Vote Knut

in my sophomore year of college a nearly 80-year-old philosophy professor was gunned down in a hall where all my classes took place; happening after most classes where over, the gunman was a security guard that worked @ my school. in the days proceeding the tragedy his wife had the same fate, ironically she came back

to collect his things & was shot. the rumors in my tiny school where raging, i went to school next to a psychiatric institution myfriends thought one of them had escaped & killed him. urban myth, of course.

opportunity comes when we least expect it; that year i put in for a transfer to a state university going to my classes in a hall where my favorite philosophy professor had been gunned down no longer felt exciting. other students i shared classes with began

putting in their transfers; one of the last conversations i had with my professor was between classes. mentioning a song by meatloaf he gave me a theory on what the song actually meant: life. death. earth. fate. in two minutes. i haven't listened to the song the same way, since.

when columbine high school happened a few programmer friends of mine began sporting long trench coats, writing about how wearing a trench coat was social abnormality (programming was in its infancy.) a long time ago on a galaxy far, far, away i took a psychology class; we talked about suicide, abnormal

psych & how daily patterns change when someone is about to hurt either themselves or others. the signs @ Virginia Tech where obvious. his writings & stoic, quiet attitude, Stalking & lack of friends. they where ALL signs the school missed or to put another way-Ignored. my small classes where the number of the victims of this mentally ill man's rampage.

a good friend of mine recently commented that it doesn't take much to make Me happy!she's right even with my dull surroundings; open-ended future on the horizon being happy really isn't difficult. maybe it's the sheer lack of DRAMA? quiet, solitude & ability to write without pressure in a place that begins with a Z. seeing a

gorgeous fling in a button down shirt still *hot* & pretending to be Absorbed in VF with Knut the polar bear on the cover. sipping tequila & sharing laughter with friends, screaming @ the television (ManchesterUnited is in the Final!) bowling 140 point game (after an 8 month hiatus.) i Choose Happiness & the smell of lilacs on a spring day. what do you choose?