November 12, 1999 Friday
The alarm blared at six like it had been asked to do, but now six seemed much earlier that it had the night before. Seven sounded more reasonable, and the alarm stayed quiet for another hour.
I kept being woken up during the night, though, because Matt and Camille, directly below me, have several alarms for… I don’t even know the reason. They ring at all times of the night and day, since Matt is one of those sickos that only sleep a few hours at any one time throughout the day. Finally, tired of a buzzing from beneath the floorboards always interrupting my sleep I stumbled into the bathroom. Warm water today. I always thought a problem would come in the mornings, with a fight for the single shower, but I’m the only one with an eight o’clock class.
And soon I was off into the cool Autumn air to said class. Very foggy this morning, which I enjoyed. I like mornings with a dense layer of obscuring grey mist. It makes me think of a philosophy of existence that I heard once. It stated that everything that is real is in your mind, and what exists is what right in front of you; if a person of thing leaves our sight it ceases to exist until it comes back into your field of view. What a creepy but fascinating slant on reality.
In music we were quizzed over the great composers from Bach to Bartok, which I think I did quite well on. One thing I still have to do for this class is to go to campus concerts, and I’ll soon get that done.
After American Literature and a less-than-involving discussion of two stories, Sharon and I chit-chatted out way to Simpkins. Sharon, if you do not know, is the girl Collinsville is spending time with in the absence of Erika, and she is also in my English class. She is a Sigma Sigma Sigma, which I guess, if you go for status-seeking, is a good thing around here; and although Sharon’s okay, there’s nothing that makes her as good as Erika. I guess for Collinsville the one big thing in Sharon’s favor is that she is here, and not hours away.
I whiled away the hour break from 10-11 by visiting the Prairie Lounge in the Union like most days. From my favorite green couch in the corner I read of Howard Roark, Peter Keating, and Ellsworth Tahooey. The Fountainhead is a sometimes astounding, sometimes confounding novel that I am a little more than halfway finished, but for me it lacks what made We the Living engrossing. The character of Kira in We the Living was someone to care for and root on. She is the last fire in bitterly cold world, and I wanted her to succeed. Howard Roark, design of Rand, is much harder to love. In fact, all of the character of this book are difficult to care about because they seem devoid of my any soul–except Roark, in his own prickly way–which makes this book infuriating at times. I had assumed Roark to be molded as an anti-hero for the first fifty or sixty pages, because he would go out of his way to avoid contact with the human world. Keating, an up-and-coming designer, at one point asked him to have a drink with him, which Roark flatly refused. At this point I had to question if Roark could be classified as any kind of traditional literary hero; and then a simple construction worker asked Roark to have a beer with him and Roark accepted. It wasn’t until that point that I could be accepting of Roark, but he still has a long way in my mind to be a Kira.
The Geology professor, Dr. Hess, who has more than demonstrated to 30-odd students the true meaning of the word “dull,” was noticeable giddy today in class because he got to review his knowledge of everything in the world for Monday’s exam. The study guide is six pages long, and over chapters 7-15. Jill and I can only look at each other and shrug. Hopefully Dr. “Rocks Make Me Happy” Hess also knows the meaning of the word “curve.”
Retiring back to 722–and more importantly, my bed–I snoozed for a few hours. Finally emerging from under my warm blankets, I found Amdor in the living room getting ready to go to the Pike house. This weekend is Regionals for Pi Kappa Alpha, where one chapter plays host to all of the Pike chapters in the Midwest. Little Western gets that distinction this year, and Amdor is excited to have a few of his very closest Pike brothers in town.
I didn’t do anything tonight that was all that exciting, but it was good all the same. I didn’t feel like doing much of anything. I just wanted to stay at home and had no desire to go out. Everyone wanted me to go along, but I simply didn’t care to. My night was spent at home, reading from The Fountainhead and listening to a little Floyd. As I laid on the couch, nestled up in a blanket and book, I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything. I was great to get a little quiet time to myself, and I headed to bed at eleven.
No One Will Believe You 