When I first moved into the house on S Street, NW, my four roommates (Dom, Jeremy, Summer, and Erin) were so pleased to have me because they had truly despised their last roommate and her dog who had peed all over the upstairs carpet. And living together is like being in a romantic relationship, there is always a honeymoon, a time when you hang around with one another all the time and enjoy each other’s company. About three weeks after I moved into the house, we had a big house party in honor of Summer’s getting into grad school and Erin’s friend’s birthday, and welcoming me. We had cake and 7 layer dip and 2 kegs and loads of liquor and during the course of the epic evening, probably 70 or so people enjoyed the festivities. It was a real bash.
The hilarious thing about parties is that they always end the same way. Most people leave when the booze is gone, but there are always a group of people (usually people that no one who is hosting the party really knows) who hang out listening to loud music into the wee hours of the night. In my experience, this usually also entails the hosts nodding off on some couch or in some corner waiting for the unknown guests to leave so they can go to bed only to wake up to a massive hangover and a house in need of extensive cleaning.
This bash was no exception. At about 4 a.m. a group of kids were hitting around a balloon in the virtually empty downstairs of our house as Summer and I kept each other awake and Dom slept beside us. I was relieved when they left and I climbed the stairs before almost stumbling
upon some people sleeping up there.
I was about to walk into my room when I realized that there was someone in there. Well, not someone, someones. To be polite, and to avoid the embarrassing situation of walking in on a twosome (or possibly more than a twosome) going at it, I knocked on the door. But, instead of answering, someone got up off of my bed and tried to close my bedroom door on me. I yelled out the most obvious reaction ever, “hey, that’s my room! Don’t close the door on me!”
I heard the voice of my roommate Erin whine, “but, someone’s in my room!”
I couldn’t believe that she actually uttered the words with a straight face, even if she was drunk and in hazy make out phase. I replied with a matter of fact reply, “that’s not my problem.”
She looked embarrassed as she led some random dude (there were a lot of random dudes with Erin) out of my room. The first moment the whole thing pissed me off…the next I was downstairs telling Summer what had happened and we were laughing at how ridiculous it was.
I retreated back up the stairs and changed into pajamas. I planned to use the bathroom cause I really had to go after a long evening of partying. The house was set up so the bathroom that Erin and I shared was the only one that was out in a common area. Both Jeremy’s bathroom and the one that was in Dom & Summer’s room were not accessible. When I walked down the hall to the bathroom, I realized that there was no chance that I was going to get to use it. Locked inside was my displaced roommate and the random dude that she was making out with that night. The moral victory gave way to the biological loss.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
The Polaroid
The weekend that I officially moved was supposed to be the weekend that I joined my friend Meg and her friend Andy in Wayne, Michigan for a festival aptly titled Michiganfest. Unfortunately, unlike Fred Flintstone, I didn’t and don’t have the benefit of a magical green spaceman/fairy godfather type character named Kazoo who is able to allow me to be in two places at once. Thus, Michiganfest, and all the awesome bands --including Ted Leo, Radio 4, and Milemarker -- that I hoped to see were missed. And in their stead, I drove over 800 miles through a blizzard, purchased D.C. car insurance, acquired a DC driver’s license (an epic tale in and of itself), bought a bed, observed Passover, moved into a new house and began a job.
Needless to say, I was disappointed that I missed all of the indie rock goodness that Michigan was going to offer up, and probably more so, the chance to hang out with Meg. She was understanding, but as she often says to me when we chat on the phone or on IM, she adamantly contended that she couldn’t understand why I had left NYC in the first place.
After the festival, I was chatting with Meg when she said, “You’ll never guess who I hung out with at Michiganfest.” Now, there are few people in the world who could say something like this and I would have any idea what the answer was. [To digress, there was one time I called up my mom all excited and said “Mom, guess who I am interviewing?!” She paused and then just blurted out “Holy shit! Stephen Malkmus!” Her answer was, in fact, correct.]
