"Sound effects and laughter / stupid ever-after / hoping it was cranked up / loud enough for you to hear"

Warm morning. Summer breeze through the open window behind my reading chair. It's damnedly difficult to concentrate. And it will only get worse. Last night: drinks with Jesse, his roommate Chris - a medieval historian, and Erica. Words? To Jesse: "I did not say you wouldn't get into graduate school; I said you wouldn't succeed in graduate school." Teasing, playful. Together at a bar, the lure of sex was everywhere. Jesse, shy but seeking. Myself, brazen but abstemious. To Erica: "Shall we go?" And we went. Later, alone in bed, I dream: Jesse, professorial, lecturing from the podium. And myself, as in a movie, with the music's crescendo: David Byrne's "The Great Intoxication."