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January 13-January 19, 2008

January 13, 2008

I've been wandering the halls all morning as residents move onto my floor. I'm going to get a hold of Bryant, and have him walk around both of our floors for a bit while I grab lunch.

I'm a bit surprised to see the door to room 214 propped open. Last I heard, this room was still vacant—it's last occupant having graduated early, and no one lined up for the single.

I head over and pop my head inside. Emma's here, laying a stack of clothes, wrapped in plastic, on her bed. “Emma?” I ask.

She turns. “ Preston —what are you doing here?”

“I'm the new RA on this floor,” I say, leaning in the door frame. “What about you?”

“The girl I was living with decided last minutes she was going to study abroad this semester. I couldn't pay the rent for the place on my own, so I decided to come back on campus.”

“Last I heard there wasn't anyone in this room.”

“Just finalized it yesterday,” she says, knocking a lock of red hair from her eyes. She plucks a key from the bed, dangling it in front of me. “Just got my key this morning.”

I smile. “Well, that's cool. I'm glad you're here.”

“Well, if you're really glad, maybe you could give me a hand moving those boxes in here.”

“Yeah, absolutely,” I say, looking at my feet. I stoop, lifting the first box. It's got to be in the neighborhood of 30 to 40 pounds. I work my way inside, setting it in the middle of her floor. “How did you get these boxes in here?”

“All right,” a voice comes from behind me. I turn as Bud makes his way in, sunglasses on, floor lamp in one hand, rug rolled up beneath his other arm. “This is the last of the stuff from my car.” He turns to me, raising his eyebrows above the brim of the glasses. “Presto, what's going on?”

“Hey, Bud,” I say, making way out to pick up the next box. “How's it going? "

January 14, 2008

“Do you think I'm going to, you know, make the grade in this class?” Chang asks, holding the door for me.

I head inside, walking toward class, as Chang follows after. “You'll be fine,” I say. “You shouldn't be so self-conscious.”

“Easy for you to say,” Chang says, letting someone by in the narrow hallway, before he takes his place beside me. “You've got an English major, and you were the friggin' editor for the school paper. I'm just not a writer.”

“But you want to be. You said that's why you wanted to take this class,” I say as we get to our room. “And besides, this is creative non-fiction. You just write about yourself.”

“Yeah.” He nods.

We head inside. Looking at my watch, I'm surprised to see there's only a couple minutes left before class starts. Most of the desks rest empty, and there are only about 10 people here, most of them looking down at books or newspapers, one text messaging on her phone. They've already pulled their desks out of rows, into a circle.

Chang and I grab a couple more desks. They're the little ones, attached to the chair, like you'll see in junior high. I position mine next to the texting girl, Chang next to mine.

A tall guy with red hair comes in the room, picking up a desk of his own on the way, and plopping it down next Chang's with a clatter. “Hey class, I'm Steve,” he says. It takes a minute to register that the professor name is Steve Benjamin, and that this guy does look a little older than a college student should, despite the zip up hoodie, jeans and Chucks he's sporting. He bumps Chang's desk with his thigh. “Who are you?”

January 15, 2008

“So the lady's totally singing flat, and I can tell that Claire is getting pissed,” Emma says, hanging up a dark brown blouse on a hanger.

“Did she do the thing where her nose twitched?” I asked, crossing my legs, as I sit in her papasan chair.

“How do you—” Emma trails off, pulling a sweater out of her laundry basket. She shakes her head. “It's so weird that you remember stuff like that.”

“What—I have a good memory.”

“It would make sense if you remembered stuff like that about me—you know, since we actually dated,” she says, laying the sweater down on her bed, and folding the sleeves in. “It's weird that you remember these things about my friends.”

“Maybe it's weird that you told me about it in the first place.”

Emma flings a t-shirt at me, and for a second everything's white. “Why don't you make yourself useful and fold something.”

“Why not?” I say, straightening the shirt.

“So I've told you about my classes. How about yours?”

