Sound Advice

For those of you with roommates - regardless if you get along with him/her or not - hosting a house guest for a week and a half is TOO LONG!!! Especially if that house guest is your boy/girlfriend. Especially if that house guest is a complete slug on vacation who barely leaves the house.

Your roommate will feel like he/she is intruding no matter how often you say, "No! It's fine!" Your roommate will only feel comfortable in his/her room and will resent you for it. Not to say that you are responsible for the feelings of your roommate, but I'm just letting you know.

Worst off, your roommate will feel like he/she is living in the kitchen of the McDonald's of your relationship. He/She will see and hear things that make him/her sick, and can't do anything about it. He/She will notice how your girl/boyfriend is a complete baby who can barely do anything without you. Your roommate will get first hand experience with how grumpy your girl/boyfriend is in the morning. Your roommate isn't sleeping with your houseguest...he/she shouldn't have to deal with a pissy person that's not you.

So, next time you present the idea to your roommate that you want someone to stay with you for a long time, be aware that he/she will say, "Of course, it's fine!" But your roommate will really mean, "Oh God, no!"

If you cannot do anything about the extended visit, make it clear to your guest that he/she must try to get the hell out of the house every once in a while. That your roommate doesn't want to see your guest's face EVERY time your roommate comes home, no matter what time of the day or night.

Feel free to ignore this advice...but at your own peril.

Thank you.

I Gotta Tell Someone

Okay...

So for the next week, my roommate's boyfriend is here visiting. He's not just any boyfriend. They have been together five years; he used to live in this apartment with my roommate when he was getting his Ph.D.; they have had a long distance relationship for the past two years while he's working on the West Coast. They see each other maybe once every two months. So I do not begrudge my roommate having some quality time with him.

This apartment is indeed spacious, but it is clearly a two-bedroom. When someone is sitting at the kitchen table, they are taking up a lot of space, not to mention the counter top since we have none. There is only one bathroom with two hooks for towels. There is one TV. You see what I mean.

Anyway, I can get anal about some things...I admit that. One of those things is putting objects back in their place. Especially when space is limited, I am a stickler for returning food back to the pantry, throwing away trash left on the table, putting dirty dishes in the sink and not leaving them on the coffee table. Granted, the dishes don't have to be washed for days, just as long as they are getting crusty and moldy in the sink. And I admit, I don't have much patience with regard to this. That is, I want things in their rightful place right away. 

The boyfriend is clearly not a stickler for these things. So last night, while they were out at dinner, I put things away: dishes, paper towels, food. This morning, I woke up, walked Ella and went back up to my room to do work. They woke up and he started bitching that he couldn't find his coffee that he left on our limited counter space and I returned to the pantry. They thought I was gone, so they were talking at a normal voice and I could hear ever word they were saying. And I very distinctly heard him call me a "psycho bitch." My roommate - always the compassionate one - said, "No, no. She's not a psycho bitch." That made me laugh.

I just went downstairs to get some cereal. My roommate was still home and expressed surprise that I was still in the house. I told her that I had been here the whole morning and had been wide awake the entire time. The song beneath my words said that I heard everything they said.

So now I don't have to be nice to him anymore. I won't be a "psycho bitch" or anything, but now I don't have to deal with him if I don't want to. I can enter my house and pretend he's not there. Which is what I wanted to do anyway, I just didn't want to be rude. Now I have an excuse. I am a psycho bitch after all. :)

New Habits are Hard to Start

As I mentioned previously, I'm working on making some changes in my life. I don't mean to be cryptic, but honestly, I'm not clear about what those changes are. I'm not clear on where I'm going, but I do know where I don't want to be anymore. The thing is it's hard to break those habits; I find myself falling back into my old ways of being. They weren't dangerous or self-destructive, but they are not making me as happy as I thought they would. 

I just want to be quieter and simpler. I want to be more private and secretive. I want think more before I speak and think more without speaking. Whenever I am able to be this way, it feels wonderful. I just need to do it more often.

Eh.

I know it's been quite a while since I've posted anything. Which is weird to me because the last time I went through a major depression, I wanted to tell the internet absolutely everything. This time, however, I'm working on making some changes in my life at the fundamental level, not just around the depression. I'm still sorting it out, but I think it has to do with keeping more things close to the vest. My new mantra is "I don't have to be 'on'." 

Another reason that I haven't posted is because I was incredibly busy this semester putting together an academic conference. This conference is one of two student-run conferences that my school sponsors. The focus is on issues of race and inequality in education. It happens every year and this year we had record turn-out with people coming from Jamaica, Canada, Kenya, Ethiopia and many other countries. I actually do wish I had documented that journey; it was the most important thing I've ever accomplished, second only to buying my apartment. This was bigger than actually getting into Harvard. The nadir of my depression fell right in the middle of the process, so that was a very interesting thing for me to maneuver as well.

Anyway, I would like to say that I will post more, but I don't know if I will. I'm not really into blogging right now, but I'm also not ready to shut this one down. I'm just going to wait and see.