I am expanding. Not always, not even often and sometimes I shrink back a bit; it's during quiet moments like this, a chilly afternoon beneath bright sun that I discover where I've been. It's been four days of calm, four days of no homework and little activity or personal interaction that leave me desperate for the city folk.

This is a city sleeping fitfully, every hidden smile and unsought convo a fit or start from otherwise oblivious slumber. We foolish vagrants are isolated out here on the edge of campus, second-class citizens in a village the kingdom has forgotten. Students don't go to college, they attend classes; we few left behind are hermits in a quiet meadow of domestic tranquility, glimpsing city folk hustling past the kitchen window.

You don't just walk down Market Avenue; you lean into it like Ahab cutting a channel through the mad foaming breakers of humanity. Every corner brings fresh voices, modern-day Sirens luring travelers to their doom amidst the rocky shoals of charity.

Much like my beard, this post is an experiment. I'm sad I cut it off.