27 October 2009

The Courtyard: some people love it, some hate it, but everybody eats there regardless. Lunchtime is probably the busiest time at the new dining hall, but suppertime is a close second. It is seven o'clock now and students are pouring in to catch a feed. People of all shapes, sizes, and colors are uniting in one primal need: the need to find food.

The Courtyard is hopping like fleas fleeing deadly shampoo. Students of all kinds are rushing in like roaches to get their food before the upstairs closes. Almost everybody is wearing a hoody or jacket to protect against the cold outside. In here, it's a little chilly by the doors but warmer near the stairs. I see quite a few umbrellas. Jeans are the pants of choice today, although I do see a few brave (or stupid) young men wearing shorts. A girl sitting near me is wearing plaid rain boots, a tomato-red hoody, and jeans. She's not eating; she's talking to friends. There's a guy at the next table over wearing an eggplant Cats t-shirt, Nikes, and khaki shorts, talking animatedly with another guy and two girls. A girl in blackberry capris is descending the stairs, flowery backpack, cell phone, and all.

Ice cream looks appealing, and not just to me. There's a group of three people standing a short distance from Freshens deciding which flavors to get. Oh, my bad! The guy with the eggplant shirt is talking to three girls, not two and a guy. Two of the girls are wearing zebra jackets; the third is wearing a blueberry hoody. There's a girl in an eggplant jacket and strawberry and blackberry striped shirt who appears to be talking to herself, but she's on a cell phone.

This table needs to be washed. I'd never noticed the dull lion gold of the benches here before. The chairs and bench backs are checkered with tomato, mustard, and olive squares, surrounded by eggplant on the benches and steak-brown on the chairs. The fake-rock tile floor is shiny in some places and grimy in others. Oh, joy! A Freshens employee just came and washed the table next to me. He did a poor job of it, too. There are still crumbs on areas not streaked with water. Crumbs... I'm kind of hungry. Maybe I'll join the masses when I'm done with this paper. Funny how children in India are starving and I get to pile my plate high with so much food I want to throw up.

There's a woman by the Freshens counter wearing a sherbet-fuchsia coat. Two girls are drinking bright orange Soba. My friends are upstairs eating; I think I'll stop writing when they descend the ballroom-style stairs. Its gentle curve leads the eye up to the ugly ceiling. Bare metal framework and duct pipes take away from the artsy tile ceiling above the fast food places. Set-in lights adorn that ceiling; hanging lights like bananas adorn the naked ceiling.

Action seems to be slowing down upstairs; a lot of people are coming downstairs. Freshens is really busy; I might visit it when business slows down. Around the corner is the women's poorly lit, spooky bathroom with cranberry walls. I can see through the glass doors into the storage area filled with boxes of I-don't-know-what. There's a bright banana-yellow "Caution" sign at the top of the stairs due to the rain and people's wet shoes. A guy in a banana-yellow shirt is going upstairs. The human species is a very interesting one. A girl in a bright marshmallow-white jacket just left. Across the building, there's a girl wearing a bright lettuce-green jacket. The noise volume just when up and down again as a group of friends left together. Wow, that girl has bright strawberry-red hair! Oh, man, is somebody holding the door open? I'm cold! Three people in identical overcoats just walked past. Holy cow, that guy's got to be cold! He's wearing a tank top and shorts and is in the line for ice cream, of all things!

Geez, my hand is starting to hurt. Two more pages... Well, two and a half pages.

That is a fat girl. She has no business wearing a shirt that tight. Mm, that ice cream looks good...but I will abstain. I can do it if I focus on something else. Let's see... There's a girl with Panda Express to go. Gourmet Chinese food my butt. Another fat girl, her belly practically hanging out of her shirt. The woman in the sherbet-fuchsia jacket is leaving now. Two men in suits just walked in. Man, men look good in suits. I'm using a lot of interjections here. Oh, well (that's another!). The wall directly across from me is mustard yellow. It's tomato-red around Zoca and banana-yellow by Grille Works. It's a light potato-brown everywhere else. Advertisements for Zoca, Best Buy, and a musician of some kind are on the table in front of me.

I'm bored and my behind hurts, and I'm as hungry as everybody else here. The time is...seven forty-five, according to my cell phone. I'm out.

I'd like to apologize for calling those girls "fat" and any other comments people may perceive as insensitive here. I think this was supposed to be a stream-of-consciousness thing where I inserted as much descriptive detail as possible, and this was before I gained my freshman thirty and lost the right to comment on anybody's weight. Also, freshman year of college. Just entering the big, wide world beyond my bubble. I'd like to think I've changed since then.