I talk to Will Jensen every Sunday. This is by his request. He lives in Chicago with no friends, goes to a school he hates, and until this week, had no job. His parents are divorced, his mother doesn't like him, and he gets depressed when he talks to his father, who has tenuous employment; he's never had a story accepted despite trying since high school. He is twenty three and has never had a girlfriend, and he tried to kill himself at age five. Even though I don't enjoy talking to him, it's hard to say no.

This week, I had to tell him I don't have enough money to travel with him over my spring break. It's true, anyway, so what the hell. "Hey, if anyone understands not having enough money, it's me." (Here's the general course of our conversations: we trade stories about anything we did that week. For my part, there's a lot I don't tell him, because I don't think he'd understand; for his part, he usually hasn't done anything at all. Then we make whatever possible comments there are to make, which usually peters out after about three minutes. This is followed by seconds of true abyss as the phone makes audible our lack of similarity.)

"I'm gonna have to drive down there myself some time. But anyway, I was thinking, how about this summer you and me just drive around, not doing anything, see the country. We'll swing by the coast, you know, maybe stop off in Nevada at the Bunny Ranch. I was thinking, you know, all my friends back home are married or practically married, engaged, you know; you're really the only free friend I have left."

I was, for a moment, too surprised at his casual reference to getting prostitutes that I didn't say anything. Then I explained that when I said I didn't have enough money to travel over spring break, that would go doubly for the summer. That I had a couple of options as to places I'd stay, but the'd all involve either working or taking a course. I added to this that the fifties are over, and it is no longer possible to travel cheap like Kerouac. Will is aware, on some level, that things really have changed since the fifties, but he persists in wanting to live in them. His favorite authors, it should be noted, mostly died under bad circumstances.

After an hour, I was able to break off the conversation. Kant proved too much for me in the state I was in, so I tried Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space to see if it made more sense. It did.

During "Electricity," Jess knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to go to 10,000 Waves, a local spa which seems to be a rite of passage for Santa Fe students. I hear about this place at least once a week. So, being the follower I am, I went with Jess.

My readers (you guys are still there, right?) probably can't imagine me in a spa. I'll keep my description brief. The hot tub was too hot, and I wasn't wearing my glasses, so I couldn't see the topless girls. The cold plunge made it a little more pleasant, but then it was once again too hot. The sauna, how surprising, was too hot. We stayed for about an hour and a half, and I was most relaxed just sitting on the edge of the tub, not touching the water. I doubt that it would have come up, but nobody buy me a spa gift cirtificate for Christmas.