Tag: Portfolio
Tiff and Earl
by trogers5 on February 17, 2022
Portfolio
Dear Tiff and Earl,
I slipped and fell on the ice in front of an entire civ class coming out of Ruane this morning. No one even helped me up (what happened to “Friars Hold Doors”?). How do I recover from this embarrassment?
Sincerely,
Professional Ice Skater
Dear Professional Ice Skater,
The best way out of a faux pas is to make it seem intentional. Don’t be afraid to be idiosyncratic. You head right back out and wipe out on that ice as dramatically as you can. If you’re nervous, have a shot of some liquid courage first. Repeat as necessary until your reputation is no longer that of a ham-footed klutz, but that of a brave and interesting individual. It’s foolproof, believe me.
Cheers!
Tiff
Dear Professional Ice Skater,
Revenge is a dish best served ice-cold. The night before the next time this civ class meets, dump buckets of cold water on the spot you tripped on and let mother nature do the rest. Those students will rue the day that they betrayed the most sacred law of Providence College: “Friars Hold Doors.” Sure, some innocent people might succumb to your icy trap as well, but if your ice skating career doesn’t work out, this will make for a great villain origin story.
Watch out for ice, ice, baby!
Earl
Performative Activism Sucks Ass
by trogers5 on February 17, 2022
Portfolio
Taylor Rogers ’24
Performativity’s persuasive lies pour out of your pale mouth,
Claims that are far from true stretching out your already thin lips.
The more you speak, the more my stomach resembles a worn-out washing machine,
Churning your chilling words and soiling already clean clothes.
Each second feels like days as you speak,
Continuing to weave your white web filled with white lies,
Encouraging wrongful interpretations of a movement you know nothing about.
Despite never wearing my hole-filled Converse,
You preach that your journey and mine have been the same,
Spreading your hateful light that constantly dims my own.
You turn a movement that was meant to be colorful into one that highlights a sinister white,
Speaking to an experience you have never actually lived.
While your aim is to teach, what you do is far from effective,
As you erase the stories that need to be told with your made-up fantasies of being a savior.
Trojan Horse
by trogers5 on February 17, 2022
Creative Non-Fiction
Taylor Maguire ’24
It was April in New York. There was that weird uneasiness in the air that made your skin itch. All anyone could say was that “it is absolutely gorgeous outside,” yet the weather almost seemed too good to be true.
“I don’t know, I just have a bad feeling about today,” I explained to my friend Elijah, who stood at my door trying to pry me out of my sardine can of an apartment.
“Jules, seriously, I don’t want to hear it,” he said. “You need to get out of this cave full of unwashed sweaters.” He wasn’t wrong to critique the apartment. Usually, the curtains were never closed and natural light would drown the place. It had a big poster of Billy Joel and a What’s Up, Doc? movie poster that I bought for two dollars at a flea market. There was a big fluffy green carpet on which many of my friends had fallen asleep when the walk to their own place was too grueling of a journey to make at 3 a.m. But now it seemed like the joy had been sucked out of it, leaving the shell of what it symbolized. Even the walls that I had painted a ballerina pink seemed to have lost their sweet touch amongst the sea of navy blue wool that pooled at my ankles.
Before leaving, I changed out of the Talking Heads shirt I had been living in for the past week. I put on my mother’s old magenta skirt that went down to my ankles. It was all tattered at the bottom, despite my grandmother’s many attempts to fix it with her tailoring fingers, which were now chewed up by severe arthritis. I also had on one of those cropped shirts that read TEEN ANGST in bright red letters. It was my second year of college, and I still couldn’t escape the TEEN ANGST phase from high school that was brought upon by birth control, breakups with boyfriends, and fights with parents about not being able to cut your own curtain bangs.
We went to a bodega on the Upper West Side that sold egg sandwiches for four dollars, and got one each with a Diet Coke.
“It’s on me,” Elijah said, looking over at me while he pays.
Elijah had a pair of heterochromatic eyes that everyone in the tristate area fell in love with. The first semester of college, I convinced myself that I was in love with Elijah. We had met for the first time in film class and eventually I found myself spending time thinking about him through statistics and ceramics. However, that dreamy, idealized version of him quickly dissolved at the seams when we kissed in the Rambles of Central Park, and there was simply no spark. After pulling away he remarked, “I think it’s better that we stay friends. And I’m not saying that to get out of that complicated awkwardness, I’m saying it because I mean it.”
