I’m home now, two inches taller, well tanned, stomach ripped by swimming and fighting the ocean each day, and fifteen pounds of muscle heavier from Mama Gellet’s cooking. To tell the truth I’m a good-looking seventeen-year-old stud with a very positive attitude. My folks can’t believe it. They think I’m ready to go back to college. We put our heads together and came up with the University of California in San Diego and a major in Humanities. I’m still a philosopher in training and a humanist. The school finally accepted me after much pulling of strings by my Dad and a glowing progress report from Doctor O’Hara. He said my perspective on life and my emotional stability was now superior to that of most of the weirdo’s, which the school matriculated. I’m really proud, I think. Oops, here I go again.
I decided to approach UCSD as the domestic version of the French Riviera. After all, the climate is similar and they are both near the ocean. Granted it’s a different ocean and Danielle won’t be there, but I intend to have fun anyway. Oh yes I will take my studies seriously, but I don’t intend to let them occupy all of my time. The new Johnny Oops is going to be a social animal for a change.
Life seems a lot more relaxed than at Harvard. The kids are less intense. I guess I am less intense. No one seems to spend much time going to class. Surfing and boozing appears to be the order of the day. I had never been surfing before, but it came naturally to me. I guess all that swimming in the Mediterranean put me in shape. Learning how to drink turned out to be a totally different story. I come from a long line of Wilbert men who have proven time and again that they cannot hold their liqueur.
It all started innocently enough. I joined the Sigma Phu Fraternity in an attempt to fit in and make my parents proud of what a social animal I have become.
“Daddy your son is no longer a philosopher nerd, now I’m a social drunk.”
Anyway, I was dazing at a Saturday afternoon booze fest to celebrate the coming of the weekend when one of my fraternity brothers dared me to jump off the second floor porch of the Frat house. My inhibitions released by 3 whisky sours, I happily complied shouting, “This is the life.”
I ended up breaking my right leg. That was the end of my surfing career. I was driven to the University hospital by two of my fellow fraternity brothers who were so drunk that the emergency room attendants at first thought they were the patients. It’s a miracle we got there alive. The doctor in attendance put my two buddies in temporary detox and proceeded to x-ray my leg, which was broken in 2 places. He then set it in a cast, which ran all the way up to my hip saying, “The more immobilized you are, the safer I’ll feel.
A student nurse who helped him apply the plaster aided the good doctor in the procedure. That’s when I met Jennifer. She is a knockout with typical blonde California good looks, a body to die for, and a smile that goes from ear to ear.
While Jennifer and I were waiting for the plaster to dry, I invited her to the Saturday night party at the frat house.
She laughed and said, “I might as well. Someone has to drive you back and show you how to maneuver your wheelchair and your crutches.”
I guess I was a little zonked out from the pain killers by then because I remember mumbling something about, “why don’t we use a stretcher, that way you can have me flat on my back where you want me.” Anyway, I woke up in my room with a terrible headache and Jennifer still in her nurse’s uniform stroking my forehead with a damp washcloth. The guys in the house thought it was the coolest thing ever. Three of them volunteered to jump off the porch next Saturday.
Let me tell you about Jennifer, she is really amazing. Being a nurse and all she is very practical and scientific in her reasoning. After I had recovered a little she suggested that we spend the evening in my room talking as I really wasn’t in any shape to go downstairs and party. That made sense to me. We talked and talked, mostly about me, and my experiences as a philosopher genius. I told her about Dialectic Spiritualism. I told her about my summer in France and Danielle. I never mentioned Alice or Harvard. She told me about growing up in San Diego, about her parents and about her life and her friends. She told me she was a Buddhist. I must have dozed off for a while. When I woke up again, I had this gigantic erection that in true nurse fashion Jennifer ministered to with warmth and kindness. I never had to move a muscle, well only one muscle. It was great.
I’m beginning to think there is something wrong with me. I try to be a philosopher; I try and go to school and study. I try and be a good son to my parents, and all I do is end up having sex. There has got to be more to my life than this. Oh well, until I become mature I guess I will have to settle for what I have. It’s not so bad. I can handle it. I’m pretty tough you know. After all I am a philosopher genius and we are prone to leading really mixed up, sexed up lives. It’s not so bad.
Jennifer and I spend a lot of time together. She’s a lot of fun. Actually she is a Buddhist and has taught me a lot about it. That is a part of Humanities. I’m just pursuing my chosen course of study.
Speaking about studies. I signed up for a course called ‘Recognition’ during pre-pledge week. I must have had too many champagne Mimosas before registration at a rushing breakfast where they try and show you how great fraternity life is. I thought it was a course that showed you how to deal with the public once you become famous. I intent to be a famous philosopher, and a Guru of major importance and acclaim. It turns out this course shows you how to get in touch with your inner self: the real you, your authentic self. The course tries to show you why you act the way you do, and how you can change all that by gaining a better understanding of who you really are. It goes on and on like that until a minor hangover can turn into a major headache. I will never drink before I register for classes again.
The teacher running the class is a Professor Flex or Mr. Fixit, as his few graduating students like to call him. To show you how popular this course isn’t, I was one of only 4 students out of a student body numbering over 10,000 to take it. The good part is that the professor seeing the small size of the enrollment decided to hold classes at his house on Tuesdays and Thursdays at four o’clock in the afternoon, which was when I usually played Hearts at the frat house. He probably saved me a fortune. I gamble just about as well as I drink. In this case I’m not sure it’s genetic. Anyway his wife served tea and hard as a rock chocolate chip cookies, and a miserable time was had by all, but I learned a lot about myself. Much of what I learned I didn’t really want to know, but it is a beginning.
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