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March 28, 2007
Michael Shannon
February 26, 2007
I caught up Ezekiel today. He had gone home to attend a hearing for the D.W.I. charge that he received in February [I apologize that I mistakenly referred to his D.U.I. charge in my January column, but underage drinking and driving is an automatic D.W.I. in the District of Columbia]. Luckily for him, he was let off with probation before judgment. "Let off" is relative, though, since he will have community service to do over the summer, as well as an alcohol education course to complete and a several-hundred dollar fine. The DMV also revoked his license to drive for one year. Ezekiel is not happy about the entire trial, but if anyone knows how to get over things quickly, it's my good friend Ezekiel.
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March 17, 2007
Ezekiel told me he received a call today from his mother. She informed him that his younger brother had been admitted to the emergency room last night for alcohol poisoning. His brother is a junior in high school, just out at a party on a Friday night. He does not have the history of drinking that Ezekiel has, but certainly he has experimented before - this wasn't the first, and this probably wouldn't be the last time, he drank at a party. Last night he overdid it, threw himself headfirst into a stupor, and his friends decided to call the kid's parents, who took him to the hospital themselves. The doctors had to pump his stomach clear.
Ezekiel's brother is fine today - as well as one could hope for or expect after a night of hard drinking. His story, no doubt, could have ended on a far more melancholy note, and though Ezekiel joked about being "glad that my brother is following in my footsteps," I could tell that he was shook up by the entire ordeal. I didn't ask him today, maybe I will, whether he blamed himself for his brother's hospital visit. I suppose it is not a wholly relevant question - the brother is going on 18, and he can make his own decisions and suffer his own consequences independent of his older brother. But then again, I believe Ezekiel sees himself as a role model to his younger brother.
Ezekiel also has an older sister, now a couple of years out of college. Of what I can gather from the meager conversations Ezekiel and I have had about her, she is subdued in her own drinking habits, enjoying a glass of wine maybe a few times a week. It seems to me that Ezekiel's little brother had his choice of role models, and he chose the Ivy League drunkard.
March 18, 2007
Today, I got Ezekiel to open up a bit about his background, his family dynamic. They are topics that he has always been resistant toward, preferring to change the subject than give the conversation more than a sentence or two. I guess I shouldn't give myself all the credit; as Ezekiel spoke to me, it seemed like a deluge of thought that he had kept dammed up had been waiting on and finally found a spring-hole for release.
The conversation began organically with Ezekiel stating that his parents were not going to be punishing his brother for getting drunk Friday night. This struck me as unusual, but I remembered that Ezekiel really had not gotten much more from his parents than a couple of stern conversations after he had driven drunk New Year's Day. They had figured that losing his license and all the interaction with the police and courts would be enough punishment. In the same vein, Ezekiel's brother had "learned his lesson" with a hospital visit and a hangover. What more did they need to do? What more could they do?
Ezekiel described his parents as always having had a hands-off approach to parenting. Through his and his siblings' childhoods, their mother and father had worked hard and long hours and never really had time to worry about exactly where their children were and what they were doing - they entrusted such responsibilities to nannies and babysitters. It was not a rough childhood, in the least. It was tranquil and often boring, as Ezekiel described it, with a couple of family vacations every year when the five of them would catch up on each others' lives. He recalled drinking wine with his family in Italy, France, and England, all before he was 16. Polite conversation and simple compliments made for an amiable atmosphere over dinner.
I guess I had the conception that he came from an ostensibly detrimental childhood, ripe with nonstop fighting between uncaring parents. The father had had an alcohol problem until Ezekiel was in high school, as had Ezekiel's uncle, as had Ezekiel's grandfather. Alcoholism ran in the family, but even so, Ezekiel's father had never been violent or aggressive when he drank. Still, addiction had found its way into another generation.
March 21, 2007
Tonight, Ezekiel and I went to dinner downtown. We took the subway down to Astor Place in the East Village and wandered around for a while looking to find an Italian restaurant that a friend of ours had given us vague directions to. I knew we shouldn't have trusted him after he had said it was going to be a beautiful, 65-degree night in New York City, and we exited the subway to find a drizzle in no warmer than 40-degree weather. Now we were both cold and wet and wandering without much to go on, so we cursed our friend, gave up on the Italian spot, and headed for the nearest Indian restaurant in the neighborhood.
Ezekiel ordered a beer with his chicken curry. He was cold towards me, not jovial or conversational in the least. I don't know why I had even suggested heading downtown tonight; it had been clear to me that Ezekiel was not himself. And as he finished his first beer and ordered a second, he seemed to be becoming more ornery and further out of character. He kept making obscene jokes and wisecracks about other diners, loud enough for them to hear. He hadn't had enough to drink to be out of his head about what he was doing and so, to me, this seemed like an attention-grabbing ploy on his part, and I told him as much several times.
Maybe I told him one too many times, because finally he stood up and declared that he had had enough of my complaining. He stormed out of the restaurant and left me to pay the bill. He owes me $32.50.
