i like it right here but i cannot stay

"hard to explain" by the strokes & new college

One thing people I know in real life love to ask me: Didn’t you go to New College?

I was asked this by another parent at a child’s birthday party, and in that particular context I didn’t know the person well enough to know why they wanted to know — whether there was some hidden gotcha or agenda I’d be sorry I stepped into. So I just replied shortly in the affirmative and then made some excuse about needing to check on the juice box situation or whatever to get out of discussing it more.

Another time, I was interviewing for a volunteer position, and the person asked only after the interview had concluded, making it clear it wasn’t part of the formal process. He removed the badge around his neck and everything, as though giving himself extra permission to speak freely. “It’s awful,” he said. “What they’ve done to that place. Awful.”

It is fucking awful. To be honest, I can barely talk about it. It makes me sick to my stomach. For those of you not familiar with what has basically amounted to a hostile takeover by my state’s governor of a school that used to be known for its individualism and creativity and open-mindedness, here’s a piece that outlines some of it.

Part of what got me thinking about this recently — I mean, other than the fact that I’m always thinking about it — was reading Ella Dawson’s upcoming book But How Are You, Really? In the book, Charlotte Thorne returns to her college for her five-year reunion, mostly because her bully of a boss is the one giving the commencement address that same weekend and has roped Charlotte into helping. Being back on campus brings up all kinds of memories for Charlotte — starting with mostly negative ones from a toxic past relationship, but then she also reconnects with so much of what was good about her time there, from her found family of queer friends to her old creative dreams to the sweet, lovable hockey player Reece she hooked up with back then and who she still very much sparks with now. It’s a really beautiful book and I highly recommend it! It comes out next week.

Personally, I am NOT the one to go to any kind of reunion — once I’m done with a place I’m kind of done with it, even if my feelings are mostly fond. I visited my old high school ONCE and wanted to crawl out of my skin the entire time I was there what a MISTAKE. I’ve been back to New College several times, but in a quietly-walking-through-Palm-Court-with-my-old-roommate kind of way, in a let’s-see-if-the-Four-Winds-is-open-and-they-still-serve-Vern’s-Egg-and-Cheese kind of way (it’s never open, and they don’t serve it anymore but it was basically a toasted bagel layered with cream cheese, scrambled eggs with cheese, and fresh dill on top, and it was DELICIOUS).

But I *am* a very sentimental person, and memories of people and places mean a lot to me. I was recently going through a bunch of old stuff that ALSO got me thinking a lot about my time at New College, so if you’ll indulge me! I wanted to share a few of my favorite New College memories with you:

That’s right, I became friends with THE person advertising the New College license plate! She remains my very best friend to this day. My first impression of her, if I’m being honest, was that her laugh was too loud (I know, I know, what was my DAMAGE). But then we got paired up together in a group project where the third person ended up being fucking useless and what bonds two people more amirite? She does have an extremely loud, boisterous laugh, and it turns out it’s one of my favorite things about her. I found it hilarious that for YEARS I was greeted by her smiling upselling little face on the back of alumni magazines and on informational brochures.

One of our legacies (term used EXTREMELY loosely, nobody remembers this but us) is that we came up with a fake literary group called Word Karate (ka-rah-TAY) and put out little DIY zines. The above is our first issue, Frivolity, which features a crossword puzzle design with the name of our group and the journal and our alter egos, Teste Tomson and Cha:Ston’d. Inside it’s mostly poetry we wrote together punch drunk at two in the morning by stringing the crassest words together in the unlikeliest combinations, collages we made from clippings from The Weekly World News, and fake forewords we wrote introducing the genius of our own work. In this one, for example, it says:

“Since their debut in 1979, Word Karate has been sharing their message of hope and judiciousness to select audiences around the country and a brief tour in Japan . . . Frivolity is an exercise in embodying verbality — the verbality of the soul. But who are Cha:Ston’d and Teste Tomson, and what is their message? These are the questions that have puzzled literary communities across the nation and Japan . . . Now, together for the first time since Word Karate so violently disbanded back in 1980, Ston’d and Tomson channel some of that magic that captured the linguistics world so many years ago. It is in Frivolity that we truly see the magnificent verbal workings of these creative geniuses. Enjoy.”

Word Karate’s follow-up work, Sophomoric Anticipation, was subtitled “A Religious Experience Captured in Po-M” and was even better received than the first issue! Check out the foreword if you don’t believe me:

“They’ve done it again. In their second debut since rediscovering the magic, Teste Tomson and Cha:Ston’d — now joined by Anschma, the veiled seductress of grammar — have created a wordscape for all seven and a half senses . . . The aptly named Sophomoric Anticipation is both sophomoric and highly anticipated by the literary world.”

Lest you think that all I did was fuck off and write weird poetry while deeply embodying a satirical alter ego, New College was quite rigorous academically! I learned a lot while I was there, not only in my classes but also with everything else. The above is part of my contract evaluation from my first semester — one unique aspect of the way they did (do?) things is that there were no grades. You had an academic advisor who set up a “contract” with you, where you set short- and long-term goals for yourself and said how many classes you were going to take. In my first semester, I took Intro Psych, World War II, 20th Century British and American Drama, and Electronic Music . . . but I ended up dropping the last class because I felt completely over my head. Mainly, I was in a class full of Pretentious Music Dudes and final projects were coming up and they’d taken up all the studio time slots and I was just like ahhhhhhhh never mind I can’t do this.

My advisor’s note here is actually something I’ve carried with me ever since, because I do think it was a valuable lesson! When I got my evaluation for Electronic Music back, it basically said, “Alicia was doing fine and I don’t know why she just quit before the final project?” I wish I’d thought to, you know, TALK to my professor about the problems I was having instead of freaking out and bailing.

