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I don’t even know why I’m writing this. Just another one of those phony big-league university publications whose name I don’t even know, asking me to tell them about what I think about this damn place. You really want to know what I think? I can’t even find a damn place to sit and think in peace, that’s what I think. You can never find a quiet place anywhere.

I go to Starbucks and there’s always these broads talking their heads off. They’re dressed to the nines, black clothes and black shoes, old backpacks made to look worn. I don’t even understand that. They actually buy those damn things so they can look old. I walk down the street and I can’t get the smell of bad cigarettes out of the air. What’s with the hand-rolled cigarettes anyways? I thought everyone here was just a bunch of prissy bastards. I’m surprised you’re actually rolling them yourself. Don’t tell me moms and pops can’t wire you money to buy the big-league packs you deserve. And I swear, if I see one more damn purple hoodie on you bastards, I don’t even know what I’ll do. Don’t even get me started on the way those damn broads dress on the weekend. They think they’re all that in their American Apparel lamé, and their damn over-sized non-prescription glasses, wearing leggings as pants. Phonies. They’ve only got one thought on their mind. By the time the party’s over and nothing’s happened, they’re all so damn drunk, they can’t even balance in their circus shoes. Sometimes I just can’t help but stop and watch them, all full of laughs. Maybe one day I’ll see a broad break her ankle. Then I’d laugh and laugh. Maybe even tell Phoebe about it.

They all hang out with those lousy athlete bastards. The harder the muscle, the softer the mind. They’re always the ones in class, wearing the sweatpants, making damn comments about how Dido was a Stage-5 Clinger. It’s like watching one of those movies where the joke’s all on them and they don’t even know it. One of these days I’d love to overhear one of those goddamn phonies say something like that in front of a Barnard girl. She’d give him a mouthful, all right.

It kills me to think that Phoebe might grow up into one of those broads. Weird to think that at one point, when all these phonies were young, they were innocent. All these books and lectures and crap just force us to grow up. None of these bastards teaching us knows a goddamn thing about anything. We’re being forced to eat all this bull from every direction. What’s the purpose? All those phonies and all those broads are just gonna go corrupt their jobs anyway and take the innocence away from all the younger generations. Go figure.

What is this school anyway? I guess that’s what those editors want me to talk about, like they think anyone reads this thing and actually gives a damn. Can’t write anything nowadays because no one reads it. We just study all those old, white bastards. The ones etched on Butler Library. I can’t even go into that goddamn place without thinking about death. Can’t stand it. I always get lost. The ancient books, the yellowed papers, all of these uptight phonies hunched over books. They run their mouths like they think I care about their dreams. Pre-med, pre-law, I don’t give a damn. Don’t pretend this place doesn’t suck the life out of you. You know what I mean, when you’re walking down Broadway at 2 a.m., wondering where you’re gonna buy cigarettes and the strongest damn espresso shot in town.

Sometimes when I can’t take it anymore, I go to the park. Not Riverside, where all the goddamn yuppies walk their dogs at all hours of the goddamn day and night. I go to Central Park. I wander around the museum looking at all the bones and all the animals that are spared of all the crap we have to deal with. Everything behind glass cases. That’s how it should be. That’s the only place where I can find real quiet. Away from all these phonies and these goddamn books and bastard professors. They all think they know everything about everything. But all those bastards are wrong. They know nothing. And what’s it all worth in the end? What good is it to read all that goddamn crap in Lit Hum and CC? It’s all worth nothing.

Yeah, that’s what I think of this place. But none of you’ll get it through your pea brains. I shouldn’t have told you in the first place. I bet you’re just one of those goddamn phonies.