Elijah’s lovers came and went so quickly; you couldn’t pick them out of a lineup even if held at gunpoint. The only thing I could say about Elijah for sure is that he doesn’t like blondes. But, I mean, who really likes blondes? Anyways, we laugh about it now.
As we entered Central Park now through the 86th Street entrance, I could feel Elijah looking at me. It was that look that you receive from your parents when they deliver the news that your goldfish died. Or from your college guidance counselor, when you get rejected from a school they told you was a safety.
“What?” I said.
“I didn’t say anything,” Elijah replied.
What I admired about Elijah was how he preferred the company of a caterpillar to a butterfly, never caring about the rules and restrictions of the college status quo. He was a creature of habit, never straying from his routine. He always spent his mornings filling out crossword puzzles in my tiny kitchen, his afternoons at the skatepark, and his nights waiting tables at the restaurant around the corner. He always appeared interested in any conversation even if the topic was dull, and he always gave people the time of day even if they didn’t deserve it. What I hated about Elijah was the certain looks he whips out during times like those. They were easy to decipher after putting up with him for two years. The pitiful expression in his eyes that popped out at me then was as startling as a jack-in-the-box.
“I’ll just say this. I have never been more happy now that Jax is gone.”
“I don’t think I have ever felt more miserable in my life,” I replied.
“Think of the positive,” he said, grabbing an egg sandwich from the bag. “Me and him will no longer be in a silent life-or-death battle for your attention.” My ex, Jax, and Elijah never saw eye to eye. Part of the reason we split was because he was always accusing me of cheating on him with Elijah. Breaking up with someone after a long period of time feels like you’re flushing all those precious memories you wrote about in your diary down the toilet to join the rest of New York’s sewage. Sprinkle in the accusations of cheating and lying, and it really just leaves you with a shitty feeling in your gut.
“Falling out of love with someone takes time, I get it. I know the only thing you want to do is wear sweatpants and rewatch Girls for the hundredth time, but you can’t avoid going out to do things just to simply avoid him entirely. It’ll just damage you more, believe me. I mean if I did that, you’d never see me downtown, that’s for sure. Besides, I always said Jax was a prick. And I can say that because he wore designer clothes to Washington Square Park. And only pricks do that.”
“He did love that purple Balenciaga shirt,” I said.
Then suddenly, as if we had manifested his appearance, Jax appeared out of thin air, hand-in-hand with an unremarkable blonde girl beside the Mister Softee parked across the street from the two of us.
“He would settle for a blonde,” Elijah said, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
Tiff and Earl
by trogers5 on February 10, 2022
Portfolio
Dear Tiff and Earl,
My boyfriend won’t take me on a Valentine’s Day date because it’s too close to Super Bowl Sunday. Should I ditch him for Joe Burrow?
Sincerely,
Big Bengals Fan
Dear Big Bengals Fan,
Don’t give up on your man just yet! With a little creativity, you can have your cake and eat it, too. Combine your Valentine’s Day with his Super Bowl by serving classic game day snacks with a romantic twist—for instance, a seven-layer dip not of beans and cream cheese but of all sorts of aphrodisiacs—and by programming your TV to play slideshows of the two of you as a couple instead of commercials. No doubt you can come up with plenty of other little ways to remind him that he’s your special quarterback. Be ingenious! He sounds like he’s worth it.
Cheers!
Tiff
Dear Big Bengals Fan,
While I am completely in favor of you getting revenge on your football-fanatic boyfriend by ditching him for a man who can actually play the sport, why go for a Bengal when you could have the GOAT? Now that Tom Brady has officially retired, the man is going to have plenty of time on his hands. What better way for him to spend it than a romantic Valentine’s Day date with a college student? Maybe you could even bring a friend for a double date with Gronk.
Your even bigger Pats fan,
Earl
How to write about love, when you yourself are not in love:
by trogers5 on February 10, 2022
Portfolio
Kathryn Libertini ’23
- Download Tinder and Hinge for inspiration.
