So I've decided if I can gun for two to three good blog entries a week, that's more than good enough for me (and also for all of you.) I figure any more than that, and I'd probably just be pushing myself to put shit out that no one is going to want to read, but any less than that, and I'm just being a lazy motherfucker. So you're welcome, people. I'm trying to be a better blogger for you.

New News: I finally got my hair cut. MY hairstylist lopped off about 8 inches from the back of my head, and I'm left with an awesome, spiky mess. I think it looks a lot better to be honest. Also, maybe for once in my fucking life I won't actually have to spend 35 minutes using the blow drier, and then another 25 using the hair straightener, just to look like a decent human being. Maybe.


Alrighty. I suppose I could actually make an attempt at doing some shit or something. I pulled a jumping off point out of my jar of ideas*, and came out with roomies.

I guess my opinion of my past roomies is extremely varied. To be perfectly honest, I've not been the worlds biggest fan of most of them. For Example: In college, I was paired up with a girl named Brittany.

Now, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of having a college roomie selected at the hands of your RAs or some volunteers who obviously hate you for no good reason, here's what you do. You sit down and fill out this questionnaire about your study habits, your major, your favorite types of music and TV, your sleep schedule, and a few other key questions. And then, you send it back in to your college, and (presumably) they look at it and find your complete opposite, and pair you up with them. I'm not entirely sure why they did this shit. Maybe it was a group of psychology students who just wanted to set this up for an interesting reaction. Maybe it was a hippy that thought both Britt and I would grow from the experience. More likely, though, was that the people who were reading these questionnaires and pairing up room mates, were actively trying to ruin some lives. And the reason I say that, is because pretty much everyone in my building was paired up with someone they hated.

Let me start off by stating: Brittany was black. Normally, I wouldn't even have to make mention of this,  because it shouldn't matter. But once you get down through the paragraphs, you'll actually see why I said that.

On the day I moved into college, I was actually there eairly, and my parents had helped me set up my side of the room fairly quick. We waited around to see if my roomie was going to get there, so we could introduce ourselves and be polite and all that jazz. I knew Brittany was black. Okay, I had a good idea that she was black from the awkward conversation that I'd had with her two months prior. Despite the lackluster conversation, I was still excited to meet her. Maybe we'd end up being really good friends. A few hours passed while I fussed with my new laptop, messed around with the TV, and went with my parents to the store to pick up my books. No Brittany. Maybe she wouldn't show up and I'd have the room to myself. I wouldn't have complained. Finally, my parents had to leave, and I decided that I'd go and hang with some of the kids I'd met online and gotten along well with. That night, I returned to my dorm to find a very tall black girl (about 5'9) and her extremely tall boyfriend (about 6'4) and her mother carting things into the room.

"Oh hi! You must be Brittany!" I said, extending my hand for a handshake. Brittany sneered at me, and grunted in an animalistic way.

"Hey." She said, pushing passed me to get between me and her boyfriend who was standing off in my corner of the room, looking at the collection of cleaning supplies I'd had sitting on the dresser. Brittany's mom, however, grabbed me and hugged me very tightly.

"Oh, you must be Rook. Good lord, aren't you just the cutest little thing? Brittany, isn't she cute?" Brittany made a noise that sounded like disagreement. Meanwhile, her mother was obviously trying to crush me in the worlds tightest hug. I politely pulled back and then offered to help them set things up. Brittany grabbed anything her mother handed to me, and set it on her bed.

"We're good, Rook. We don't need your help." She paced around her half of the room and set things up. Finally she sent her mother and boyfriend off, and I tried to inntiate conversation.

"So... What kind of music are you into?" I asked, lounging on my bed with a magazine.

"Rap. And R&B. And that's it. You?"

"Oh, mostly alternative rock and indie rock. You know, like the Pixies and the Shins and--"

"Oh, I don't listen to that stuff, it isn't good. You have headphones, right?" I rolled my eyes when she had her back turned to me. Still, I tried to be a nice person (I hadn't quite become the jaded old woman you all know and love), and chalk it up that she had to come seven hours from her home in Philly to move into college, and that she was probably nervous and maybe she was just one of those people that needed some time to adjust to new people. In a few days, we'd probably be just fine with each other.

FYI: We were never "just fine" with each other.

