Today the ocean looked like a rash of silver ants on piled cobalt dirt. Trust me.

This is my commute—a twelve-minute walk from the dorm on campus closest to the ocean. It's like I'm rediscovering this place all over again.

I realized this afternoon stacking books in the library that I must have been going through caffeine withdrawals because, in between the moving and the starting jobs and whatnot, I hadn't had my cup per meal per usual, and I had a must-get-coffee-so-I-don't-fall-asleep-in-class moment, and then I had a revelation: I don't need to bring my A game to anything. No one's going to lecture me for 75 minutes and expect me to be alert and engaged the entire time; no one's going to make me responsible for arcane information and demand I recite it at arbitrary times; no one's going to assign a letter to my actions. I can be a little sleepy and a little dull.

This is the first summer in three years that I'm not taking classes, and a three-month stretch without homework is breathtakingly spread before me. Time to drop the textbooks and see what's outside my window.