Since New College was so small and didn’t have a graduate program, there was a lot that I was able to do as an undergrad that I might not have otherwise — act as a teaching assistant for my statistics course, work on research for journal articles, write and defend a thesis, that kind of thing. It was awesome!

There were a ton of vibrant events always going on at New College, ranging from political activism to casual intramural sports (we didn’t USE TO have any sports teams! in the gift shop you could buy a little football that said “Undefeated Since 1962”) to “The Wall” parties every weekend. One thing I looked forward to every semester was the big Dance Tutorial performance, where people performed the most eclectic group of routines. One involved jumping over giant colored balls to the music of The Flaming Lips? One involved some nudity that at the time I found VERY salacious? One was set to George Michael’s “Father Figure” and I still think about it whenever I hear that song?

I spent my first two years living in the iconic dorms designed by I.M. Pei, and then moved off-campus my third year. It felt so grown-up, me and my roommate living in our own place just across the street from the dog track!!! Rent was $250 apiece, which the property manager was pretty decent about letting us pay separately so one of us didn’t always have to be chasing the other one for money. The above is a bunch of drawings my roommate made of the floor plan of our little apartment as we planned where the futon would be and where her sewing table was going to go?? (Honestly can’t make sense of some of this stuff.) I had one of those weird multi-light floor lamps at the time, and I do find it funny that she drew it in so detailed next to my desk in the second version.

I do have pictures of me from this era, but not super accessible, so I’ll leave you with this aura photo I had taken on a trip to St. Augustine. I don’t believe believe in this stuff, but it was probably the closest I ever came because she did say some borderline spooky stuff about my grandmother and a doll I’d had as a kid. And then she said a bunch of other stuff about the colors that I no longer remember, but I think my aura was okay?

Mostly, when I look back on those days, I like to think about all these good things. I like to remember me and my college roommate my first year, playing “Hard to Explain” by the Strokes over and over in our room and trying to sing along to the fast part at the end without fucking up any of the words. I like to hope that people are still finding places that provide comfort and also a gentle push out of their comfort zone, even if my old haunts might not be those anymore. I like to think that communities can find each other anywhere. I like to daydream about a Vern’s Egg and Cheese.

Currently reading . . . I read Jamie Harrow’s upcoming debut One on One early, and loved it so much! Speaking of college . . . Annie is back at her alma mater to film/edit the pump-up/marketing videos for the basketball team, and she has very mixed feelings about it. She loves basketball and the way it makes her feel closer to her late father, she loves her job and she’s damn good at it, but her memories of her last year of college aren’t great thanks to the abusive former coach she worked under then. Add to that her complicated feelings about her old friend and new coworker Ben, who was important to her back then but who seems chilly toward her now . . . this was just one of those books that I fell into so easily, the characters felt so real to me, I really enjoyed it.

I also just finished Love’s a Disaster by Andrew Knott, which I preordered pretty much the second I found out it was set in Orlando and featured a second chance romance where the “first chance” ended in a marriage proposal gone terribly wrong at a punk concert . . . there was so much to love about this book that featured two people who’d really hurt each other the first time around and had to find their way back together, amidst messy family dynamics, sword fighting practice, Green Day karaoke, and brutal Florida weather. There was even a Paramore reference at one point!!! It’s like this book was written specifically FOR ME. And I just saw when I went to link to it that it’s up on Kindle Unlimited!

watching . . . I *think* I may have finally figured out self care¹ because I bought two pints of gelato BOGO at Publix just for me and ate them over the course of several days while watching a four-hour video critiquing a now-defunct theme park attraction that I had no interest in ever going to and will now never be able to go to and it was the best time I’ve had in a while. I WILL SAY just because I happen to know several people who loved Galactic Starcruiser that the video obviously does not reflect everyone’s experience, I think there are a lot of ways people made their time even better by really engaging in fan communities around it, I do think it’s a bummer that it closed down so abruptly, etc., but yeah. I did have fun with this video.

listening to . . . SOMEONE TAKE “OUTSIDE (FEAT. FRED DURST) [FAMILY VALUES LIVE VERSION]” BY AARON LEWIS AWAY FROM ME. I’m feeling those lighters a little TOO hard if you feel me. I spent about an hour yesterday talking about the lyrics alone . . . or should I say lack of lyrics because I love that this song barely SAYS anything. It’s just vague sad boy shit with nothing to grab onto. All the times, that I felt like this won’t end/It’s for you, and I could taste what I could never have/It was from you, all the times that I’ve tried/My intentions were full of pride/And I waste more time than anyone. It is MASTERFUL how little this song is actually SAYING. But this is all I want right now! Aaron Lewis to mumble sad boy shit over acoustic guitar with Fred Durst just kinda there to shout out Biloxi and not provide a single harmony. I love this song if it’s not clear!!!!

preordering . . . HOO BOY are there some books coming out June 4!!!! If you’re Jean Ralphio flush with caaaaa-sh and in a preordering mood, here are a bunch on my radar:

• Birding with Benefits by Sarah T. Dubb

• Barely Even Friends by Mae Bennett

• Isabel and the Rogue by Liana De la Rosa

• Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan

• Match Me If You Can by Swati Hegde

• Pardon My Frenchie by Farrah Rochon

• But How Are You, Really? by Ella Dawson

• Past Present Future by Rachel Lynn Solomon (I’m going to be in conversation with Rachel about this book in Orlando on 6/7!!!!)

1. Referring, of course, to the Cosmo version of self care and not like, the version where I get dental insurance and set meaningful boundaries, etc. etc.