varying degrees of light

The nine of us met at the start of the semester, after the end of our journey. Two of us were absent - one gone home, having lit his fuse, and Danielle was somewhere in the theatre pod (I imagine). I think about Evan sometimes - more now, that I've been told he left because he "couldn't take it anymore," and we discussed his semi-neurotic behavior on the field, his quirks and enthusiasm and talking over himself. A lot of times, it's "What the hell happened?" but of course there's no way to answer for him. And Danielle, and I see her only when she's fleeting, and I have to hold her with one hand, the other hanging on to the ground for as long as I can before she flies off, always flying off, all Mary Poppins in my business. Looking at each other now that we're back, surrounded by snow, wind and classes, we tried several times to speak, but laughed - loud and short - instead. A movie was playing that night. "We could load up and leave this place to see it." Calls were deliberated and made, as a group, to free up our evenings in order to hit the road. "See you at 8:30," and then we scurried home to finish what we had to do.
I encouraged my dad to kick his students out of class more. If I were the prof, I told him, I would instruct the jerk-heads to drop out and get a job "if you're not going to pay attention in my class, stop wasting everybody's time." I was frightened to see that my suggestion registered.
My mom asked me how I think I'll manage to raise $1,600 + this summer to get to Honduras. There are no jobs to be had, which is a strange situation for the world to be in if you think about it.
My sister asked me to recall homecoming week when I was still in high school. I struggled to remember and felt her disappointment when I came up short.
Dee, Neal, Jane, Margot and I came up with very little ideas to run with concerning Wall e and children and creation and crafts and... what else? Puppets? But I was distracted anyway, because Danielle showed up. Then Piper and Jake. And then Todd and then we caught up with the caravan to see Slumdog Millionaire in Sioux City.
"Garbage is garbage," we said afterwards, milling in the lobby of the theatres, shocked and jarred from how the poor in Mumbai live in carbon copies of where the poor in Manila live. This all happened two days ago, but today I got a message from a friend reading, "If you haven't seen Slumdog Millionaire, you have to. It's so so good." I wrote back, "Overrated. You wanna fight?" and she sent back a frowny face. Ah crap.
I have no fight in me. I have no fight in me. Shush; it is late and you won't need to fight again for some hours.