I've got books to write, I've got things to do, I go out my door and bump into you

Pursuant to a comment to my last post made by devringalbrath, I am pleased to present part two in the tale. Further adventures of pooka_madness and thablueguy trying to move into the Blue Whale:

So thablueguy and I had succesfully rented our first apartment, which carried with it several perks, among them the ability to move in as soon as September 1st if we so desired. Northwestern's classes start relatively late (September 19th this past Fall), run in three ten-week terms during the regular school year, and then let out late (June 8th this coming Spring). Frustration over this schedule at the far end is what fuels the rampage known as Dillo Day, a celebration of all things slovenly and alcoholic held every Memorial Day. But at the front end it’s actually kind of nice. There are a couple of weeks in the Fall when everyone shows up and just kicks around free of consequences prior to the start of classes. Summer jobs are ended and you get a brief reprieve before diving into actual academic responsibilities. Living off campus meant being able to take full advantage of that without having to try and sneak into your dorm during freshman orientation.

And so a plan was conceived, a relatively simple one. By merit of having two older sisters who had been through this before and a mother whose passion for redecorating sometimes borders on the manic, I had accumulated all manner of useful junk with which to furnish our apartment. So, as it turns out, had thablueguy, and as we both lived on the East coast when we weren't at school (him outside Boston and me near Hartford), it seemed sensible to coordinate our efforts. My father decided to rent a moving truck from Ryder and go on a two-day road trip with me, hauling all our various and sundry furniture and junk and helping me install it in the new apartment. It seemed like an easy enough plan to me, at the time. I'm older now and realize that one-way rental fees can be exorbitant, and thus it was at the very least more expensive than I thought, but back then I had no such thought in my head and assumed everything would be smooth sailing.

This was the Fall of my junior year after all, which makes it 2002. Anything had to be easier than the prior year, when thablueguy and I faced the dubious task of trying to board a flight to Chicago in late September, less than two weeks after 9/11. Ask any Northwestern student of our era where he was on the morning of the attack and you will generally get a variation on the same reply: at home, languishing in the purgatory between the end of Summer and the start of school. In my case I was sound asleep, and it took repeated hassling to rouse me and get me out of bed in time to watch the south tower fall sometime around 10 AM. But I digress.

It seemed like a straightforward plan, and up to a point everything proceeded smoothly. I accumulated furniture in one half of my family's two car garage, including the most comfortable couch I have ever had the pleasure of sitting on, let alone owning for two years. thablueguy drove down one sunny day with his mother in a pick-up truck full of ancillary stuff, which joined with mine and almost completely filled the space usually occupied by my mother's car. The strategy was for my father and I to arrive a day or so in advance of thablueguy, so that when he showed up the apartment would be filled with stuff, and then he and I could commence arguing about how to configure the common area.

Of course nothing ever goes smoothly, particularly not where an apartment that had already taken the life of one innocent woman was concerned. Once thablueguy's stuff was firmly with me and the agenda was set, I promptly came down with a case of mononucleosis that knocked me to the pavement and told me to stay down if I knew what was good for me. And stay down I did, delaying by about a week my departure from Connecticut. But no problem, right? We had the apartment starting September 1st and could move in whenever we wanted. So I missed out on some of the fun prior to the start of classes. So long as I was there in time for them I was golden, wasn't I? It’s not like there was anything depending on my being there at a particular point in time.

Except, of course, thablueguy.

This part of the story is really his to tell, more than mine. I have only heard the fable of him and Jeff Sousa, who also went on a two-day road trip, arriving in Evanston with nothing more than a Volvo and two duffel bags full of clothes. The charming story of how the two of them slept the first night after their arrival on bare hardwood floors in an otherwise empty apartment, their bags substituting for pillows, their heavier clothes substituting for blankets, cuddled together for warmth, I cannot in good conscience do more than speculate about. I can only imagine that thablueguy was the big spoon, even if Jeff is rather a good deal taller. But I know for a fact that they made buying a futon a priority the following morning, and had an adventure carrying it back to the apartment, where it would be installed as the sole piece of decor the apartment could boast for several further days.

My father and I had adventures of our own, for of course even with me past the worst stages of mono the trip westward was not entirely without incident. Most notably we were stranded for half a day in, I believe, Pennsylvania, on a windy stretch of I-80 that runs through the mountains in the middle of godforsaken nowhere. We had a flat tire, you see, and no spare, so we had to sit around and wait for some punk kid in a tow truck to acquire one from a local dealer and then come change it for us. The afternoon turned to dusk, and the dusk to evening. The police stopped in to ensure we were alright and set up some road flares which had time to burn through. Eventually the kid showed up, so stoned out of his mind that the very idea of changing an outside tire on the shoulder of a highway where cars and trucks were whipping around the curve at full speed had him on the verge of freaking out.

Of course eventually we got there, got all my stuff moved in, and life went on. But these were just the first of what would turn out to be many, many incidents. I know everyone looks back on college and remembers it as a crazy time, but I think its fair to say that some fairly surreal stuff happened in that apartment over the course of the two years that followed. I look back on it warmly of course; I'd be lying if I didn't say that those were some of the best times in my life.

But if you want to anthropomorphize the thing, if you want to assign the apartment special powers, than its worth noting that before we had even finished moving in that apartment had already taken a life, as well as my health and my roommate's dignity. It would go on to take his car and a number of our earthly possessions, not to mention a portion of both our sanities. In time our Blue Whale apartment would host numerous parties, a trio of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, the first Tremere prom, a third roommate, the USA America and an onthejohn so drunk he frightened not only spreadnparanoia but also a full-grown oberndorf (an onthejohn so heavy he slept on the floor because we could not lift him onto a couch.) In my memory it’s almost like a living thing. If those walls could talk, they would call you a communist and make fun of your mother.