Ain't no stranger...

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It's almost amazing what we notice when we slow down. There's still kids all over the WSU campus. Having people running around, laughing, screaming, that kind of thing always kicks up a bit of nostalgia.

There's a group of hackers down the way from me, kicking the bag around lazily. No urgency or requirement of skill, just the Golden Rule of not being a douche bag. I'd like to slide on over, show them how it's done, but that's intrusion. That's not me.

Breaking the flow, unbalancing the circle, blasphemy. Yet I feel the pull.

I see another kid jump off of the wall near the fountain. He's managed to get a cast on his arm since I last saw him, being chased around by a girl with a frisbee full of muddy water.

That girl's gonna date you kid. Just you watch.

Then the jealousy kicked in. Another boy ran by, snatching the frisbee, playing keep away, then trying to same water throwing move. Then a hilarious thing happened; a crowd of white knights came to her rescue, blocking the water, chasing the other kid to get the frisbee, each one vying for the girl's attention, positive or negative. Just attention. I suppose that's the natural order of things though.

'Aggrivate them till they love you'. Things really don't change, children to adults. Grown ups are just smarter and label it as 'testing the limits without getting smacked'.

I think that's an apt enough description of it.

But the kids are enjoying themselves, which is more than I can say for most of my peers that I see wandering about the campus, passing me by, sneering as the smoke curling around my lips before the breeze dissipates it.

Fuck you, hoity toity.

A few college kids pass, shorts cut up enough that you don't need any imagination to see what you want to see. Summer dresses, khaki shorts and sandals, ripped jeans and skater shoes. Chains and hair and piercings and perfume laid on so thick that the birds deem the area they pass a no fly zone for a bit.

A few of them smile behind their shades, cheap sunglasses, designer eye wear, bug eyed visors, but I'm not so sure that smile ever reaches their eyes. It certainly doesn't even shiver down their spines and lend an extra push to their feet. All the posing and posturing and heightened guffaws, there's no extra...zazz!

Not like the kids taking turns jumping off the ledges by the fountain, that 6 foot fall so exhilarating and addictive in the summer sun with the sweet breeze catching their shirts and hair.

Maybe they've got it right.

Maybe we take ourselves too seriously...