“Had a good one yesterday,” I say, standing up to set the shirt down on her bed, alongside the other one's she's folded up and left lying there. I reach into her basket, picking up another. “It's this creative non-fiction class. The teacher seems really cool, and we're just diving right in—already have our first assignment.”

“And what would that be?”

I lay the next shirt down. “It's writing a piece about a time in your life when you made a significant choice.”

“Sounds kind of lame,” Emma says. I begin lift one of her bras from the basket, dangling the strap over my index finger. She snatches it away. “So what are you writing about?”

“I don't know yet,” I say, picking up another shirt. “I want it to be something good—something I can really sink my teeth into.” I open up the shirt, looking at the front of it, to see Kurt Cobain staring back at me. “I thought you didn't like Nirvana.”

Emma snatches the shirt away from me too. “I don't,” she says, beginning to fold it herself, creasing the sleeves inward. “It's Bud's shirt. I just sleep in it sometimes.”

I nod. “Gotcha.” The next shirt I have is a plain one—no design, no faces. I lay it down, and set to work on folding.

January 16, 2008

Teri moves her camera, taking a series of snapshots as she follows a squirrel across the quad in her lens. I scratch my head, waiting for her again, as we make what should have been a short walk from the Student Center to the library.

“What's this project about again?” I ask, once she seems done, putting the lens cap on again.

She sighs. “I told you, I'm calling it Domesticated Wildlife. It's going to be photos of animals out of the wild, in more human settings.”

“All right, then what qualifies snow as a human setting.”

“It's snow on a college campus isn't it?”

“Can you even tell when you're zoomed in on the squirrel?”

“I wasn't zoomed in that far.”

“Then how can you even tell it was a squirrel?”

Teri looks away, as we walk on. For a second, I worry she's looking at a bird landing on a windowsill or something, and she's going to want to stop again. In reality, though, it becomes clear she just doesn't want to look at me. That's fine. It means we can keep moving.

“So how's your project going—that story you were going to write?”

“The creative non-fiction piece?”

Teri looks back at me, rolling her eyes. “Yes, your piece.”

I look down, watching my feet drag through the snow. “I don't know. I'm still having trouble figuring out what to write about.”

“You haven't even decided what you're going to write about yet?”

“It can take some time, all right?” I say. “I mean it's not like you just decided you were going to take pictures of all wildlife at Taylor is it? You had to think about it—get inspired.”

“I thought about it after I got the assignment to take pictures involving animals,” Teri says. “It wasn't rocket science.”

It's my turn to look away. We're getting closer to the library now, and the foot traffic around us grows heavier with people on their way in and out.

“Well look at that,” I say pointing toward the ground.

“What?” Teri asks, scanning the ground.

“It's a little turd,” I say, still pointing at the crap, probably a dog's. “Looks like there's been some wildlife around here.

Teri moves past me, her elbow sort of jabbing at me as she reaches for the library door. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but take the door from her, following her inside.

January 17, 2008

I hadn't noticed it before, but on Kermit's bulletin board, he's got this long, thin black poster, with white lettering, that says “It's not that easy being green.” The “green” is in green ink, and there's a recycling symbol printed beneath it, so I think it's supposed to be an environmental statement.

I wonder if Kermit has it for the environmental implications, or just as a joke related to his name, and the more famous frog who shares it. I suppose it's probably a little of both.

“I heard something funny the other day,” Kermit says, feet up on his desk, hands behind his head.

“I'm always up for a good joke,” I say, crossing my legs. I sit opposite Kermit, on couch he keeps in his office. I'm sort of interested to see what sort of joke he's going to find funny.

“It wasn't so much a joke,” Kermit says, reaching one hand out, plucking a handful of Skittles from the bowl on his desk. “It was about your old room.”

“My old room?”

“The room you lived in last semester.” Kermit sits up a little straighter in his chair, depositing the Skittles in his mouth. “The Housing Office tried to move a new guy into the space. But lo and behold, they learned that a girl was living there.”

