. I wouldn’t put it past Mom to forget my phone number, however. She tried to send me a package in 2008 that ended up getting returned to her after three weeks because she forgot my address. As I noticed Sarah gesturing as if she wanted to tell me something, I told Mom, “Hang on. Just a minute.”

“I’m going to let you go,” Sarah said quietly. “We’ll be going to the DC around 6 for dinner if you want to join us.”

“Okay,” I said. Sarah left and closed the door. “Sorry about that,” I said to Mom. “Sarah was telling me something. She just left.”

Mom and I continued talking for about 10 or 15 minutes. Most of the time Mom was telling me about work and people at church whom she knew and I didn’t. I told her a little bit about my new classes for winter quarter.

After I hung up with Mom, I started working on my chemistry lab report. It wasn’t due until next week, but I figured I may as well do it now while it was fresh in my mind. I was feeling a little bit better. It took me a long time to start being social in high school. I was still adjusting to the routine of being in college, and it might take a while here too. But I had some advantages here. In high school, I had never had a social life before, but since I started to have a social life at the end of high school, I knew a little more how social lives worked. And being in the IHP, living with people in my classes, I didn’t have to look very far to find friends, at least not as far as one would expect to look at a university with over twenty thousand students. Sarah was right. A lot of people in this building cared about me. Like Sarah and Krista and Taylor and Pete, with whom I had dinner at the dining commons that night. And they weren’t the only ones. There was also Liz and Ramon and Charlie and Caroline and Danielle and Rebekah and David and Keith and so many others, and having that many people who were becoming friends was not something to take lightly. I did not entirely realize at the time how fortunate I was to have an experience like this.

(Author’s note: These were actual poems I actually wrote in 1995. And I did continue the series that started with Almost Extinct, but I’m not going to share the rest here. It’s just weird.)