King's College, Faculty of Classics, Room 102.

Writing from Jaffa Net Cafe, a pale yellow slit in the "pick-your-own-raw meat" ethnic food strip. My eyes are tearing up from the sweet apple and cherry Huka smoke, my dark-skinned, bald, middle eastern brothers stare blankly past me, probably at my now gray, once white computer monitor held together by sticky tack. There's a shiny silver sword hanging above my head.)

Cambridge: you're about 3 maybe 4 nestled in a onezie with booties, wrapped in your infant blanky, lying in a stroller with the the little flap blocking the direct sunlight, there's a breeze, you smell grilled chicken and freshly mowed grass, your mom softly whispers to you pointing out the colorful shiny things, you might doze off, you might eat a snack: peace: Cambridge. Mokshada Anil Patil, "Mona," got bored with the beauty here. In India she is used to filthy streets, hot humid air, sweat, dust, and broken glass. She could not believe that every tree was made for a picture, every street swept, every flower in bloom. "There is no ugliness, it's too perfect," she said,"I need a frame of reference."

Yoshi said he asked God to bring him here after he dies, to the "Garden of Eden" as he keeps calling it. He asked if that pink tree in the courtyard of St. Johns was the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. I told him about Mona after a break from Fear and Trembling and A Handful of Dust. He was pissed: "There's no frame of reference in Heaven."

I am a college student and I guess I look like one because I can walk right through the guarded gates of King's College and into the Faculty of Classics building, Room 102, for a philosophy course on Aristotle. I was expecting a lecture hall of at least a hundred, but ended up an odd face out in a class of under 30. Drew, Yoshi, and I did the whole half-laugh thing at the English jokes we didn't understand and prayed that we wouldn't be called on. We weren't. We left scott-free with some damn good notes on Form and Matter.

Well, no one in the group was right, I have yet to meet my wife in Cambridge. I flirted with a Swedish bar tender a little, but she just kind of flightely smiled and nodded at whatever I said. I only know one swedish word, so I took my beer back to the Spade's table. Joe and I lost for the first time.

I'll leave you with some Wordsworth to chew on:

[i]Sweet is the lore which nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things
We murder to dissect.

Everyone should listen to Josh Rouse. (Thanks sister.)

Next to Bath...

Cheers.

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