I knew who Meg hung out with. The answer was and could only be one person: Alexander Burian.
Now, Al Burian fills a place in my heart that can never be occupied by anyone else. Sure, there is a thirteen year old girl element that he is a pretty good looking guy, but my mild obsession with him has grown mainly due to the utter excellence of his zine Burn Collector. Burn Collector was the final straw that broke this camel’s back and made me start Anecdotal Evidence. Burian makes the mundane seem important, revels in the tangential, and is both hilariously absurd and depressingly reflective.
In addition, the last two records by his band, Milemarker, are quite solid in their own rights. Somewhere in the midst of my last semester of college, when Burn Collector was proving to be my greatest respite from genetics class, stress, and my impending flight from New York, I made the utterly absurd statement: “I just want to lick Al Burian.” It became a bit of a rallying statement, something that Meg and I laughed at when things reached their most stressful or absurd. Al Burian had taken on a super-human (or is that sub-human?) position in our world of inside jokes and perplexing lingo.
Anyhow, Meg informed me that she had not left her meeting with Al Burian empty-handed and that she was sending it to me. Over a week after she sent it, an envelope arrived at the house. Inside was a Polaroid photo with a message from Al Burian…
Needless to say, I was disappointed that I missed all of the indie rock goodness that Michigan was going to offer up, and probably more so, the chance to hang out with Meg. She was understanding, but as she often says to me when we chat on the phone or on IM, she adamantly contended that she couldn’t understand why I had left NYC in the first place.
After the festival, I was chatting with Meg when she said, “You’ll never guess who I hung out with at Michiganfest.” Now, there are few people in the world who could say something like this and I would have any idea what the answer was. [To digress, there was one time I called up my mom all excited and said “Mom, guess who I am interviewing?!” She paused and then just blurted out “Holy shit! Stephen Malkmus!” Her answer was, in fact, correct.]
I knew who Meg hung out with. The answer was and could only be one person: Alexander Burian.
Now, Al Burian fills a place in my heart that can never be occupied by anyone else. Sure, there is a thirteen year old girl element that he is a pretty good looking guy, but my mild obsession with him has grown mainly due to the utter excellence of his zine Burn Collector. Burn Collector was the final straw that broke this camel’s back and made me start Anecdotal Evidence. Burian makes the mundane seem important, revels in the tangential, and is both hilariously absurd and depressingly reflective.
In addition, the last two records by his band, Milemarker, are quite solid in their own rights. Somewhere in the midst of my last semester of college, when Burn Collector was proving to be my greatest respite from genetics class, stress, and my impending flight from New York, I made the utterly absurd statement: “I just want to lick Al Burian.” It became a bit of a rallying statement, something that Meg and I laughed at when things reached their most stressful or absurd. Al Burian had taken on a super-human (or is that sub-human?) position in our world of inside jokes and perplexing lingo.
Anyhow, Meg informed me that she had not left her meeting with Al Burian empty-handed and that she was sending it to me. Over a week after she sent it, an envelope arrived at the house. Inside was a Polaroid photo with a message from Al Burian…
Elyria, Ohio
It was around 10 a.m. on a late March afternoon that, with my hands full of toiletries, I stuffed the last couple of things that I was able to stuff into my car. My mom was hanging around the newly finished front hall of my childhood home and she looked sad and excited for me. I wish I could say that I felt the same way. But, it was more fear and nausea that had taken hold of me. I gave her one last hug (after putting all the toiletries down) and walked out the front door wearing a pair of overalls I had acquired at an outlet mall is Kenosha Wisconsin when I was 15 along with a heavy wool sweater.
My mom asked me to wait and she grabbed my dad’s camera. She took a couple of photos of my pulling out of the driveway and heading East (which doesn’t have the same ring as heading west).
Unlike the first time I drove to D.C., the ground was adorned with ice and snow. But, with every CD I owned sitting on the floor of the passenger side, I wasn’t too concerned that I would get bored.
