Dan Fishback: The search for human connection

No one should spend Saturday nights like this: tired, achy, staring into a computer screen. I have two columns left: one on Monday and one for graduation -- my last column. Except most people don't stick around for the graduation issue, so I really have two "last columns" to write. And I've already finished the second last column. But the first last is due very soon. And I'm petrified of going to bed without an idea.

In two and a half years of this column, I don't think I've ever resorted to writing about how I can't decide what to write about. But this is more than that. This isn't just indecision. This is lust. I want you so bad.

You don't even know.

And now I'm about to leave you. I want to type my way into your head and stay there, even as I graduate and move away. I want to get inside of you. I've been wanting to get inside of you for years. And now it's my last chance -- well, my first last chance -- and I'm coming on too strong. You're deflecting my advances. You're crossing your legs, covering your ears -- stop! Stop and listen, OK?

What are we doing here? I'm serious -- ask yourself: What are you doing? Who are your friends? Who can you save?

We don't talk to homeless people. We avoid eye contact. If we looked them straight-on, we'd see their humanity. And the horror of their misery would paralyze us.

I want you so bad.

I've lived in High Rise East for four years. It's like a shelving unit for human beings. But my view is luminous: the skyline is so crisp, so perfect. Center City used to terrify me, because, deep down, I didn't believe it existed: it's just a painting.

Hundreds of people went to see Michael Moore last week. They cheered him on. They apparently agreed with him about... mostly everything. I was furious. "Where have you people been?!" I wanted to scream. "We've been organizing around these issues all year long! Why didn't you show up?! What did you do with your frustration?! Where did you put it?! How could you walk around all day -- all the while understanding the corruption of the world -- and not speak out? -- not step out? -- not put your body where your mind needs you to be?"

I want you so, so bad.

We are doomed at the moment we speak, at the moment we type. We are doomed to our words, sentenced to our sentences: they are so incompetent, so facile. Can't we do better than this? We must. How can we alleviate suffering if the tools of political assertion are so brittle, so shabby? We write and write and write...

"...one could say nothing to nobody," writes Virginia Woolf. "The urgency of the moment always missed its mark. Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low. Then one gave it up..."

But I cannot give up. I want you so bad. I write through the futility, through the doom and death. I write through to you, at you, because I don't know what else to do.

Who do you love? Take out a pad. Write him a letter. Tell her you love her. What is that? A check? A bullet? An axe? It bounces. It misfires. It hacks a wedge into your heart. But you write and write and write...

In my first column of the school year, I was kissing this boy... and I "felt the idea of America change because our ideas were inside of it." Our ideas. You wake up in the morning to find yourself surrounded by small sacks of Jell-O. "What the... Where in the... What do I do with all this..."

I want you so bad, but I will not get you. And you -- you will not get me. But you get... This. And That. We're students, collectors. We get so much Stuff. How lucky we are -- to fill the spaces between our heads with all this Stuff. (Is that You? Did I just feel You on my...)

I am not sad -- I am ambitious.

I am not weak -- I am literate.

And I want you so bad. I've always wanted you -- so badly that I've stuck it out through all the name-calling, through all the misreadings, through the bottles of piss leaned against my front door...

We are in this together, even if we cannot merge like liquid. We are blockheads, and we are in love. And this blockhead is enormously optimistic, baby. Here's to fervor! Here's to language! To anger! To confusion! To doubt!

I'd like to thank the Academy!

I love you...

Dan Fishback is a senior American Identities major from Olney, Md.

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