Yesterday was my 22nd birthday. Today I feel rather old. I have switched gears from barely-legal-drinker to early-twenties-undergrad. This is the result of our American laws that make 21 such a big deal, and thus everything after seems like a blind coasting over the hill of approaching age.

My friends and I celebrated with a night frought with hillarity boardering on the appaling. We went to a nice little restaurant owned by a fellow from the Middle East, who was also the cook and the server. He turned out to be higher than pie in the sky, and showed us his potato pipe to prove it. He asked us if we wanted to share; we said no. We didn’t order, because he didn’t give us menus. He just brought us food (which tasted of curry), and bread, all in large dishes, and a bunch of forks, and told us he didn’t want to wash up. So we partook together, to the sound of wailing Eastern music and the fellow’s blunt comments about how beautiful my friend was (“her hair is like gold. So beautiful we should cut it off and smoke it.”) and how much more beautiful the girls of Tunisia were (“here, you are a 10. There, you would be a 2.”) etc, etc. It was quite a night. “It wasn’t like this before,” said another friend, who had convinced me to go. The pottage was good, so we left, full of food and amused wonder.