Observation

If everything I did was a work of Art then I wouldn't be fucking stuck here.

Two steps outside steel framed doors with smudged glass windows with the hand prints of a thousand miserable college students on them, I'm met with the smell of cigarette smoke. Standing no more then ten feet from the doors are small cliques of junkies, hovering together for warmth, shivering as the wind blows past them. One hand on their menthol cancer sticks, the other hand entrenched deep in their hipster coat pockets and their lungs curled up in small black balls of dust. I am the opiate to the masses. I am cynicism. Ten steps further along the concrete walk way is a line of cell phone wielding jetti knights of technology. Their fingers texting. Their mouths moving. Occasionally you get the blue-tooth jerk city douchebag who thinks he's better than everyone else and doesn't realize that people don't understand why he's talking to himself. Some people are talking about all night ragers complete with drunk sorority girls who love to take their tops off if you give them the right equation of alcohol and marijuana. Others are less extreme and merely discussing college issues with their parents or friends. "Can you believe that they won't honor the classes I took in community college?" "What was he thinking last night, who did he think he was talking to?" "I'm good mom, don't worry I haven't been mugged yet." God must surely love us to make us so important.

I never look up because that's just looking for trouble. The last thing I need is a conversation with a person I don't particularly care for and decides that he or she wants to rant to me about how life has some way come to fuck them over. Guess What, I've got problems too but I still try and keep my bitching to a minimal (My room-mates would tell you different though). My body begins to lose the warmth it had attained sitting in a climate controlled classroom listening to peoples uneducated opinions on world politics, historical issues, and religion. I still force myself to listen and to try and understand in a non-abbrassive manner because I feel that a free exchange of ideas without persecution is the only way in which we will evolve. Brain-washed and lost but I digress.

I zip my black northface jacket up to my chin and pull my hood over my head. My eyes wander back down to my feet until I hit the road. At that point my life is in danger, crossing that road at any time during the day is similar to the old Arcade game, "Frogger." People peruse along that road like it's a racetrack. Still on their cell phones. Still thinking their important. Still neglecting to monitor the road. I couldn't wish a big enough car accident in order to open their eyes. Nothing fatal, just enough for everyone to realize that their's a problem. No one will ever acknowledge that they need to change, that's too real. That's saying that you have a problem. That's realizing that you need help and in our warrior culture asking for help is a sign of weakness. The wolves that have been knocking at your doors for years will eat you alive. The herd will not acknowledge your existence. You will just be another causality of the war outside your pretty houses and white picket fences.

I cross the road without incident and step down a mud laden path where my black and white slip ons look dirtier then usual. I reach the pavement parking lot and begin banging off my shoes for some reason. It's a habit, if theres dirt in the crevices of my shoes I need to knock it off. Stamping my feet as I walk, I notice the proportion of litter that graces every small nook and cranny off the beaten path. For the most part their beer cans and cigarette butts but occasionally you'll stumble on a condom. Whether it's used or not is a different story, I refuse to get that detailed. I step back on the second dirt path I have to walk to get to my apartment complex. This part of the journey doesn't contain too much mud and is uneventful. I finally reach my apartment building and someone is parked in our parking spot. I have to go hunt them down so my room mates don't have to do it. I knock on the door, the girl answers and I ask if she could please move her car within the next hour. She looks at me sort of befuddled and says, "You guys don't ever use it though." I replied with, "We are today so if you could just move it within the next hour it would be much appreciated." "Alright," she says, "but you don't have to be rude about it." I started to laugh and I guess she just didn't get it so I had to say something. "I was under the impression I was being nice but if you want I can be a dick. I'm sure I can call the towing service that works for Campus Crossings and have them move it in the next hour." Needless to say, it was moved.

Finally getting back to my apartment, I rejoice in the warmth that is emitted by the vents in my room. I sit down and enjoy the fact that I'm done for the day, the weekend. Then I realize that I have to do it all again next week. I am the opiate to the masses. I am cynicism.