My Room

I don't think I ever really described my room before. I feel like I should put that down somewhere.

So when you walk into the door - I'm at the end of the hallway, on the right - there's a little alcove on your right for the sink and mirror and towel racks and a light for said alcove. Most dorm rooms/college wouldn't have anything like this, but we do, so we never have to use the hall's bathroom to shave or brush our teeth or wash our face or mess with our contacts or anything. I guess that was really nice at first, but now I kind of lament the fact that we all have our own sinks and mirrors because we never have to go to the same bathroom all gross and disgusting and sleepy-eyed and see each other just that much more. Anyway. I keep most of my stuff on the sink - toothpaste and brush and etc., pretty much everything except for my shaving cream and razor because I don't use them enough and they're too big to justify keeping on the sink.

Behind the door when you walk in is my closet. Our doors slam, so we have to prop them open with brick(s). So my closet is often obscured by a door propped open with bricks. We have one brick that is half painted as a piano, and then Danny wrote on the other side, "lay me." Sam Schmerler thought that was a really good idea, so he wrote "LAY ME" on a brick and wanted to take it back to Keeney with him, but left it with us, and never returned to pick it up.

There's a safe in my closet. It's bolted there, and we can't move it. It's in PRIME shelf space, too, like, exactly the place where if somebody said to you, "Where's the last place you would want me to put this bulky, crappy safe?" that you would point to immediately. I We hate those safes.

The top shelf of my closet is for bulky stupid stuff that I don't want to think about or deal with. Stuff like the vacuum I haven't used, boxes for things in my room, suitcases and extra stuff, the fan I don't use anymore. On the shelf below that, I keep things like paper towels and napkins and plastic bags. Below that is the shelf with the safe on it, and I ended up keeping all the medicines I thought I might ever need on this one. Vitamins, sunscreen, Mucinex, Wal-Profen, etc. On the shelf below that is actually where I keep my food, two boxes of Cheerios, one of Life, my shaving kit, my peanut butter and crackers and my utensils. Below that is the box of Ritz crackers and all my extra towels and sheets and stuff. I keep my hamper in there, as well as the pile of jeans that I never feel like putting in the hamper. Oh, and also that I recycle. Oops. I also keep my hockey equipment in there, but I haven't used it yet here and it makes me very sad. I have some clothes/jackets hanging in there, too, but I really only use two coats here [the big black one and the tiny blue one].

If you walk past my closet, you've stepped onto my side of the room [the right side, basically]. Behind you and to your right, on a wall that juts out between my space and the sink, are some shelves. I keep my hat/glasses there, and magazines, mallets, my puzzles, books, bowls/cups, my shower caddy, and gym/sleeping clothes there. There's also a trashcan below it, and currently my sandals as well.

My clothes drawers are in the far right corner of my side, then next to that is my work desk, then my bed. My printer is on top of my clothes drawers. The top is for socks and nightshirts/etc. The second drawer is for all my regular shirts, which I now organize by color. I realized that I have a HUGE number of blue shirts [and I'm very happy about this]. The bottom drawer is for pants. I brought khakis, but I haven't worn them yet, so I put those in the back.

My work dest is sort of messy, but at the same time, not really. There's a ton of wires over on the right that go towards the surge protector behind the printer, but I know what all the wires are for. Whenever I unplug/take out my laptop, there are five wires just hanging out, but it only takes me like five seconds to plug them back in [USB Mouse, printer, ethernet, power, speakers]. My external harddrive is also on my desk, but I actually haven't used that too much. There's also my lamp, and my clock, and my phone, and usually my water bottle. My gloves, headphones, and letter stationary are also out right now, as well as the tiny ball of wall putty that I play with when I'm bored.

One of the nice things about college is that I ALWAYS know where the scissors are. All of those things are in my second drawer of my work desk all the time and never go anywhere else. It's really nice to have it be that easy, I guess.

Behind my printer, on the wall, is my photo board. There's a picture of it on Facebook if you haven't seen it already, but just incase FB or that picture ever disappears, but this doesn't, I have 20 pictures on there, of these people, from top left to bottom right: Jeremy T, Hetty N, Joe K, Kacey D, Katie R, Kelly D, Matt G, Kristin W, Nicki M, Beth O, Gina M, Sarah J, Steve! S, Steph D, Viv D, Trisha K, Abby M, Chloe G, Erik H, and Drew S. They're all black and white pictures, and I think all pictures that I took, except for the one of Gina and maybe the one of Kelly.

