During the first few years of college, I shuttled back and forth between various dorms. My first foray out of the dorms took place in 1988, in an apartment building on East E. Street.
My friends and I had decided to move out of the dorms and live “downtown” such as it was. That spring, after we didn’t get the place at Sixth and Grant, we opted for a 3BR not far away. It was, we later found out, run by a local management company with a slumlord reputation, but at the time we felt very grown up and proud of ourselves for having arranged it.
We moved in on a steamy hot August day, accompanied by various family members. It was like some parental circus. The previous occupants, guys we’d known from the dorm, had left layers of grime and empty bottles throughout the place, which threw our mothers into fits. At one point I walked past the bathroom and was startled to see J.’s mother in there, on her knees, scrubbing the floor.
It was just as well. We’d been promised, and naively expected to see, a “cleaning crew” which never materialized, despite repeated calls to the management company’s answering machine. Two days later, a little old lady who spoke no English showed up and cleaned the oven. Disillusionment began there.
More followed when I realized that living in the apartment was not going to be anything like my merry life in the dorm. Instead of being surrounded by our friends, we were surrounded by anonymous neighbors and J.’s boyfriend, who was rooming at the time with one of my ex-boyfriends. Mr. Ex and I would not speak to each other for a number of years after that, so “The Situation,” as it came to be known, was very awkward. Parties were tension-filled affairs, for example, with someone usually ending up angry. Visits from out-of-town friends and new friends were welcomed, but they did little to mitigate the overall social queasiness.
I coped by disappearing into class, into work, and into outside relationships with what would become the BOT group.
In addition, I'd made an appalling realization: I’d have to cook my own food. Although I’d learned how to make a few impractical things (dill potatoes, chocolate mousse) at home, I’d grown used to having dorm food appear magically, whether I wanted it or not.
What, how, and when to eat became a constant problem. I had to shop, cook, and clean up and, oh yes, pay for it myself. Default meals involved tuna fish, peanut butter, or rice, or something frozen and microwaveable (I loved the peppered steak with rice.)
No doubt my roommates were experiencing similar problems, but we weren’t really communicating by that point. The only thing we all agreed on was that we should get a cat, and so J. adopted one. He was defiantly un-cuddly and even at times unfriendly--all around, not what I’d expected a pet to be. I earned daily scratches trying to play with him. But he didn’t seem to care that he failed to live up to my expectations and, in his way, his prickly presence did give a certain commonality to the house.
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Cat in fighting posture; not an uncommon sight on E. Street.
Summer came and my roommates got a TV, which they spent (it seemed to me) an inordinate of time watching. I hadn’t watched any TV since about 1985 and there seemed no reason to start now. My position might have been a little extreme, but even visiting friends commented on my roommates’ devotion to the tube. So when I took two jobs and started working very late at the school paper, my absence was hardly noticed. When I finally got a place of my own, it was a relief. When I moved out in August 1989, it felt like I was finally going home.
What happened after: My roommates stayed on E. Street another year; I can’t remember who they found to take my place. After I left, relations between us actually improved.
Next: Post-collegiate slump and the smoldering bunny.
Posted at December 01, 2003 08:03 PM