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March 21, 2007
Vera Simon-Nobes
"happy st. p's day, i hope you have fun plans for celebrating, although i'm not sure that it's a holiday so much as an excuse for drinking. but then, maybe that's what all holidays are at this point?"
It was March 17th and my friend and I exchanged brief emails about weekend plans, hers ending with the quote above. In her two sentences, she spelled out exactly what I had been thinking of earlier in the day.
I was helping my sister and her coworker clean up after a one-year-old's birthday party at the clinic where they work. My sister asked if she was planning on going to another coworker's St. Patrick's Day party. The woman answered no. "I don't drink," she said, "Or if I do, it's socially, and I just think it might be awkward if everyone's getting wasted." She talked softly and sounded disappointed. She didn't mention that she had other plans, and while my sister tried to convince her that there would be other non-drinkers at the party, we all knew that it was St. Patrick's Day.
At 11:30 we could hear the party from the street, and walked down the sidewalk until we reached the festively adorned house. It's funny getting to a party with maybe 75 people and not recognizing a single person. We walked through the massive line of people waiting to tap the kegs, into the kitchen where still, I didn't know anyone. But my sister and her boyfriend struck up conversations with coworkers and coworkers' friends. We sipped on Heinekens and empathized with those who had had their beer food-colored green.
My sister introduced me to people who I would run into later while in line for the bathroom. "Ohhh yes we met before; you're the sister of one of the Americorps? I'm the boyfriend of someone who used to work with some different Americorps people." In the dim, green-tinted light, it seemed especially hard to find the slightest things in common with complete strangers. Eventually, I gave up and began to enjoy my anonymity.
I could stare right at the "drunk girl," because I knew she wouldn't remember. "We saw Barrack Obama today!" My sister told the drunken girl's support beam. She opened her eyes and said "WHERE!?" but she had over-stimulated herself, and before my sister could answer only the whites of her eyes were visible and she was leaning especially hard on her generous friend.
I watched a guy and girl get introduced to each other, and 20 minutes later, I saw him sucking on her ear as they grinded to "Gasolina." But I also heard the tall, lanky guy describe how he doesn't usually go for parties, "a social anxiety thing." And I watched a girl turn down multiple offers for beer and lime jello shots. I watched a guy sip on a red cup full of water, and I wondered what my sister's coworker from the clinic was doing right then. Did she have another reason for wanting to skip out on this party? Or was she genuinely worried that she would be the only one who wasn't getting trashed. I could have my hopes, but I knew that the latter was probably the case.
As my friend stated in her email, holidays are excuses to drink. Celebrating is often synonymous with getting trashed, and the coming of spring seems to bring fresh energy for partying. One can criticize this, but the convergence of celebration with drinking is not a recent phenomenon, developed by our Millennial Generation. It's natural for someone to want to avoid a party where they would be the minority in choosing not to drink. But it's unfortunate that people skip out on a party because they are worried that they will not just be the minority, but will be "the only one." I hope that people can overcome this worry, and when they finally do go, they will realize that they aren't the only ones.
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March 14, 2007
Esther Hwang
Being at such a competitive school like Berkeley, I realize how hard it is to be on top of everything. Everyone is very competitive and if you're not constantly on you're toes and blessed with some amazing brains, you're just not going to be one of the best.
Having been an overachiever in high school, I'm not used to always feeling behind. I never feel that I have enough time. A friend of mine joked last week that she actually felt uncomfortable having a relatively laid back courseload this semester. She said, "You know you go to Berkeley when you feel guilty about having a good time." Both of us laughed, but we were both horrified at how ridiculous and true that was.
I remember a professor once told me that there are three elements in a college student's life. These three elements are sleep, school, and friends. Only two of these can be maintained at the expense of the third. The third one will be the big problem in your life, such as bad grades, a lack of friends, or being turned into a zombie from a lack of sleep. However, if you try to evenly balance these three elements out, you won't really excel at any one of them.
As I progress through college, I find myself being forced to choose more and more between the three elements every day. Should I sleep for tomorrow's test or study some more? Should I not sleep at all tonight and go to my friend's good-bye party? Should I postpone my anniversary with my boyfriend so I can catch up on the reading? It's quite a dilemma that many college students are faced with today. There's never really a right answer, and that's what makes it so hard.
What's even worse is the outbreak of reality television shows like The Hills or Laguna Beach that glorify the lives of the outrageously wealthy kids my age who come from old money and have never actually really worked in their lives. They live in gorgeous mansions or apartments in Los Angeles that are paid for by their parents, they spend thousands of dollars every day on the most inane things, and their biggest concern in life is whether they think their boyfriend is good enough for them. The really worst thing of it all is that they continue to make money through being spokespeople or even coming up with their own fashion line, feeding off their fame. Hence, money begets money.
It sounds like a lot of rambling, but I think this essay is really about the rapidly growing gap between the rich and the poor, the disappearing middle class, and how middle class people, such as myself, are kicking and swimming so hard to not get sucked down. Everyone wants to make money to be able to support their families and live a comfortable life, but it's becoming harder than ever. Politicians speak of this growing gap as a big problem in the country, but I've never realize this problem actually had such a huge presence in my own life. I guess I have no choice but to keep on swimming towards the top.
