Response to: This American Life - #1 Party School

          Waking up has never been more laborious. The draining vacuous light of day slices through my crudely obstructed dorm window. I look at the jail-like bricks that surround me, but don't see my Salvador Dali "Swans Reflecting" poster. I surmise I ended up on the bed below mine, unable to make it to the top bunk. I check the clock, it's one thirty in the afternoon. I begin to pick my head up, yet it seems this idea is unattainable, for it feels my brain is throbbing, pushing up against the barriers of my skull. I examine by feet at the end of the bed, still suited up in my newly ruined grey suede boots. This is a reasonably typical way to begin my Friday. Known by most, the university I attend, Plymouth State is a notorious party school. It's ranked number nine in the country, thanks to The Princeton Review.
          I lay, like a sack of potatoes, disheveled in bed. How productive my weekends are. I try to recall the events of the prior evening. It's as if tiny snippets of my night begin to appear, like small pieces of cloth you would use to patch your jeans, although there is never enough to cover the holes, your bare skin peeking through, unwanted and awkward. A vision looms in my mind. I vaguely remember pouring my Jack Daniels whiskey effortlessly into a red solo cup around five o' clock last evening. How the liquor flowed, with its poignant smell, making sweet harmonious splashes into the plastic bottom. I mixed in a relatively small amount of Coca-Cola. As the sun fades into the horizon line, and the moon begins to rise in these early winter months, warmth fills my being.
        The next few hours blur and fade. Comical moments, my comrade's and I find more funny than most. Dinner is but a dream, the mix of people, some I know, some I don't. All of whom I greet, and some I begin conversing with. It's time to go back to my current residence in the Pemiwagesset Hall, which I consider close to the word "home". Starting to get dry, like a feline going mentally insane over its cat-nip, we begin cascading our needy throats again. Carl Rossi Sangria, Absolut Vodka, and my Jack Daniels are now sitting admiringly on the weathered dresser. Clothes are flying everywhere in this intoxicated universe, cosmetics are being applied, and hair is being curled, our world still bound by feminity.
        We travel place to place, like nomads, offering nothing else than our company. We don't come bearing gifts like the usual drifter, our euphoric potions, hidden in our purses. Back to the reality of my dorm room I gaze upon the fresh red taint of skin on my wrist. Virgin cuts, only existent from my imbalance when the clock had past midnight. Recollections arise of the sensory, boreal ice under my skin, lightly piercing my flesh. Remnants of my warm blood must have leaked on the earth, along with my pride, or any I had left. My memories continue, coming and going in flashes throughout my day. The surreal atmosphere of it all, yet it's like a calendar, highlighted and routine. Everyone speaks the same language, academically fluent Monday through Thursday (day), inarticulately intoxicated Thursday (night) through Sunday. The world is in the selfish palm of our hands. It's still spinning on its axis, but we shift it as our weeks do. We re-align the stars and the planets to suit our needs. The chemical consistency of life itself is reborn, as if in a scientific laboratory, containing a poisonous, yet loving combination of the desires of someone in their youth.