Six Years

But life is messy, I told him.
Deep thought, right?

There was a small pond to the right. Natalie and I had gone swimming there late one night. We got out, panting, lying naked in each other’s arm, skin against skin

The condoms come in four colors,” I explained. “Midnight Black, Cherry Red, Lemon Yellow, Orange Orange.”

One guy named Lars was writing a six-hundred-page poem on Hitler’s last days in the bunker, written from the viewpoint of Eva Braun’s dog. His first reading consisted of ten minutes of barking.

Lucky in occupation, unlucky in love

. I wanted them to not only think outside the box, but to get to that outside by smashing the box into little pieces

I had blocked it on and off for six years, but suddenly the longing had flooded back, as strong as the day we last made love in that cabin at the retreat.

Six years ago, Natalie had dumped me with a note telling me she was marrying her old beau.

Part of the human condition is that we all think that we are uniquely complex while everyone else is somewhat simpler to read. That is not true, of course. We all have our own dreams and hopes and wants and lust and heartaches. We all have our own brand of crazy

. I’m thirty-five now, but when I first started here-the young professor in his twenties-it happened more often. Do you remember that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where one student wrote “LOVE YOU” on her eyelids?