The call of the weekend

The winter night's breeze carried the beef and beans smell of a late-night taco bar through the Sample Gates. I was taking a study break, on a walk from the Indiana Memorial Union to Jimmy John's for a late-night sub. \nA section of sidewalk by Kilroy's on Kirkwood had disappeared under a mass of people standing outside the entrance. I crossed the street to get around. The people were jovial, happily blinded by beer goggles and gushing punch-drunk promiscuity, while I was a pissed-off kind of sober. \nI felt like the only dry person at the party, given a prude charge. The stigma of temperance is an insect nested permanently up the rectum, a parasite sucking the humor out of every dirty joke, incoherent rant and liquor-cushioned fall.\nBut screw all that. I really had to study, and I should have started sooner.\nJust leaving my house was hard enough. By the time I should have been reading "Contending Forces," my roommate was pre-partying and prepping for his late-night prowl. Episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" were being piped through OnDemand TV. I started wasting time -- an hour, then three. \n9:30 already -- the cut off point.\nIn my backpack, I packed books, folders, my mp3 player, a toothbrush and paste, glasses, a contact case and solution. I pocketed my cell phone and wallet and traveled all the way across the street to the Union.\nIt was Indiana's most temperate March evening this millennium. Nobody should have been doing homework. My studies, however, had gone neglected since the previous Wednesday, when I shucked my usual mid-week study session for a section at Kilroy's Sports and watched the Hoosiers get routed by Northwestern. \nFrom then on, a mini-bender convoluted my classes, the week hazing by nauseously. Pretty soon, my three-to-four day homework cushion dwindled to two, then one. \nI was certain the state of "last-minute panic" I was creating would awaken my inner muse, but the distress of chapters unread and assignments untyped grew more sizable, like a cavalcade of Mack trucks following too closely on a freeway fast lane, constantly threatening to run over. \nSlowing down meant the paper train would crash and burn. So, basically, I had to study.\n"Contending Forces" is a romance about racial issues during American reconstruction. It's also incredibly unrewarding and boring to boot.\nThe high point Thursday came at midnight, when I discovered the best-kept men's restroom on campus. In the east wing of the Memorial Union mezzanine hid a furnished lavatory featuring intricate wallpaper, grimeless blue tiling, a subdued, fluorescent lighting scheme, wall units so clean they didn't need urinal cakes and the softest commercial toilet paper I've ever used. It's where God would go if he felt like reading on the John.\nAt the time I craved Jimmy John's, I had been focused on reading for about an hour. After the sandwich, I got a phone call -- a girl I knew from class. She said she was bored. \nThere's something convincing about a girl dialing in at two a.m. Within an hour, I was driving her around. My homework took a back seat with her three friends.\nBut damned if I wasn't the sober guy in the company, once again -- probably not good company, either.\nBy three in the morning, the girls were gone and the Union was closed. I headed to my room to finish studying.\nTurned the handle. Locked. Good hunting, roomie.\nI was done trying.\nTotal study time -- less than two hours.\nI took my backpack into the restroom, brushed my teeth, took out my contacts, undressed at the foot of my cold dorm bed and crawled onto the top bunk.\n"Tomorrow, I'll really buckle down," I thought. "After all, I've got the whole weekend"