A Story Involving Nudity, and the Police

So. Tuesday night I'm at Jamie's for beer pong. If you didn't know, every Tuesday Zach and I trek over to his place on 14th street to play in the league he and his roommates run. As a side note, we started out really strong before Zach lost his shot. It's cool, we all lose our shots sometime, but he had been hitting pretty consistently. I'm not bad but I'm not good enough to carry the team and so the last few weeks have been rough. We're coming back for the tournament, though. Yesterday Zachy did pretty well, so I think maybe he's hunted it out. I have high hopes.

Anyway, after beer pong most people usually head out to bars, but we hung around and played some flip cup. I once read that beer pong is considered a binge drinking game. If anything its the opposite. It's what you do when you need to slow down. Flip cup, on the other hand, is most definitely a binge-drinking game. Still, I don't think it really compares to an hour long game of Moose which followed.

Needless to say, we were feeling pretty good by the end. So what do we do? We do what every self-respecting UVA student does when the weather's nice and he's got alcohol humming through his veins. We went streaking. Or sort of.

We made it to the Lawn without too much trouble, (but I seem to remember tripping over a guy with crutches? Who knows?) but when we got there a certain someone...cough cough Jamie cough cough...decided he wasn't gonna do it. While the girls were trying to convince him, I got the urge. You know, that drunken urge that drives you to just walk out of a room even though no one comes with you - the one that leads you to dirty strip clubs, or to jump off a roof into a shallow swimming pool. That one. So I just take my clothes off and take off down the lawn.

Its kind of further than you think. In daylight, with your clothes on, it doesn't seem like that far to Homer's poetic (and possible pediphilic - that statue is weird man) ass. Naked in the dark its an eternity. Still, I was full of liquid courage so the length didn't bother me. I was just hitting my stride when I was spotlighted.

I figured it was some jackass who lived there so I kept running until I heard, "Put your clothes back on and get back up there!" in a gruff, undeniably policeman voice. I wanted to argue. "But it's a tradition man!"

"It's also against the law."

I'd been running with my boxers in hand, just in case, but I lost my grip and this point and lost them somewhere in the grass.

Stalling, I said, "It's cool man! It's cool!" Brilliant, I know. I bent over in the grass frantically searching. Finally I found them and hastily threw them on, backwards. I didn't stop to fix them, but took off back towards the rotunda, passing a naked Zach on the way. When I got back to my clothes I quickly threw them on. Rachel, Meghan, and Jamie had split of course. Apparently Jamie thought we got arrested.

The cop came up to us, nodded, and said, "How's it going?" walking on. It was a fun night.

The Prodigality of Firdausi

This is one of my favorite poems:

The Prodigality of Firdausi

Firdausi the strong Lion among poets, lean of purse
And lean with age, had finished his august mountain of verse,
The great Shah Nameh gleaming-glaciered with demon wars,
Bastioned with Rustem's bitter labours and Isfendiyar's,
Shadowed with Jamshid's grief and glory as with eagles' wings,
Its foot-hills dewy-forested with the amours of kings,
Clashing with rhymes that rush like snow-fed cataracts blue and cold;
And the king commanded to be given him an elephant's burden of gold.

Firdausi the carved Pillar among poets was not dear
To government. They smiled at the king's word. The Grand Vizier
Twisted his pale face, making parsimonious mouths, and said
'Send the old rhymer thirty thousand silver pounds instead -
The price of ten good vineyards and a fine Circassian girl.'
This pleased them and they called a secretarial shape, a churl,
A pick-thank without understanding and of base descent,
And bade it deliver their bounty, and with mincing paces it went.

It found the Cedar amoung poets in the baths that day,
At ease, discoursing with his friends. Exalted men were they,
Taking their wine and sugared roseleaves in an airy hall,
Poets or theologians or saints or warriors all
Or lovers or astronomers. Like honey-drops the speech
Distilled in apophthegms or verses from the lips of each,
On roses and presdestination and heroic wars
And rhetoric, and the brevity of the life of man, and the stars.

With courtesy the Lily among poets asked its will.
The bearers laid the silver at his feet. The hall was still,
The churl grew ple. Firdausi beckoned to the Nubian slave
Who had dried their feet; to him the first ten thousand coins he gave.
Ten thousand more immediately he gave the fair-haired boy
Who waved the fan, saying 'My son, may Allah send you joy;
And in your grandson's house in unbelieving Frangistan
Make it your boast that once you spoke with the splendour of Iran.'

Lastly the Heaven of poets to the churl himself returned
The remnant. 'You look pale, my friend,' he said. 'Well have you earned
This trifle for you courtesy and for the heat of the day.'
Clutchin his silver, silently, the creature slunk away,
And dogs growled as he passed and beggars spat. Laughter and shame
Wait upon all his progeny; on him, Gehenna's flame.
Immediately the discourse in the baths once more began
On the beauty of women and horses and the brevity of the life of man.

-- C. S. Lewis