Behind my workdesk and bed are my posters that I made and love and posted here. I guess I'll explain them, from top left to bottom right. And for people who don't know me as well, they're posters of pictures I took and the titles to them all are songs I wrote.

tragicstory is a macro picture of a small flower/weed at the DCI show that Nicki, Viv and I went to in Allentown, PA, summer of 2007. It's the time we saw Mike and Katie and they hardly waved to us. And the time we saw the guy from Norristown and wondered if he actually had a tattoo on his leg. And the first time Nicki and I heard Scharton and asked the pit instructor of the Buccaneers what the name of it was so we could find it and use it. I think that might have been Tollie Contento, but I'm not sure.

strangeplace is a picture of the pier on 31st St. beach in Avalon, New Jersey. I think this was the time that I went down on my own, the day after Kristin's party. I wanted to wake up before the sun rose and drive there and see the sun come up over the water, but I missed my alarm, overslept, and missed it all. It was raining and stormy when I got there and thought it might make for a good picture, so I went and took a few and really like a couple of them. This is one of the ones I liked best.

onedayonenight is a picture of candles on the coffee table in front of the sofa in Gina's basement. On the second to last night, I think, we lit candles. I think we had five of them total [there are five in the picture]. I remember thinking it was going to be just about the last time I could light candles before I left for Brown, and I'm really glad with the way this picture turned out, it makes them look really beautiful. I was very sad when we had to blow those candles out.

singingfarewell is a picture of Katie R on the rocky jetti somewhere around 54th street in Ocean City, NJ. We were just walking on the beach and found that jetti and I thought it was really pretty and I would like pictures of it, so I got some just of the jetti and water and the pier nearby, but also some of Chloe and Katie with it. I think this is one of the better pictures of Katie that I have.

chemicalroad was taken at Chloe's house, at what I think was the last time I was at her house for a party before I left for Brown. We had a fire - a very large fire - that day. I remember this picture was taken when it was still light outside. Chloe's dad or uncle had just thrown a huge amount of fuel onto the fire and it got really big really quickly. Gina was laying on the hammock, and I took a picture. The fire looked really intense, and the smoke looked really ominous, and the scenery was beautiful and Gina looked so subtly amazed by the fire.

snowandlights is a picture of the Brandywine River, way down Smithbridge Road. I took it the day I drove around town with Steph and Kacey so they could take pictures of everything for their German exchange students and I could get pictures of things that I thought made Garnet Valley as awesome as it was. I think it was by far the best picture I got that day. Actually, I think it's the best picture I have, period.

goddamn is another picture that I took that day. I remember we were driving down Smithbridge Road either towards Cossart Road or toward the river, and Steph wondered if she would see any geese anymore this time down the road. There were some geese, and I made Steph take a picture. Come to think of it, we may have been driving back towards home from Smithbridge, or maybe it was a different road [but I don't think so]. In either case, I think this picture largely captures what the song God Damn was going for, except for maybe the geese, but they're cool anyway.

dysthymia was one of the first pictures I took with my camera. Like, within the first ten that I didn't delete, I think. I was sitting outside Jess J's house, and I just looked at my dashboard and thought, this could make a really pretty picture. So I took a couple shots. I can't remember if I had already talked to Jess or if I was waiting to go in and see her. I'm pretty sure I had already seen her.

thingsfallapart is a macro shot of the inside of my piano. My beautiful, fifty-four inch, Baldwin, baby grand piano that I like more than any piano in the world because it's the best piano in the world. In this picture you can just see some of the string pegs and some of the strings. I took it in the higher register because all of the string pegs have three strings around them. It's a really mellow picture.

Out of Bounds, the sketch comedy show, starts soon, so I think I'm going to go to that. Just for closing, my favorite pictures of the ones listed here, in order, are: snowandlights, singingfarewell, chemicalroad. It's really really close between 2 and 3, but snowandlights is by miles and leagues and years my favorite. Not really fair, though, because it's the one I colored blue. But I think it was the best even before that. People who come into my room all seem to agree that snowandlights is the best one, as well, though, so I'm pretty confident that it really was the best anyway.

Peace out!

Army/Navy Surplus

Today was not a very good day as far as temperature goes.

I first noticed this when it was EXTREMELY FREAKING COLD OUTSIDE. Like extremely cold.

The next time I noticed this was when I tried to unlock my bike. Noting the failures of locking my bike up behind Smitty B, I decide I would lock it up outside the stairs that lead to Metcalf Hall so I can just get it when I'm leaving the dorm [Metcalf is connected to Andrews Hall]. When I timidly took my freezing, freezing hands out of my pockets to grab the freezing, black, metal lock on my bike, and put the key in the hole and tried to turn it... I noticed there was a problem. It wasn't really turning. I kept trying and, after a few tries, I got it. I put it on my handlebars and locked it back up and went to the Ratty for breakfast. I had even more troubled there, but got it locked. I noticed there was ice inside the metal workings of the lock.

The next time I noticed there was a problem with this was when I COULDN'T UNLOCK MY BIKE. It's stuck at The Ratty. When I came out after breakfast, stuck. Same after lunch. I suspect it will be even more stuck tomorrow. I'm not sure what to do. Maybe I'll throw hot water on it after I steal some from the Ratty?