- Scroll through the apps with your roommates, creating narratives and citing opinions that will most likely never materialize (but, hey, there’s a chance).
- Delete Tinder and Hinge.
- Tell your roommates Valentine’s Day is a “Hallmark Holiday” incentivized by capitalism.
- Watch How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and 27 Dresses.
- Question what “love” even is.
- Download Tinder and Hinge for a reality check.
- Delete Tinder and Hinge for a reality check.
- Question what “reality” even is.
- Call your therapist back.
The Underground
by trogers5 on February 10, 2022
Portfolio
Kate Ward ’23
By the time of his lunch break, Edmund was exhausted from an early morning preparing a case to defend his client. It wasn’t looking good, and frankly, Edmund had little faith that his client would get out of this unscathed. He walked outside to the loud street and waited under a streetlamp for the “walk” sign to appear. The wind, which smelled awfully polluted, tousled his neatly-kept hair and sent the tassels of his bolo tie flitting around. He placed a hand on his chest to try to prevent it, but just like his efforts to strengthen the case with his current client, it proved to be futile.
He crossed the street and walked up four blocks to his favorite haunt, a tiny tea shop that had the best lavender-vanilla tea.
Lanam looked up as the door jingled. He snapped on a fresh pair of gloves and pulled his mask up over his nose. Seeing it was Edmund, he paused a moment, hands fumbling with the delicate porcelain cup he was polishing.
“Good morning sir, what can I get started for you?” he asked as he set the cup down.
Edmund looked over the menu, fingers poised on his chin, rubbing a spot there as he read and reread the options.
“Morning.” He paused and glanced at Lanam’s name tag. “Morning, Lanam. Say, may I have a cup of the lavender-vanilla tea with a bit of milk? Actually, make that two.”
Lanam was taken aback—Edmund was switching up his usual order. “Do you have someone joining you?”
Edmund made himself comfortable at a table by the window, legs crossed as he skimmed through a real estate magazine. “Oh, no but I was hoping you would?” He glanced around the shop. It was empty save for the two of them, a quiet hour amidst the chaos outside. “If you aren’t too busy, of course.” A small smile graced his face, blue eyes twinkling.
The barista made a noise of annoyance and continued to assemble the two teas. Edmund liked listening to the process—the meticulous craft of tea-making, especially with loose leaves and complex flavoring, was mesmerizing. He found it to be far more interesting than brownstone apartments on glossy pages.
Lanam sprinkled lavender petals into the cup and flourished it with a dash of milk. “Did you want the other one to have milk?”
“Make it how you want it,” Edmund replied, dipping his chin in an affirming nod.
Another scoff and a dribble of honey later, Lanam passed the barrier and came over to Edmund’s table. He carefully folded and set aside the magazine; he hadn’t been able to get past the first few pages anyway. He took the tiny cup in his hand and took a sip, and only then did Lanam take a seat.
“Why tea?” Edmund asked, cup nestling against its plate.
“Why law?” Lanam returned, bristling at the question.
Edmund lifted a hand. “I didn’t mean any offense. I was just trying to make conversation.” He found himself a bit more flustered than usual. He was used to clients being emotional, but at work, he could detach himself from the situation. This felt different.
Lanam sighed and smoothed his hair back. “Whatever. I guess I settled on tea because no one could do it the way I liked it, so…” He shrugged and pulled his mask up once more.
“I chose law because I wanted to help those who couldn’t help themselves. Get them out of situations that they didn’t choose to be in.” Edmund’s eyes glossed a little, recalling something distant.
A few beats of silence passed before Lanam nodded. “That’s very noble of you.”
“It’s just a job. But…thank you.” Edmund took another sip. “How did you come up with the name for this place?”
“The Underground? I don’t know. It was a place I was fond of as a kid, so…I decided to carry the name over to here.” He shrugged. “Look, I’m not interested in small talk, really, I’ll be honest with you.”
Edmund finished his tea and fished around in his wallet. With a thunk he set it on the table and gave Lanam a look. “I’m just glad you’re interested in talking at all. Here, I haven’t paid you. This has been the best tea yet.”
