Summary

Chapter 14 is titled “Caught in a Haze.” Johnson begins this chapter with a description of his depression at the beginning of his second semester. “I had made friends,” he says, “gotten a 3.1 my first semester, and was having fun, but deep down inside, I hated myself” (243). He draws a connection between his dissatisfaction and his sense that he had not yet been able to come out, and live his life on the terms he had imagined and hoped for. He also says that in his second semester, he got into a habit of smoking too much marijuana and goofing off, living in what he calls “purple haze … his favorite vice” (245). He then comments that over the summer, in spite of being tempted to quit, he turned himself around, refocused, and managed to successfully restart his academic work.

He was further inspired...