My evening’s destination was Monroeville, PA. It’s a good location, about 9 miles from Pittsburgh and right off of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Although, it does require driving the first 70 (or so) daunting miles of the Turnpike in the dark. I’m not sure who designed the PA. Turnpike, but it certainly wasn’t the same person who crafted the wide-laned, high speed raceway of its northern neighbor the NJ Turnpike. The Pennsylvania Turnpike appears to be modeled after the Argonaut’s sea journey where the cliffs nearly smashed their ship to shreds. There are high cliffs on either side, daunting curves, virtually no exits or rest stations, warnings of falling rocks (what the hell am I supposed to do if that happens?) a propensity toward extreme slickness, and of course the required regiment of ten big rigs per mile of road just to make drivers, who are unenthused like myself, a bit more nervous while driving on the friendly roadways of Pennsylvania. Also, there is the reputation of Gestapo-like law enforcement.
Before I would reach the friendly roadways of Pennsylvania, I drove the width of both Indiana and Ohio. Now, I don’t mean to offend anyone from Indiana, but that is a state that I wouldn’t mind driving across in the dark. Pennsylvania is able to redeem itself based upon scenic, panoramic views, but Indiana, at least the northern part of it really doesn’t have much going for it. Gary, home of the Jackson Five, is quite possibly the most horrible place on the face of the Earth. It’s the largest steel producer in the U.S. and when you drive through it, you can feel yourself developing lung cancer. I have long contended that maybe the best thing to do with Indiana is to relocate all the good, hardworking, sane people to some different state and give (back?) Indiana to the fanatical, right-wing extremist groups. I mean, it is the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. Then we can put an epic electric fence around it and build a highway that drives right over the entire state. If George Bush is looking to do something that will really provide homeland security, that is what I recommend.
However, Indiana does have some solid rest areas. One is named after Knute Rockne (it’s near Notre Dame, go figure!) But, named rest areas have made me ponder, numerous times, what does one have to do to get a highway rest area named after him or her? During my many Midwestern and eastern vehicular jaunts I’ve noticed no theme that unites the namesakes of the many buildings which host gas stations, Hardees, rest rooms, visitor centers, and if you are lucky a Subway Sandwich shop which is always a welcome relief from fried food. If anyone who reads this knows what the rest area naming process is, I urge you to contact me and fill me in. Maybe I can get one named after my dad.
It was snowing a bit in Indiana, but I made it through the state with no incident. However the weather really began to pick up in Ohio. My usually zippy highway driving was slowed to about 40 miles per hour, then 35, then 30 as the snow and the clouds turned the sky into one impenetrable sheet of white. I persevered and decided that Monroeville was a noble, but unattainable goal. I decided to settle on Youngstown which is about 70 miles west on Monroeville. But as I continued, at approximately 25 miles per hour across I-80 I realized that even Youngstown was a long shot. Cars were strewn on the sides of the road, and worse, many of the frightening big rigs had tipped off the road and lay on their sides like hurt horses.
Within ten minutes, my aim of reaching Youngstown was reduced to reaching Cleveland. But, as the snow literally dumped down and as my little car, packed with virtually all of my worldly possessions eked down the road, I concluded that I just needed to find a hotel room and hope to god that the weather would clear.
I exited at the next toll plaza, the woman in the toll booth looked worried about me. I must have looked like I had seen a ghost…but really I had just seen a massive truck graveyard. Truck graveyards are not reassuring.
After endless turning around and searching for a cheaper hotel, I settled on staying at the quite pricey Holiday Inn which was doing rather well for itself that evening despite being quite understaffed.
I grabbed a random bag out of my car, and got the last room in the place with a king-sized bed. I trudged to the room, grateful that I didn’t have to worry about my “all my worldly possessions-filled” car being broken into. Because, honestly, no one in their right mind was outside that night, let alone breaking into a car that within minutes was covered with ice and snow and didn’t look to have anyone’s entire material life packed within.