One day I came into the dorm room to find her openly drinking alcohol with some of her friends. It was about 4:30 in the afternoon. WHO DRINKS ALCOHOL AT 4:30PM? Unless you're a grad student or an airline pilot, isn't that just considered sad, pathetic, and against the rules? Another time, I had went to bed kind of early because I had my first test in the morning to take, bright and early at 8:30, half way across campus. What did Britt do? Watch a marathon of Full House at near full-volume on her TV until 1:00am, which is when she turned off the TV and started doing the nex-tel walkie-talkie thing with her boyfriend until 5:00am. DO YOU KNOW HOW ANNOYING THOSE PHONES ARE? Its all *BEEP BEEP* *KRRSHT OBNOXIOUS STATIC* and you can barely understand the person at the other end. WHAT, BRITT? ARE YOU A CONTRACTOR? OR DON'T YOU KNOW THAT THERE IS AN INVENTION (included IN this piece of technology, none the less) that allows you to talk to another person INSTANTLY? IT IS CALLED A PHONE AND BELIEVE IT OR NOT THEY ARE TOTALLY ALL THE RAGE. Another time, after she'd gone home for a long weekend, she came back, made all of my friends leave my room, and then randomly accused me of using all her tampons and eating all of her oatmeal cream pies. I really wish I was joking about that because it sounds so insane, and to remember it kind of makes my insides hurt. WHO THE HELL STEALS TAMPONS AND COOKIES? I wasn't even ON my period. Once she locked me out of the room at 2:30am because she'd removed the key from my lanyard and thrown it in the garbage without me knowing. Upon being confronted with that information, she actually suggested that it was I who removed the key and threw it away. UHM I'M SORRY? WHAT WAS THAT? I couldn't hear your INSANE SUGGESTION over your INSANITY. She also threw away some of the art projects (note: I was an art student),  as well as a bottle of perfume I had. It then struck me: She was completely insane. (Note: This still has nothing to do with the fact that she's black.)

Upon talking to my RA (who was the skinniest, dorkiest looking piss-ant I'd ever met), he told me that I was being irrational, and that there was no way that Brittany was as bad as I said. Then he suggested that I didn't like her because she was black. (And there it was.) Never mind the fact that two of the people I hung out with the most were black. Never mind the fact that Brittany was known for being aggressive to a lot of the girls in our dorm. Never mind that she THREW AWAY MY KEY AND MY ART PROJECTS WHICH WERE REQUIRED FOR ME TO GRADUATE. No, clearly it was I, a terrible racist.

The very next day, I was working on an English assignment on my laptop, when Britt walked over to me. "Hey, Rook?" she said, in an unusually soft, almost apologetic tone.

"Yeah, Britt? What can I help you with?"

"Listen..." Her tone hardened instantly. "I'm not going to lie. I don't like you. But its not your fault, I mean, I guess you didn't choose to be white."

I threw my hands in the air and let out a half-growl, half sigh of contempt. There it was. WHO THE HELL DID SHE THINK SHE WAS. PFFT DIDN'T CHOOSE TO BE WHITE. DOUBLE PFFFT. And no one was going to believe me because of the color of my skin. At that moment, I seriously had my doubts about college being the mixing pot that every teacher had told me of. I grabbed my laptop, a few days worth of clean clothes, and made my way down to another dorm room in a near by building. And thats when my college hobo career began. I spent most of my time living in two separate dorms. Thank god for these girls I knew, because all three of them were awesome. Eventually, my "wife"'s roomie had moved out, and didn't bother telling housing, so I had a bed and an internet connection. Other than having to ninja my way into the building for a few months, it was great. We both played video games, we both watched food network, and we enjoyed similar styles of music. Why on earth couldn't I have been paired up with the wife to begin with?

Eventually, I went back and got all of my stuff. I was cleaning out my clothing drawers, and noticed something peculiar. My underwear supply seemed rather low. I turned around and looked at Britt's bed, which had some folded laundry on it. And on it, were five pairs of my underwear, folded neatly and sat out on her comforter. I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. Who the hell steals someones underwear? I MEAN SERIOUSLY. And it wasn't like I could take them back. WHAT IF SHE WORE THEM? (I wish there was some other way to stress my disgust, because bold, italic, underlined CAPS aren't even remotely strong enough.) Honestly I could never wear underwear that was worn by another person. I have a hard time borrowing a swimsuit, which most people only wear for a few hours a few days out of every year. What about underwear that get worn frequently? EEeeugh!

So, remember kids: College isn't just classes and binge drinking on Friday night until you pass out and shit yourself. Sometimes its also about having a room mate who is insane and steals your underwear when you stop coming back to the room for an extended period of time.


*I don't actually have a jar of ideas filled with jumping off points. In fact, as I wrote that, I was really just leaving the "came out with" part unfinished, and going back to bed for two hours. True story, I do this shit more than you think. FYI: Thanks, Zreb, for inspiring me to write this blog entry, and I hope Thomas catches on fire.