Lanam took the bills he offered and slid them into his apron pocket with a curt nod before getting up and carrying his own cup and plate to the back, and then coming back to get the other. He picked up the dish and the cup in one hand. Edmund caught his other hand and held fast. Lanam nearly dropped the dishes in shock. He looked down at their joined hands and gave the lawyer a startled look.
Edmund rose from his seat. “So, you don’t like small talk. That’s fine. Let me cut to the chase.” He paused and was met with a scowl. “Let me take you out to dinner.”
Frankly, that was the last thing he expected, so Lanam was caught off guard. He averted his eyes. His cruel mask had slipped and there was no recovering it, so he sighed. “Fine. One dinner. It’s not like it’s going to change anything.”
Edmund smiled warmly and dropped his hand, heading toward the door before glancing over his shoulder. “Oh, make sure you count those bills before putting them in the register.”
Lanam scoffed as he hurried behind the counter, trying desperately to hide the blush that had crawled up his face. “What kind of idiot doesn’t count bills before putting them away?” he grumbled as the door slammed shut, Edmund’s laugh carrying out into the street. He thumbed through the bills. Aside from being overpaid, he didn’t see anything inherently wrong with them. What was that lawyer on about? Then he noticed that one of the singles had a slight tear in the upper corner, and directly below it, ten digits scrawled in blue pen.
“Unbelievable,” he sighed.
Listomania
by trogers5 on February 10, 2022
Portfolio
Biggest Red Flags
- Asked me out to the PC basketball game
- Is a business major
- Has a pet monkey
- Doesn’t read The Cowl
- Is in their red hair phase (no offense, Sarah)
- Goes to URI
- Is Nate Jacobs (from Euphoria)
- Posts regularly on Yik Yak
- Gets hazelnut or pecan flavored coffee
- Has a favorite song from Certified Lover Boy
- Doesn’t thank the UG2 workers
- Prefers Ray over Alum
- Makes thirst traps on TikTok
- Chooses Old’s over Brad’s
- Doesn’t like Chicken Nugget Thursdays
- Posted about their lost Airpods on the PC mobile app
- Lives in Guzman
- Calls Suites “McCarthy”
- Doesn’t like Dean Sears’s emails
- Willingly has an 8:30 every day
- Has a red “Saturdays are for the boys” flag
- Picked me.
How to Write a Love Poem
by trogers5 on February 10, 2022
Portfolio
AJ Worsley ’22
Light a candle, admit your flaws, set the tone.
Don’t let the process turn your heart to stone.
Find warmth in lost love, but always try to keep it in your sight.
The best love poems are written after the love has gone to light.
Compare your lover to a flower, delicate and beautiful.
Nature’s divinity couldn’t compare to what we have.
Sing a proper country song in a thick Western accent,
Skip around the town, each step its own cloud.
Think in terms of pink and red, anatomically incorrect hearts,
Cupid’s bow never turns arrows to darts.
The most important step to writing a love poem is this:
Know that love exists beyond everything.
Love exists for the memory foam pillow you rest your head on after a long day of tiring work.
Love exists for the trees you pass on your daily commute, each vein designed to satisfy such rich fruit.
Love exists for the people who make life a bit easier,
A lighthouse in the distance, they bring your mind back to its body.
Love heals and often feels like rehabilitation,
Like a dove set free from its cage, love is liberation.
Ugly Puppy Love
by trogers5 on February 10, 2022
Portfolio
Taylor Maguire ’24
They don’t tell you when you’re a kid that love is depressing. When you’re five, you start watching movies that project the happily-ever-after trope, and as you continue on through middle school, your curiosity grows on the concept. Then high school rolls around, and you listen to music that praises the pretty girls with dead hearts or songs about the boy whose car was keyed after he cheats. You listen to your parents spew nasty words at each other, and you break up with your high school boyfriend over text, causing the delicate curtain of romance to slowly dissolve before your sixteenth birthday. But when you get to college, the curtain of romance is ripped off the rod entirely, and you can’t help but feel like the creators at Disney purposely pushed your little heart towards failure.
College is a world full of the newly broken-hearted. Some people attempt to patch up their pain in order to mask the wounds caused by their high school sweethearts, while others wreak havoc on the opposite sex as an ode to the girl who broke their heart months earlier.