I opened the door of the hotel room, threw my bag down on the floor and thumbed through the hotel amenities book before discovering that I was in Elyria, Ohio.
I looked it up in my $5.95 road atlas and found that I had fallen about 15 miles shy of my final goal of Cleveland. After ordering room service, checking my email (which I was charged an unreasonable amount for doing), and watching a bit of really bad television I fell asleep.
I woke up early the next morning and made it to D.C. by late afternoon. But, as I drove across Pennsylvania, I realized that I had a little piece of me in Elyria. My $5.95 road atlas was sitting in my room in the Holiday Inn.
My mom asked me to wait and she grabbed my dad’s camera. She took a couple of photos of my pulling out of the driveway and heading East (which doesn’t have the same ring as heading west).
Unlike the first time I drove to D.C., the ground was adorned with ice and snow. But, with every CD I owned sitting on the floor of the passenger side, I wasn’t too concerned that I would get bored.
My evening’s destination was Monroeville, PA. It’s a good location, about 9 miles from Pittsburgh and right off of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Although, it does require driving the first 70 (or so) daunting miles of the Turnpike in the dark. I’m not sure who designed the PA. Turnpike, but it certainly wasn’t the same person who crafted the wide-laned, high speed raceway of its northern neighbor the NJ Turnpike. The Pennsylvania Turnpike appears to be modeled after the Argonaut’s sea journey where the cliffs nearly smashed their ship to shreds. There are high cliffs on either side, daunting curves, virtually no exits or rest stations, warnings of falling rocks (what the hell am I supposed to do if that happens?) a propensity toward extreme slickness, and of course the required regiment of ten big rigs per mile of road just to make drivers, who are unenthused like myself, a bit more nervous while driving on the friendly roadways of Pennsylvania. Also, there is the reputation of Gestapo-like law enforcement.
Before I would reach the friendly roadways of Pennsylvania, I drove the width of both Indiana and Ohio. Now, I don’t mean to offend anyone from Indiana, but that is a state that I wouldn’t mind driving across in the dark. Pennsylvania is able to redeem itself based upon scenic, panoramic views, but Indiana, at least the northern part of it really doesn’t have much going for it. Gary, home of the Jackson Five, is quite possibly the most horrible place on the face of the Earth. It’s the largest steel producer in the U.S. and when you drive through it, you can feel yourself developing lung cancer. I have long contended that maybe the best thing to do with Indiana is to relocate all the good, hardworking, sane people to some different state and give (back?) Indiana to the fanatical, right-wing extremist groups. I mean, it is the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. Then we can put an epic electric fence around it and build a highway that drives right over the entire state. If George Bush is looking to do something that will really provide homeland security, that is what I recommend.
However, Indiana does have some solid rest areas. One is named after Knute Rockne (it’s near Notre Dame, go figure!) But, named rest areas have made me ponder, numerous times, what does one have to do to get a highway rest area named after him or her? During my many Midwestern and eastern vehicular jaunts I’ve noticed no theme that unites the namesakes of the many buildings which host gas stations, Hardees, rest rooms, visitor centers, and if you are lucky a Subway Sandwich shop which is always a welcome relief from fried food. If anyone who reads this knows what the rest area naming process is, I urge you to contact me and fill me in. Maybe I can get one named after my dad.
It was snowing a bit in Indiana, but I made it through the state with no incident. However the weather really began to pick up in Ohio. My usually zippy highway driving was slowed to about 40 miles per hour, then 35, then 30 as the snow and the clouds turned the sky into one impenetrable sheet of white. I persevered and decided that Monroeville was a noble, but unattainable goal. I decided to settle on Youngstown which is about 70 miles west on Monroeville. But as I continued, at approximately 25 miles per hour across I-80 I realized that even Youngstown was a long shot. Cars were strewn on the sides of the road, and worse, many of the frightening big rigs had tipped off the road and lay on their sides like hurt horses.
