The semester is slated to start on Tuesday and for once, I find myself unexcited. The thought of new books, new professors and the accompanying ideas encompassed by both, is somewhat uninspiring, a point that is quite unusual. I’ve been cuddled into New York for the past few weeks, going out, staying in, and partaking of happy hour…it’s been great and I don’t want it to change.

My friends are gearing up to graduate in May and I am worlds away, knowing I have at least another summer session to go in order to make up those credits I lost upon transferring into Gallatin. Perhaps such is why I’ve blissfully banished all thought of the post graduate career hunt.

I’m starting to get curious though, wondering what I’ll do when I’m done at NYU, wondering who will hire me and whether I can weather Manhattan’s job market. Part of me wants to give it a try and part of me wants to hunker down for another four weeks of hibernation. Maybe I’m so adverse to yet another semester of study because it’ll bring me that much closer to an entry into “the real world” or maybe I’m burnt out on theory and ready for practice.

Ever since our respective birthdays, my best friend and I have been relishing our “old age”
With every high school posse I pass or each fake id carting college kid, I feel myself somehow superior, in years at least. But lately, given the proximity of the colloquium, the diploma, the dates, the dog and their culmination in a continuing march towards maturity, I somehow feel myself more infantile than adult. It seems to me this insecurity shines through, although no one seems to notice…perhaps the truth of it is we all feel rather childish underneath it all. Perhaps that’s more a natural state than hyper maturity anyhow.

I won't grow up,
I don't want to wear a tie.
And a serious expression
In the middle of July.
And if it means I must prepare
To shoulder burdens with a worried air,

I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Not me,
Not I
~Peter Pan

Doubt
Fear
Fear of doubt

Trust
Lack of trust
Fear of lack of trust

Men
Sex
Wanting ache
Fear of ache makes for fear of men
Fear of men makes for fear of sex
Fear of sex makes for fear of self

Afloat on a sea of unknowing
Bobbing as a buoy in unsure waters
Expectation like an urchin
Suctioned to my mind

Unacknowledged
Undesired

Persistent barnacle on the back of my brain
Secreting doubt with each ring of his phone call
Each raise of his eyebrow
Each word from my mouth.

These perceptions of perfection,
Pieced together by memory,
Tied up with heart strings and laced by movie scenes-
Like loops of smoothly cut splices,
Knotted together to know what fits without seams-
They way ice cream is spooned in the smooth curve of a stainless steel scoop,
And just as a woman’s hand holds the face of a man, cupped perfectly in her palm,
Mirroring the fit each person finds,
In the bones of another’s face.

The one train has been crawling lately, dripping along its tracks and moving in slow motion from 50^th to 42^nd street as olive oil slides down the face of a wooden spoon. Where usually, train delays incite outrage and exasperated snorts from manhattans myriad of MTA patrons, through this particular passageway, there is little complaint. Along this line, there is an air of awestruck admiration seemingly inspired by the illuminated passageway that takes the train to times square after making its fiftieth street stop.

Once we’ve all stood clear of the closing doors, after the quiet has settled in the car and the train has lurched forward, the usual passage into darkness is unsettled by a series of white bubble-like lights that hang from the scaffolding to help construction workers repair the express train tracks. The effect is less perfunctory than magical however, and it transforms a habitual trip downtown into a near adventure. Perhaps that’s a bit of an extreme assertion but given a personal affinity for white lights and an adoration of all things New York, the combination of the two is enough to make me pause in admiration of the city that never fails to inspire a smile alongside a little bit of fairy tale tinted wonder.

What does cold feel like?

I thought about that a bit today, sitting in the 86^th street station, waiting for the one train and freezing my little tush off. Creating a definition provided a few minutes distraction from the prickling numbness in my fingers and toes and I settled upon the establishment of the feeling of cold as frustration. Yes, it's the annoyance that goes alongside the ability of an exterior force to touch below your skin and penetrate places that you yourself cannot. That’s what cold is to me anyways, a ripping through my external cells that I oftentimes find quite angering and inspiring of angry yells at oncoming winds, or a propensity to burrow beneath the many layers of scarves and shawls that I am prone to piling atop myself when winter weather strikes, showing only my eyeballs in an attempt to preserve the bare skin beneath from the forced caresses of oncoming wind