Basement Chronicles

Why I Don't Eat On Campus

"Unfold me, I am small and needy."
--

At the siren call of cheap orange chicken, the people flock, myself included. Maybe you are lucky enough to have such a delight at a fine eatery near you. If not, I suggest you try it someday. I'm sitting in a newly opened Panda Express conveniently located between the main campus and the computer science buildings. Sadly, the food is terrible at this place, but edible considering I haven't eaten all day. I'm eating alone, with my backpack and my coat and its 75 outside. It was colder this morning. Alright, that's enough scene setup.

Wait, no, one more thing. I'm sitting at the window.

Hey, yeah, you guessed it. Watching the world go by. And yes, feeling jealous.

But why in the world should I feel jealous? I've got my nasty orange chicken, and no place to go for a while.

It won't go away, that feeling. Fine. I'll make a game out of it, pass some time. A piece of chicken for every couple that goes by. If the person is talking on their cell phone, some rice. If they're talking to each other, chicken *in* the rice.

By the time that rule came around, I ran out of food. Well, no, I ran out of chicken first, and then had to kind of improvise with what rice I had left, but yeah, you see where I'm going with this. And no, it didn't help pass the time at all, nor did it make me feel any better. Not that it was supposed to, anyway.

Anyway.

Anyway.

If jealousy were a food, it'd be orange chicken and fried rice.

I realize that by writing that, I'll get made fun of any time somebody sees me eating that. Therefore, I won't miss it. It really was terrible. But I really was hungry.

But really, jealousy is a problem. And it is my problem at the moment. And watching people, as I was this afternoon, is a terrible way to solve the problem. What I see are people, some of the however many tens of thousands swarming the campus daily. I don't see them. I don't see the individuals. I don't meet them or talk to them or get to know them. I just make guesses. And when I stop trying to be right about them, I start seeing things that I really don't. Things I wish I was, that kind of thing.

But it goes farther than me sitting in some stupid restaurant, feeling bored and waiting and solitary.

I am jealous that they are anything like me. That despite my best efforts to be nothing like them, probability and chance mar my attempts at an individuality, or a successful individuality anyway. The chance that somebody, somewhere has done exactly what I have, exactly how I have, and exactly as I am, and maybe done it better. Or even if they are nothing like me, that they know any better what they are.

That is all I really wanted to talk about. I don't have a solution. I don't have any analysis. I can't pick this one apart and put it back together. I'm just putting it to paper. Just reminding myself of what is going on.