Within ten minutes, my aim of reaching Youngstown was reduced to reaching Cleveland. But, as the snow literally dumped down and as my little car, packed with virtually all of my worldly possessions eked down the road, I concluded that I just needed to find a hotel room and hope to god that the weather would clear.
I exited at the next toll plaza, the woman in the toll booth looked worried about me. I must have looked like I had seen a ghost…but really I had just seen a massive truck graveyard. Truck graveyards are not reassuring.
After endless turning around and searching for a cheaper hotel, I settled on staying at the quite pricey Holiday Inn which was doing rather well for itself that evening despite being quite understaffed.
I grabbed a random bag out of my car, and got the last room in the place with a king-sized bed. I trudged to the room, grateful that I didn’t have to worry about my “all my worldly possessions-filled” car being broken into. Because, honestly, no one in their right mind was outside that night, let alone breaking into a car that within minutes was covered with ice and snow and didn’t look to have anyone’s entire material life packed within.
I opened the door of the hotel room, threw my bag down on the floor and thumbed through the hotel amenities book before discovering that I was in Elyria, Ohio.
I looked it up in my $5.95 road atlas and found that I had fallen about 15 miles shy of my final goal of Cleveland. After ordering room service, checking my email (which I was charged an unreasonable amount for doing), and watching a bit of really bad television I fell asleep.
I woke up early the next morning and made it to D.C. by late afternoon. But, as I drove across Pennsylvania, I realized that I had a little piece of me in Elyria. My $5.95 road atlas was sitting in my room in the Holiday Inn.
Apartment Hunting
I told David, the executive director and my new boss, that I would start working on April first. Over the phone he told me that he would prefer that I started the week before. I confidently explained that I was moving 800 miles, needed to find a place to live and “I’ll do such a great job once I start working you won’t even notice that I started a week later than you want.” He laughed and agreed to April 1st.
My mom was kind enough to accompany me to D.C. on an apartment hunting mission. It’s a stressful situation to know that you need to find a place in a two day time span.
I did my homework by checking Washington, D.C.’s best apartment resource: the City Paper. I made phone calls, sent emails and found out about a bunch of different places. Since I knew virtually no one in D.C. (was that past tense? ha!) I decided that a group house would be a good deal, a built in friend network. Hopefully.
D.C. is kinda deceptive size wise. The entire District is 100 square miles, make it a ten-by-ten diamond. And most of the “hip, young white kids” live in NW. So, basically you are in a quarter of a 10 by 10 diamond which isn’t much space at all. But, by D.C. standards Tenleytown is in the middle of freakin’ nowhere. It’s a residential neighborhood near American University. The first house I looked at was in Tenleytown. There was a big smelly dog, an over-zealous 30 something woman, more knick knacks then I’ve ever seen in my life, water damage and no central AC. I had been forewarned that D.C. in summer is unbearable and I knew virtually immediately I would not be living in this place.
I rushed my mom (who was sick with a respiratory infection) from Tenleytown to Shaw. As we ascended the Metro escalator, she was immediately skeptical. 8th and R Streets NW are not very picturesque especially after the suburbanized Tenleytown. There were boarded up houses, it was certainly a neighborhood in transition. We found the house we were looking for nearby on S Street and as we walked in, she perked up. We had stumbled upon a beautifully renovated, absolutely huge house. The four people who lived there (two guys and two girls) were all from the Midwest save Summer and all worked for non-profits or Congress save Erin. Summer had been an anthropology major, Dom liked indie rock and he informed me that the two big places to see shows were within six blocks of the house.
The room itself was small, but the rest of the house was rad, the rent was cheap and the people seemed cool. In a hyperactive tizzy I tried to make them like me enough to ask me to move in. I bid them goodbye and reiterated my interest in the place.
My mom and I headed back to our hotel by Union Station. At 5:30 p.m. my cell phone rang. It was Dom. He said, “we know that you’re looking at some other places and everything and we probably don’t seem cool getting back to you so quickly. But, we’d like you to move in with us.”
