When I first moved in, it felt just like camp. Both my roommates’ parents had
already claimed a bed for their child. The only one left was the top bunk. I
looked at it and said to their faces of dawning horror, “I’m not sleeping up
there. It’s going to be to hard to climb up after a night of drinking…. Oh
that’s right, I’m 23. If you want to talk to switch me out for someone under the
legal drinking age I suggest you go to the office now. And while you’re there,
ask them to bring back a living room too.”
There is one working outlet in the bathroom, so we brought in an extension
cord that hangs out on the floor near the tub. Dangerous? Not really. Only
because when we shower, all the excess water leaks out through the rusty pipe
and into the bediving room. Which is what you get when you combine bedroom and
living room, and not an area where we dive into the bed—because believe me,
there is none of that going on here.
"To live in the nice apartment buildings you have to sign a
contract saying you’ll only eat, sleep, and shit there."
Even if I didn’t
go to school in homo-heaven, and even if one of the five straight
guys were available, I wouldn’t even know how to go about kicking my
roommates out of the room. The concept is so foreign to the both of
them. I imagine the conversation would be completely one-sided and
full of questions any seasoned college freshman shouldn’t have to
ask. “You mean you want us to leave? Okay, for how long? The whole
night? Where will we sleep? What if I need something from the room?
What will wake me up in the morning if my alarm is in there? What
about my shower? I can’t start the day without a shower?” It’s cute
how they’re both so innocent but at the same time annoying enough to
consider shelling out money for a hotel room.
Tiffany’s bed is lofted. Not only is it lofted, it’s incredibly wobbly. The
maintenance guy has come in to check it three times now. After a thorough
investigation—him pushing it with his index finger and the bed jiggling out of
control—he told her, and I quote, “It looks fine. Just don’t do any gymnastics
on it.” She cocked her head and replied, “That’s your professional assessment?
No gymnastics?” He nodded and said, “Just don’t stand near it during an
earthquake.” Oh sure buddy, she’ll just be sleeping on it when one happens. No
big deal.
The nicer student-housing is in these really nice apartments right next to
the Warner Brothers studio. Sometimes the studio even puts celebs up in there
when they’re filming, and the drive back and forth to their Malibu mansion would
be counter-productive to the shoot. Currently the rumor is Dane Cook is
temporarily inhabiting the place. So now all I hear about in class is, “We saw
Dane Cook by the pool!” or “I saw Dane Cook drive off in his car this morning.”
Blah blah blah blah blah blah. I’m like, “Just get tickets to his show. It costs
a whole bank-breaking fifteen dollars. That way you can have a better story
because no one cares if you saw him for eight spell binding seconds in the
parking lot.”
To live in the nice apartment buildings you have to sign a contract saying
you’ll only eat, sleep, and shit there (although no smelly poops—wouldn’t want
to expose Dane Cook to a whiff of fecal matter). It’s a conservatory school so
there’s no student government and no social organizations for parties. Does
anyone really expect a bunch of college students to sit around on a Saturday
night and not have a night of drunken debauchery? Security even comes around at
random times during the weekend to check our fridges and make sure it’s a game
of
sober circle of death we’re playing.
Anyway, back to my crappy apartment. The kitchen isn’t big but it has these
amazing bay windows that overlook the parking lot upon which all the shiny car
hoods reflect the white sunlight and permanently blind whoever stares directly
into it. But it’s 80 degrees in January so who can complain. Except for the cold
spell we had last week when all the crops were ruined. But now it’s warm again,
which is good. Even though one avocado costs more than a gallon of gas now.
Most of my day is spent in class, which is in a theater where it’s cold and
dark. The one class I actually have in a classroom has big windows that stream
in beautiful natural light. Of course my instructor keeps the big black curtain
over the windows and refuses to let the light in, claiming we’d get distracted
looking outside. Right buddy, like we can’t space out to the big black blob and
dream of what life once was with a living room and a bed that didn’t jerk more
than a carnival ride.
