Neighbors

Sometimes I take a lot of pride in the fact that Adam and I are pretty good hosts to our apartment neighbors. We have a clean and spacious carpeted floor. A friend of mine asked me if we have a Clark St. “crew” that hangs out a lot and whatever. I said that we basically do because the same four or five guys are pretty much always coming over just to chill in our room. I like it. It’s comforting.

But sometimes I’m just like, Don’t you guys have stuff to do? They can come in and just sit and talk. Meanwhile, I take their rowdy company as a break from school work to do chores, washing dishes or folding laundry so that I can keep up the conversation. I want to read, but I haven’t figured out how to read or talk at the same time yet. I end up not getting all my work done, but I guess I have a good time.

Next year I won’t have to suffer that tension so much, since I’ll probably be moving off campus. I’ll have roommates, sure, but I’ll have more independent roommates. Busier. More quiet. More studious. More like myself, or at least the person I want to be. Unfortunately the job of the student makes him always bring his work into the home, and that’s the only way it really works.

I’m gonna need the extra time since I’ve be elected for House Scholar. And it’ll be my job to reach out to people and talk: instead of being passively accessible, I’ll have to be actively engaging. At least it will be on my own time.

It’ll kinda be a bummer though, ‘cuz these four or fives guys that always come visit, they always make me laugh. It’s not that moving twenty minutes away from each other is a big stress on the relationship; it’s just that living two seconds away from each other can be really nice. It’s like a family.