“Awesome! I want to live with you guys too!” It took one interview and two house visits before I had a job and a place to live. Mom and I went out to dinner to celebrate. We had planned to spend the next day apartment hunting, but we slept in instead.
My mom was kind enough to accompany me to D.C. on an apartment hunting mission. It’s a stressful situation to know that you need to find a place in a two day time span.
I did my homework by checking Washington, D.C.’s best apartment resource: the City Paper. I made phone calls, sent emails and found out about a bunch of different places. Since I knew virtually no one in D.C. (was that past tense? ha!) I decided that a group house would be a good deal, a built in friend network. Hopefully.
D.C. is kinda deceptive size wise. The entire District is 100 square miles, make it a ten-by-ten diamond. And most of the “hip, young white kids” live in NW. So, basically you are in a quarter of a 10 by 10 diamond which isn’t much space at all. But, by D.C. standards Tenleytown is in the middle of freakin’ nowhere. It’s a residential neighborhood near American University. The first house I looked at was in Tenleytown. There was a big smelly dog, an over-zealous 30 something woman, more knick knacks then I’ve ever seen in my life, water damage and no central AC. I had been forewarned that D.C. in summer is unbearable and I knew virtually immediately I would not be living in this place.
I rushed my mom (who was sick with a respiratory infection) from Tenleytown to Shaw. As we ascended the Metro escalator, she was immediately skeptical. 8th and R Streets NW are not very picturesque especially after the suburbanized Tenleytown. There were boarded up houses, it was certainly a neighborhood in transition. We found the house we were looking for nearby on S Street and as we walked in, she perked up. We had stumbled upon a beautifully renovated, absolutely huge house. The four people who lived there (two guys and two girls) were all from the Midwest save Summer and all worked for non-profits or Congress save Erin. Summer had been an anthropology major, Dom liked indie rock and he informed me that the two big places to see shows were within six blocks of the house.
The room itself was small, but the rest of the house was rad, the rent was cheap and the people seemed cool. In a hyperactive tizzy I tried to make them like me enough to ask me to move in. I bid them goodbye and reiterated my interest in the place.
My mom and I headed back to our hotel by Union Station. At 5:30 p.m. my cell phone rang. It was Dom. He said, “we know that you’re looking at some other places and everything and we probably don’t seem cool getting back to you so quickly. But, we’d like you to move in with us.”
“Awesome! I want to live with you guys too!” It took one interview and two house visits before I had a job and a place to live. Mom and I went out to dinner to celebrate. We had planned to spend the next day apartment hunting, but we slept in instead.
The Island
The following day, I received an email at work from my roommate Erin. In it she relayed that that evening, if I was going to be around, they would like to hold a “house meeting.” In the nearly two months that I had lived in the house on S Street, we had never had a house meeting, so I asked her what it would be in regards to. I received no reply.
Now, sometimes my internal dialogue can be a little paranoid. But, this “house meeting” didn’t sound like a particularly good thing to me. By this time the “new roommate honeymoon” was over. No longer was I hanging out with my roommates who I actually began to think were a bit cliquey. I had started to become annoyed with Jer’s constant drinking and fits over whatever inane video game he was playing, the fact that one of Erin’s friends had been a total jerk to me and she hadn’t said anything to him, and Summer’s stupid cat who was always trying to get into my room and was certainly contributing to some serious allergies. And, I’m sure there were things about me that they felt similarly about. I only really ever spoke to two of them and usually that was for functional purposes.
So, I had a sneaking suspicion that they wanted me out. Soon after I had convinced myself that they had baked a cake to congratulate me on graduation. I then recognized how completely deluded that notion was and returned to the thoughts about my expulsion.
So, I sat down on the couch, in my gym clothes, at 9 p.m. They all sat so I was the focal point. Even if you know what is coming, you are never really prepared to be kicked out. And honestly, I had never been kicked out of anything before. For about ten minutes I was furious, but I remained calm and they even thanked me for taking it so well. After those ten minutes past, I was really relieved. Sure the house was conveniently located and the rent was really cheap, but it wasn’t a particularly healthy living environment to be on barely-speaking terms with your roommates.