I look away, out the window. “Really?”

“It was a really confusing situation. I mean, you moved out, but there hasn't been any movement all year for the other occupant of the room. And they IDed the girl living there—and it was, indeed, Cameron Dode.” Kermit plugs some more Skittles in his mouth, and chews them audibly. “So tell me, Preston , what sort of conclusion am I supposed to draw?”

I swallow. “Well, I guess I was living with a girl.”

January 18, 2008

“You know who you never hear from any more?” Claire asks, leaning over the foot of Emma's bed. She has a hand stretched out, into Emma's closet, where she slowly spins a circular rack of Emma's CDs. “The Gin Blossoms.”

“The music of our childhood,” Emma says with a nod. “Let's see if Preston even knows them.”

“The Gin Blossoms?” I ask.

Emma raises her eyebrows. She sits at her desk, hands still on the keyboard of her laptop, an IM window flashing, unanswered. She's looking over her shoulder at me, to where I sit on her papasan chair.

“‘Hey Jealousy?'” I offer, raising my eyebrows back. “‘Follow You Down.'”

“Maybe Preston deserves a little more credit than you give him,” Claire says, continuing to peruse Emma's collection.

“She may be right,” I say, scratching my chest.

“Please,” Emma says, “the fact that he knew two songs is already going to his head.” She turns, facing Claire fully. “So tell me, would your mystery boyfriend know the Gin Blossoms?”

I swallow, looking away. I've decided this isn't any my business—that I probably shouldn't have seen Claire kissing Jones last month, and regardless, it's not my place to speak a word about it.

“I don't know,” Claire scrunches her nose. “I don't think Gin Blossoms are really his style. I see him as more of a classic rock guy, if anything.”

Emma nods. “I suppose that fits with the whole older man thing—that he's into the music of his generation.”

“I didn't say he was old old—just older,” Claire says, still looking at the CDs. “More experienced. More worldly.”

January 19, 2008

Cameron leads the way through the Student Center café, cradling her hot tea and honey packets in her hands. I follow after, blowing over the brim of my coffee, my tongue already singed.

“So T-Rex is so lame,” Cameron says, as she gets to a stand alone table. She sets her tea down, then her bag on the ground before she climbs up on one of the high chairs. “She goes to bed at 10 every night, then she's up again at 5, and she fucking whistles in the shower. And she gets all dressed up every day—suits, and skirts and stuff.”

‘T-Rex' is Cameron's new roommate. A tall girl with short, thin arms, which Cameron says she dangles in front of her when she walks, so she looks like a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

“What's her real name again?”

“Theresa. Anyway, at the end of the day she's always around, doing homework, so I feel bad if I want to turn on the TV or anything. So then I end up going to Dave's so I'm not in her way.”

“Well, I'm sorry it's so hard to fill the void I left behind in your room.”

“You know this is all your fault,” Cameron says, glaring at me. “You got me used to living with a boy. Boys are low maintenance—it's so much easier.”

I shrug, sipping from my coffee. “Do you know what Theresa is studying?”

“Don't know, don't care.”

“I wonder if she's student teaching or something.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The hours she's keeping, the style of dress—it would kind of make a sense.”

“Maybe,” Cameron says, looking down at her drink.

“So speaking of you and new roommates,” I start, “did they try to move some guy in with you at first?”

“Yeah. Pussy went straight to housing and ratted me out.”

“Sounds about right,” I nod, “my new boss talked to me about it. Gave me this whole lecture about how living with a girl last semester was wrong, and I should have worked with Residence Life to sort it out, and blah, blah, blah.”

Peering toward the counter where we bought our drinks, I see Nick there, ordering something. When I see him, I think of him hanging out with Teri in the SA office. Or him kissing Claire that night at the Hammerhead. Just seeing him makes my mood that much worse.

“You know,” Cameron says, “you could have saved us both a lot of trouble if you just hadn't moved out at all.”