Well anyway. I also needed gloves because my hands are constantly freezing these days. I should also get boots, but those are way more expensive, so I just went for gloves. I went to the Army/Navy Surplus store on the east side of the north end of Thayer St. I'd gone there before, but like I said, I was dizzy and people were talking and it was weird and I didn't see what I wanted so I just left.

I went back in today. As I was walking in, I noticed a sign on the front door that said "Apartment for Rent," or something to that effect. I thought it was kind of strange that someone would advertise for an apartment on the window of an army/navy store. Anyway, walked in the door. Again, the first thing I saw were these little tiny green camo shorts with "BOOTY CAMP" written across the back, and I just thought to myself... there's no way this is legit army/navy stuff. This was confirmed as I looked through the store, and especially when I looked at the gloves. I was expecting something different, but oh well. I got a pair of $10 gloves and paid for them with my credit card.

Just as I was wrapping up, a guy walked in the door. He was slightly shorter than an average man, thin, white, and you can tell that he looked much older than he actually was. I remember noticing something about his eyes but I forget why now. He greeted the man at the counter who had just rung me up as if he was an old friend - I was actually under the impression they were old friends for a second. Then the man started talking, "Hey, my manager from CVS just told me to come over here to ask about an apartment." And the man at the counter said, "Oh, yeah, it's a three bedroom."

I couldn't believe someone was not only advertising an apartment at the army/navy, but actually looking for one there, and finally selling one there. I took a little bit of extra time getting my things together because I wanted to listen to this conversation.

The guy who was looking to rent said that it cost him $130 a week just to transport himself from his home [a town that starts with "A"] to and from work at CVS every week, so he had to move, because he only made $120 per week. He also mentioned that he worked at two CVSs. I thought that was really sad - that this guy who was probably 40 years old worked at two CVSs and was just $5 per week per store he worked at away from being able to ... not lose money by working. I don't know why, but there was something really tragic about the whole scene. Maybe I'm not communicating it. I guess it gets worse.

The guy at the counter said that the apartment was $1200 per month - which, doing the math, is what the guy makes in 10 weeks, not 4.5. There... just didn't seem to be any way it would work out. But he insisted he was going to buy it. He said he would be quiet, and he had a job, lots of money, and he had a roommate, so he'd be a good tenant. I think that made me really sad. That being quiet was something he used to sell himself to this guy. He said that he would come back on Friday to put down a deposit on the department - of $1200.

When he was asked if he wanted to see the place before he bought it, he refused. That was the last thing I heard before I left the store.

Peace out.

Regina Spektor

Last night, a little after 9:30, I went to the holiday a capella concert thrown by The Higher Keys [male and female, about 20 members, including Kayla and Sarah Kay] and The Bear Necessities [the group which I tried out for and didn't make callbacks]. A lot of our floor was going to go and we were all going to walk together, but for some reason my RC, Andy, was left behind with me, so we ended up walking together. It was freezing cold - I didn't take my hands out of the pockets of my thick black jacket once the entire way there. Earlier that day I had done so to ride my bike, and I couldn't feel my thumb when I went to lock it up. On the way there we talked about the Ratty, and how the morning after the Daylight Savings Time change, your body felt like it was waiting until 11:30 to eat breakfast, which sucked. Furthermore, a lot of people went at "10:30" which was actually 9:30 and had to sit there, hungry, waiting for an hour.

When we showed up, we ran into a couple people that seemed to know Andy, including one friend he had called as we were about to pass The Gate. There was a girl, I think named Kaylie(?) who was from Philadelphia and remembered me from the train up to Brown during ADOCH. Her grandmother lives in a development right off of Naaman's Creek Road, near the Wawa. She was friends with Sophie, an Asian girl in WORD that I've talked to a bunch of times and thought was nice, so we and Andy and his friend sat together during the show when they let us it. We were supposed to donate ($2?) to the Women's Hope Foundation to help women in [I think] the Dominican Republic who otherwise had no access to health care, but when they opened the doors everyone was so concerned about getting The Good Seats that no one donated. Maybe people did afterwards, I'm not sure.

The groups had decorated the chalkboards in the auditorium we sat in - the main hall of MacMillan. There was one board that was shaded green and said "HAPPY/MERRY/JOYOUS" and then one shaded in red beneath it that said something like "CHRISTMANNUKKWWAAKANZAKA." I can't recall exactly, but I remember thinking it made absolutely no sense. Just about the only other things I remember on the boards was an amalgamation of the letters "TBN," which I guess is the symbol for Bear Necessities, and I think a snowman drawing.