I was shaken by the fact that I had to find a new place to live and I certainly wanted to do it quickly so I could get out. But, there was only a week left in May and it was going to be tough. I pictured myself as a homeless young urban professional, my Ann Taylor work clothes hanging from my body in rags as I walked the streets of Washington, DC with my queen size bed and box spring strapped to my back and both hands holding Crate & Barrel boxes filled with dishes.
Then I crafted more sinister fantasies about finding a cool place to live really quickly and sticking the heathens (to quote one of my friend’s moms) with a month’s worth of my rent.
Within a week, I had been offered two places to live. One that was pretty far out and had not air conditioning and a really small room. Another that was on the Mt. Pleasant/Columbia Heights border which had CAC (as the housing ad lingo is apt to say), an awesomely large room, and roommates that seemed really cool. The place was only for the summer, but on June 2nd I moved in and was rid of the house on S Street.
I was psyched that my plan to stick them with the rent would actually come to life. But, I later learned that one of Summer’s good friends moved into the house and I suspect that that was part of the plan in getting me out all along.
But, in the end, I still got kicked off the island. I just feel fortunate that the swim wasn’t far and the new accommodations (and housemates) have proven to be far superior.
Now, sometimes my internal dialogue can be a little paranoid. But, this “house meeting” didn’t sound like a particularly good thing to me. By this time the “new roommate honeymoon” was over. No longer was I hanging out with my roommates who I actually began to think were a bit cliquey. I had started to become annoyed with Jer’s constant drinking and fits over whatever inane video game he was playing, the fact that one of Erin’s friends had been a total jerk to me and she hadn’t said anything to him, and Summer’s stupid cat who was always trying to get into my room and was certainly contributing to some serious allergies. And, I’m sure there were things about me that they felt similarly about. I only really ever spoke to two of them and usually that was for functional purposes.
So, I had a sneaking suspicion that they wanted me out. Soon after I had convinced myself that they had baked a cake to congratulate me on graduation. I then recognized how completely deluded that notion was and returned to the thoughts about my expulsion.
So, I sat down on the couch, in my gym clothes, at 9 p.m. They all sat so I was the focal point. Even if you know what is coming, you are never really prepared to be kicked out. And honestly, I had never been kicked out of anything before. For about ten minutes I was furious, but I remained calm and they even thanked me for taking it so well. After those ten minutes past, I was really relieved. Sure the house was conveniently located and the rent was really cheap, but it wasn’t a particularly healthy living environment to be on barely-speaking terms with your roommates.
I was shaken by the fact that I had to find a new place to live and I certainly wanted to do it quickly so I could get out. But, there was only a week left in May and it was going to be tough. I pictured myself as a homeless young urban professional, my Ann Taylor work clothes hanging from my body in rags as I walked the streets of Washington, DC with my queen size bed and box spring strapped to my back and both hands holding Crate & Barrel boxes filled with dishes.
Then I crafted more sinister fantasies about finding a cool place to live really quickly and sticking the heathens (to quote one of my friend’s moms) with a month’s worth of my rent.
Within a week, I had been offered two places to live. One that was pretty far out and had not air conditioning and a really small room. Another that was on the Mt. Pleasant/Columbia Heights border which had CAC (as the housing ad lingo is apt to say), an awesomely large room, and roommates that seemed really cool. The place was only for the summer, but on June 2nd I moved in and was rid of the house on S Street.
I was psyched that my plan to stick them with the rent would actually come to life. But, I later learned that one of Summer’s good friends moved into the house and I suspect that that was part of the plan in getting me out all along.
But, in the end, I still got kicked off the island. I just feel fortunate that the swim wasn’t far and the new accommodations (and housemates) have proven to be far superior.
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