Memory density

Walking across the MIT campus is one of the weirdest experiences that I still have on a semi-regular basis. I did so today on the way to see a performance of Tommy, and (even though I avoided the Infinite Corridor) I just felt like I was walking in a dream. Pretty much every building, corner, stairwell has a memory. There's a locked room up near Pritchett that I used to have a key to--in the next building on the fourth floor is my favorite poetry professor's office. Looking to the right at the green building, thinking of talking with noid boi late at night looking out over the river... and falling asleep in the library on a different floor... and the tunnels that run from there to the main buildings and the night I found an ice machine down there. Knowing where most of the basement stairwells go. Walking out a door, I remembered walking out of there with my friend Luke after an almost-all-nighter in the lab, when he expressed his discouragement by sitting down in a puddle... me: those are waterproof pants, aren't they, Outing Club boy? him: well, yeah. And the Student Center, well, no need to even go there. Except of course I was going there, because that's where the show was. And the show was memorable, so that's one more of a zillion moments to add to the memory density. It's just so strange. Nowhere else on earth could ever house such a shifting depth of experience for me, not even the rest of the city. I love, hate, love, hate it. It's me.

On another note, Tommy was great! Especially the adorable little kid they got to play the 4-year-old Tommy... he was so cute, and performed very competently. If all kids were that good all the time I might feel differently about them. :)