My daughters were celebrating the holiday with their in-laws, and I wanted a bit of solitude after the long, crowded months. There were a few international students around, but I didn’t talk to anyone. I did my laundry, read a book or two, listened to the Pixies and the Kinks on my iPod, and took long walks in the cold. In the knock and clamor of the breathless year, this was a nice moment of calm. Then everyone came back to wait out this strange intoxicating moment between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In some ways I’ve settled back into the old routine—I fool around on the Internet, go to parties, and eat slab after slab of Bacon Blast Pizza—but I’m afraid I’m just whistling in the dark. Things are not the same and they won’t be the same. In early December, I ran into President Richmond in the science library. She was wearing sweatpants and eating ice cream with a fork. I thought, This is a woman who has given up. She hasn’t even bothered to deny any of the wild stories that people are telling about her.
