the cave

i'm in the large computer room behind the elevators surrounded by other students staring into computers. it's very early, and i wonder how many of them have been here all night. you can do that now. there's a guy sitting next to me who swaggered over blasting michael jackson on headphones audible 6 feet away. he has a particularly, blank, saliva-dripping expression on his face with his lower lip curled helpfully like the pouring lip of a beaker (i just tried to find if there was a word for the pouring part of some kind of vessel, and apparently there is no better way of describing it than "pouring lip"). he is playing some sort of racing tetris game with two different columns and many neon colors flashing. his fingers are knobby with effort, keyboard claws. there are several bright yellow ladders in this massive room with men in blue jumpsuits fiddling around in the ceiling. occasionally they drill things and everyone sleepily looks over. silence is a right to be protected and fought for. tetris man just left. it is so vividly comical to have the heads of those jumpsuited workers in the ceiling while ours, those of students, are staring here.

i'm getting out of this place! I CANNOT WAIT TO GRADUATE! I CONSTANTLY FEEL AS IF SOMEONE IS PLUCKING TINY HAIRS FROM MY BODY! I had a nightmare last night about school, which has almost never happened to me (except for last term when I had a recurring one that I was taking a german class and it was the end of the term and I spoke no german). I got another paper back from hepburn who wrote "you have no respect for words" or something like that, something so sprawlingly mean that i remember thinking in the dream that i wanted to write and that this teacher, in his meanness, had encroached on my private life and dreams in his zealous hate. horrible.