If You’ve Ever Been A Lady To Begin With

Good luck occurs in brusque, sporadic moments that correspond to vigorous words: spate, onslaught, gush. I wonder if we can exchange these brief, random bursts of good luck for an evenly distributed streak of okay-luck throughout the entire span of life. I would have no interest in this barter because such okay-ness would make life less interesting, but it would bring great comfort to those who do not want to stray from the beaten path, like accountants and pre-law kids. A lucrative enterprise indeed, but this gives rise to new problems:

• What currency would one use in the event of exchanging metaphysical fortunes?
• Should unscrupulous business dealings take place, what sort of punishment and reprimanding await wrongdoers?
• Who would head the watchdog group that handles said wrongful business deals?

Tomorrow, I will be flung into the thick of finals, and my most treasured companion is more Sharpie on balloon than mammalian bipedal capable of higher brain functions; this is very bad, because his silence makes him a poor study partner. But sigh, the summertime is nigh: a season characterized by warmth, sunshine, and drunk boys howling an unnecessary expletive as they drive by the window. It is the season for poetry and fiction, for iced teas on breezy afternoons and Long Island Iced Teas on warm evenings. And now I am done waxing lyrical.

Next Sunday, I will rendezvous with Sister Antiguit in New York, and in the two Tuesdays that follow, we shall board a giant metallic transport to Singapore. This time, if I am stranded overnight in an airport again, I shan’t have to rely on the kindness of strangers for their participation in a heated debate about the accuracy of carbon-14 dating. Neither will I have the misfortune to sit in between two large men on the plane, who will rest their heavy craniums on my shoulders when they fall asleep (this has happened). They will also snore, reek of expired milk and sulphur, and posess the table manners of the common hyena (been there, smelled that, and almost threw up once because of that last thing).

The evenings here have been very warm that I’ve had to sleep with an ice pack clamped between random limbs. Despite this attempt at keeping my corporeal core at a low temperature, I find myself stirring awake at random hours of the night to change out of my sweat-drenched clothes; I would return to bed all hot and bothered, and robbed of hours of REM sleep. Solutions?

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