everyone's drawn to the scene of the crime.

grand central terminal is a shining beacon in the horror that is midtown--a blazing stronghold of beautiful architecture and good taste that managed to escape the wrecking ball and the fate of its poor sister penn station. it is also home to a surprisingly decent food court, as i demonstrated to dom as we waited for the 12:23 harlem line to the BXV. we were going back to the scene of the crime, the hallowed halls of my alma mater and i was damned if i was going to go on an empty stomach.

when i graduated, i thought i'd never go back for any reason. naturally, however, the world wasn't going to let me keep that particular promise to myself; and so we found ourselves tripping up kimball ave, he for the first time and me for what i know better than to say my last.

as you may or may not know, college was not the most satisfying of experiences for me--i didn't drink, didn't do drugs, and didn't have many friends. so, not much fun for me; despite the fact that the school prides itself on offering a good environment for the different, being different there is no different than it is anywhere else. you're still a pariah. as i was, because i was not as different as everyone else there.

the campus hadn't changed much--it was still absolutely beautiful, and the campus residents looked the same as they did when i was there four years ago, featuring blue hair or close-cropped crewcuts, pajamas and tee shirts, and palpable clouds of political outrage. they still wafted around sleepily at 2pm, discussing race relations outside the cafeteria through clouds of smoke. the squirrels were still aggressive and the mailboxes were still broken, and apparently, irony was still currency.

it was, however, different this time. because i am different. i'm older, more confident; i have a narrower list of criteria that i use to determine whether someone is cooler than i am, the first entry on which is 'are they nice?' i've come to terms with the fact that i'll never work at paper magazine again, because i'm not fucking hip enough, and never will be again. and that is completely okay. that irony is not cool when it governs your relationships with other people.

what i learned from college is that being sincere is sexy, being kind makes you beautiful. because friends for whom you never feel you have to perform are cooler than any who take pains to let you know that you're widely considered the little sister, tolerated but not enjoyed. that providing a shoulder to cry on is cooler than demanding a stiff upper lip, and that having a shoulder to cry on is more valuable than being cool and aloof. i know these things now, thanks to my college education, though it would have been handy if the lesson hadn't been on a time-release.

but then, i suppose that's the sign of a good education--that you keep learning even after you're long out of the system.