The show started very abruptly, I remember. The Higher Keys came out after a very short introduction by someone guy I don't know. I can't remember their first song, but I remember thinking it was by a kid who was a little bit awkward. After it was over, they started tuning for their second song, and Andy's friend said "Sounds like F major!" I asked Andy if he had perfect pitch and he said that he did.

At one point in the show, The Higher Keys's spokesman said something to the effect of, "I hope you guys stick around for the Bears 'cause they have even more kick-ass stuff for you all." A kid behind us in the audience said, "What? Is that meant to imply that this is kick ass?" You had to hear how angrily he said it, but it was funny, I promise.

I think it was actually the second song by The Higher Keys that I really liked. It was soft and slow, and the lead singer/soloist - I swear I've seen her before, but I don't think she's a freshman - had the most amazing high pitched voice I've ever heard. Like, operatic almost. I asked Andy if he knew who it was by, and he didn't know, so I asked Sophie and she said it was by Regina Spektor. I'd heard of Regina Spektor before but I didn't really like that one song of her's I heard [Fidelity, it turns out], but this one was very, very different and I could tell I liked it much more.

When I went home, I found the video for it on YouTube and I swear, in the past 24 hours, I must have listened to it 20-30 times. I don't think I know all the words, though, but I don't really care because I just like how it sounds. I really like a couple lines, though, like "The bible didn't mention us" and "kissed me 'till the morning light."

This morning I was talking to Viv and I told her that I feel in love with Regina Spektor last night, and she was very excited for me. She said that I should learn how to play Samson [the song I heard/fell in love with] on piano, and I said yeah, sometime I should. She got me the sheet music a couple minutes later from a Yahoo Group called Regispek. I figured I would play it tonight for midnight piano.

A little after 12, I decided I would go. It was very very cold outside again today. I couldn't feel my hands. I even went to the Army Navy Surplus store to buy mittens but got dizzy and didn't find anything and people were talking about NASCAR and poker so I left without any. It snowed a lot today, and I think there was still some snow coming down because my Samson sheet music is crinkled and wet, and there was a lot of ice on the ground and even/especially near the stairs on the Andrews Terrace and I was very afraid I was going to fall. I didn't wear a jacket or anything - just my Duke shirt and my "This is my Brown t-shirt?" white gym t-shirt - because I was just running to Alumnae Hall. I went in through The Gate, and saw Jasmine and Malcolm and Spencer and Danny, but really wanted to play so I just said hello and went on my way.

When I got up the spiral staircase that leads to the hall, I heard piano. I figured someone else must have figured out my trick. The lights were on, thankfully, and a door was open. I wasn't sneaky or anything, and they heard me come in [which is what I wanted]. There were actually three of them. It looked like one of them, whose name I found out was Kelly, was teaching the other two how to play, but I'm not sure. There was a guy on the bench, too, named Chris, and a girl whose name I really wish I could remember but can't. She had dark hair and skin and eyes and played classical piano and was an accompanist, but I can't remember her name.

When I got to the piano, I kind of just wanted to say hey and then go on my way - I could play another time. But they pretty much insisted that they were done. I still wanted to talk to them though and definitely didn't want them to leave/feel like I wanted them to leave, so I asked them how they got in and they told me through a window (!). I told them they could get in through the spiral staircase by The Gate, and they said they should use that from then on. I also told them if they had a friend in the Orchestra, they could ask them to get a key and then give it to them which I said was what I did, and that made them feel like they had to go, but I said again that no, they didn't have to leave. And they said they'd been there for a while and should, and I said No, you can stay! And Chris said they had school tomorrow, which I guess was a good answer, but I still wanted them to stay. One of them asked me why I came, and I told them about Regina Spektor and that I just wanted to play it tonight. It seemed like Chris and the girl whose name I forget knew the song. She asked me if I could play it. I wasn't sure if I could or not - I'd never looked at the music before - but I told her I might be able to play it and not sing it. So I put it on the music stand and told them to go along with me.

I started playing - five sharps (!), but I knew the chords for the most part right away so it wasn't too difficult for me. We couldn't sing it perfectly, and I messed up some of the timing, but I actually ... well, I liked playing and singing with them, I guess. And I wasn't nervous at all. I didn't even think about my nerves until this minute, actually. The girl whose name I can't remember said Chris was a good singer - and he was. But she was also better than she gave herself credit for.

I think it was actually after we finished playing that they introduced themselves to me, and the girl whose name I can't remember told me she wished she could read chords for her accompanying and that she was finally teaching herself how. We walked outside together, just for a minute, before they had to go to Keeney and I had to go back to Andrews. We have school tomorrow, of course...

On the way back, still wearing just just my two shirts, I heard someone call my name from the other side of the Andrews sidewalks. I looked over and saw Bekah, bundled up in a huge white coat. I told her that I'd been meaning to talk to her for a while but I never got the right time.

Peace out.