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March 7, 2007
Kate Frankola
Post-Mardi Gras Reflection
There's nothing quite like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The city streets overflow with people, many of whom are decked out in elaborate or outrageous costumes. Beads litter the streets and decorate the tops of trees and the necks of everyone in sight. The air's fragrance is a combination of barbecue, cigarette smoke, beer, and exhaust. At least one source of music can be distinguished at any given time, and people literally dance in the streets.
No mere description could do justice to the parades themselves: long trains of 20-30 floats, all at least 15 feet tall, elaborately decorated, carrying a total of a few hundred people, some of whom may be celebrities. Interspersed are marching bands, police officers riding on horseback, and cars carrying honored citizens or members of various sponsoring organizations. Again, music is everywhere. People fight each other for beads and other thrown items, but laugh, talk, and dance - even with total strangers - in between floats. Everyone is happy. And everyone, with the exception of (most) children, is under alcohol's influence.
Naturally, there are the tourists, many of whom are middle-aged adults who have never been to Mardi Gras or even New Orleans before. Especially to the locals and even to us visiting college kids, they are infamous for perpetuating the image that most outsiders probably have of Mardi Gras: they're incoherently trashed for days on end, spending their days in the French Quarter, missing the parades as they exchange breast exposure for beads. They're the exception, though, rather than the rule, and their version of Mardi Gras barely resembles the real celebration.
Then there is everyone else: the locals themselves and the college students who, even if they are freshmen, have learned by this point to behave almost as such. "Everyone else" is also drunk for pretty much a good six days. But everyone else's drunk is mild, sociable, and happy - not desperate or used as an excuse or invitation to behave inappropriately.
For seemingly most college students, at least those at Tulane, a typical day between the weekend before Fat Tuesday and the day itself begins with a first drink definitely before noon, sometimes as early as 8:00 am. You meet in someone's dorm room or apartment, maybe take one or two shots - no more than that, though; you have a long day ahead of you - and fill half-emptied bottles of soft drinks with vodka and rum: mixed drinks for the road and for the long day ahead. You walk the two or so miles to the parade route with your friends in the gorgeous late morning sunshine, taking enough swigs from your "Coke" along the way so that by the time you get there, you're moderately buzzed.
While you wait for the parades to begin, you may join some kids in a touch football game, or you may talk to some adults about how Mardi Gras has been treating them so far, how they're still continuing to recover from Katrina, or how out of control their visiting relatives or friends are behaving. Once the parades start, you yell and jump for beads, even though you know that most of them are boring and you'll end up with more than you'll know what to do with. You lose some friends and find or make others. You can't stop laughing or dancing. You don't want to stop drinking.
When the parades are over for the evening - usually around 8 pm or so, you're completely drained but aware that the night is young, so you go out anyway: to the French Quarter, to a friend's party near the parade route, or back uptown to the bars near campus. Everywhere is packed, with students, with locals, and with tourists. You keep drinking because you just want to dance and socialize forever. The music sounds so good and the surrounding people are so fascinating that you almost don't want to risk sobering up, for fear of sacrificing even a mere ounce of fun.
You go to bed entirely too late and wake up early, exhausted but still tipsy, but ready to do it all over again. Even though you've been awake and out for nearly the entire four-day weekend, time has absolutely flown. Suddenly it's Fat Tuesday at noon, Rex (the last major and arguably most famous parade of Carnival) is nearly finished, and you're abruptly struck with the realization that Mardi Gras is nearly over, you haven't eaten or slept in a day and a half, and you almost can't remember what sobriety feels like. You may stop at a bar for one last drink to provide you with some distraction and company as you slowly but surely plod back to campus, dreading the end of your mini-vacation from real life and all of its demands. Once back to your room, you crash for a few hours, wake up and eat, and laze around for a few more hours before ultimately passing out around 9 pm or so. Your body finally is allowed to realize that it's been more or less abused for the past four to six days.
But then you wake up the next day, after a long, uninterrupted night's sleep, feeling refreshed and just inexplicably good. You wonder why this is the case as you stop at the dining hall, feed your body a breakfast of fruit and oatmeal rather than vodka and Diet Coke, and then head to class.
Inevitably, it's a beautiful day, but you know that alone doesn't account for why the world looks sharper, the wind blows noticeably more gently, and your head feels so clear and your body so steady. And then you remember: this is what it's like to be sober. This is what it feels like to keep your body happy, healthy, and free of a drug that is technically a poison.
You can't stop smiling, and you spend the rest of the day thinking about how good food tastes and feels in your stomach, how satisfying it is to partake in a thought-provoking or serious conversation or two, and even how much fun it is to attend class again and feed your brain with knowledge instead of toxins. You are literally high on sobriety. And, of course, you were too drunk to foresee this at the time, but this feeling is just as wonderful, amazing, and downright fun as the preceding Mardi Gras celebration itself.
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