The options for lovers are limited. Most put on an entire play-like performance in order to convince you they’re not the douchebag you know they are. They say they like poetry and want to study Russian and comment some bullshit about the color of your eyes to distract you from what they are. But they’re all horrible actors. As each new lover steps into your life, you come to realize the snippets of intimacy you shared a few nights earlier are no more special than the cheap carnival toy you won during a ring toss game.
Watching your friends fall in love is depressing. Watching you lose yourself to love is depressing. Infatuation feels like a parasite crawling into your brain, constantly whispering the names of your lovers on repeat. The parasite compels you to only spew out the same stories about the one you have knighted as the flavor of the month, and suddenly you become a broken record rather than a person. The three-in-the-morning hook-up stories that you swap like foreign currency with your friends over cheesy eggs reveal themselves to be the same story in a different font. The lovers that play the main characters of these fables are the ones who have funny caterpillar eyebrows and giant noses. They stroll around campus wearing the Vineyard Vines shirt their mom bought them last Christmas, or in terrible skinny jeans, and you can’t help but think, “What a jackass,” when you spot them. When you first meet them, infatuation dresses them up in the costume of desire, but as time goes on, their cartoonish qualities become more animated, and your friends say, “Don’t look now, but Stuart Little’s doppelganger has entered the building,” and collectively everyone can’t help but think, “That’s the guy you talked about at breakfast?” as you cringe against their gaze.
The worst part is when you see those same people strolling through the cafeteria in Ray making a sandwich that brutal Sunday afternoon after kissing them in some basement party the night before. Sometimes an awkward glance will be exchanged and you both will act as if they never cried on your bathroom floor. But that’s just the puppy love we’ve come to yearn for.
Heist
by trogers5 on January 27, 2022
Portfolio
Kate Ward ’23
My piece of art had been hanging in that museum for far too long. I was never entirely on board with the fact that the museum would take it and display it, and I wanted it back—it was a masterpiece, after all. I called and emailed and called again, but the museum refused to give back my painting. Even worse? The painting was of my dead dog. How ruthless that the museum wouldn’t return it to me! Did they have no souls? I came to a realization: I would need to steal it.
The idea came to me while I was watching some movie about a heist and they seemed to pull it off pretty well. I understood that someone else wrote the plan and that these people are just actors, but to be honest, I was desperate. In my desperation, I didn’t bother coming up with a bombproof plan; I decided I would walk into the museum, go to the exhibit that held my painting, and take it off the wall. I would, of course, take a bag with me so I could hold the painting, and thankfully it wasn’t much bigger than two sheets of paper.
Normally when artists have their art stolen, whether it’s online or out of a museum, it isn’t the artist himself doing the stealing, so I thought that if this went south, then I guess I’ll make history. I didn’t want to sit with my plan; I needed to carry it out as soon as possible, so I didn’t psych myself out and end up staying home. The day after I created this plan I got up, got dressed in the most boring outfit I could muster, and went about my morning routine. I walked down the steps of my apartment and started the trek to the museum. Thankfully, it wasn’t too far, so I didn’t have too much anxiety building up about it, but I was still nervous.
I got into the museum unscathed. The guards didn’t ask me about my empty bag or why I had it—as far as they knew, I was just another environmentally friendly New Yorker making his way through an art museum. I found it. The watchful eyes of the guards were elsewhere, either on their phones or focused somewhere else entirely. I approached my painting and let the top handle of my bag slide open, I lifted the glass and the canvas off the wall and slipped it into my bag. I tried not to, but I did scurry out of there. I hurried back down to the entrance.
A guard’s heavy hand clapped down on my shoulder. “I’m going to need to check your bag before you leave, sir.”
“You only check bags when people enter the museum—why are you coming after me?” I asked, pulling my bag away from him.
“We have reason to believe you may be stealing. Now, would you please step aside so we can get this figured out?” He swept his arm to the side, pulling me with him so other people could pass. The guard picked up his walkie talkie and spoke into it, calling for the museum director to come assist.
“Why are you stealing?”
“You never got back to me,” I snapped. “I wanted the painting back, so I took it. It’s mine.”
“Sir, I have never seen you before in my life,” the director replied. “That isn’t your artwork.”