I stand in the middle of the shell of my bedroom. A quiet and empty monument to days gone by. Quiet and empty because I’m away at college, and now seldom come back–not even for the summer. The room is even emptier and less my room because the bed is gone–taken during my parents’ separation–leaving behind an empty and discolored patch of carpet. That’s probably the color the rest of the faded, off-white carpet is supposed to be. Memories and treasures are all that remain–the stuff too important to throw out, but not important enough to bring with me.
Category Archives: Domicile
Credit Card Laundry
It’s laundry time this week on Kevin’s Summer Away From Home. You watched him cook for himself and not burn the place down, now see if he can get his clothes clean. So I went down to the laundry room today to see how much it would cost me. I looked at all the machines, and I couldn’t find the quarter slots. Then I realized–there were no quarter slots! Free laundry? At a college? No way. But just when I thought I had discovered the best part about Judson, I turned around and saw a credit card machine on the wall. You need a stinkin’ credit card to do your laundry at Judson. Well, I guess the plus side is I don’t have to save up the quarters. Now I just need the plastic.
Summer Internship in Chicago
Welcome to life in the Real world. Today my internship at Real Media began, and things went pretty well. I learned that publishing isn’t always writing, editing, and layout. Sometimes you have to do some tedious stuff. Today I learned phone etiquette and how to use the fax machine. But it went well. I had fun.
Life on my own continues to be fun. I spent most of my evening trying to figure out how to make local phone calls and get on the internet. It turns out Judson makes you pay for local calls. How nice. So getting on the internet has been a little difficult lately. I must apologize for the lack of updates to these ponderings. But at least I’m still writing them. They’ll get uploaded eventually, you’ll just have to be patient.
Tonight I cooked for myself. I never thought you could mess up grilled cheese, but I found a way. Now stop laughing, I didn’t ruin it. It came out just fine, and when the RD came to introduce herself, she commented that it smelled good in here. So there. Anyway, this place has one of those gas stoves. So I turned it on, and the knob has three settings: OFF, HI, and LITE. So I fired it up, and turned it down a little and set the pan on the burner, you know, let it warm up a little. Not even a minute later I slapped my cheese and bread on there (yes, butter side down), and that puppy started frying! Wow! In two seconds flat half my grilled cheese was nearly burnt cheese. With the flip of a spatula I had it saved, and one side was done. But the other side took a little longer, so the cheese actually had time to melt and it all came out okay. It was pretty good eatin’ if I do say so myself. Certainly not mother’s cooking, but food you can live on. See, the boy can feed himself. And you had doubts.
Welcome to Summer On My Own
Welcome to life on your own. For the first time in my life, I think I can really say that I’m on my own. This weekend I moved into my home-for-the-summer at Judson College. As I’ve said before, I have an internship with Real Media Group in Elgin, Illinois. I’m living in the dorms at Judson College just a few minutes down the road. As of today I don’t have a roommate, although that will probably change.
Driving 55, Living in Chicago and the Moon
I have devised away that the state of Illinois can save millions of dollars every year. All they have to do is stop posting speed limit signs. I learned today that the residents of Illinois don’t follow them anyway, so why put them up? Think of the money they could save! Why, the could get rid of that wretched toll system!
While driving through today I noticed that the speed limit was 55. Let’s just say I was driving slightly above the posted limit, although only in an attempt to keep up with traffic. And I do mean keep up. Half the cars went flying past me like I was sitting still. They had to be doing at least 75. Now why won’t drivers do that in Michigan, where the speed limit is 70?
I moved into my home for the summer at Judson College, near Chicago, Illinois today. And then promptly left for the weekend. I’m in Green Bay, Wisconsin right now. I get around, don’t I? Now I just need to find a paying job.
Did you see the moon tonight? Wow, it just lit everything up. I hope you took advantage of the silvery light of the moon to play on the swings or ride the seesaw.
Too Much Stuff
Oh the joys of packing. I realized today that I have too much crap. I spent an hour or so deleting old e-mail messages this afternoon. I think I need to learn how to throw stuff away as soon as I don’t need it. I’m also wishing I was more organized. I keep finding all these slips of paper with quotes or book titles written on them. I end up labeling a folder “quotes” and sticking ’em all in there. What a filing system. I probably have six folders that are essentially “various.” Well, you never know when I might need something. Yeah, right. How useful are my CIFA theater reviews? There’s something about being in college and having to pack and move all your stuff twice a year that makes you want to keep a lot less. Especially this summer since I’ll be living in Chicago. I’m trying to figure out what I need. What I really need. I might need a lot of things. But most likely not. I’m trying to pitch a lot of that most likely not stuff. Some kind of a Thoreau-esque attempt to live simply.
Packing, Hockey and House Numbers
I’m done. I can wipe my hands of school work, I can shake the dust off my feet. My last final was tonight, and the school year is pretty much done. Of course I’m still here. I’m not going home until Saturday. I’ll just take my sweet time packing. Speaking of packing, you’ll be impressed to hear that I cleaned. Well, sort of. There is no longer a mound that my desk is located beneath. There is now one small pile located on the floor, a few things on my desk, and one overflowing grocery bag waiting to be ushered to the dumpster. My roommate must be breathing a sigh of relief.
Speaking of things that are done, the Red Wings lost to the Colorado Avalanche tonight, 5-2. Thus, the Wings are eliminated from the playoffs, and Colorado advances to the Conference Finals. I’m kind of bummed. But to tell you the truth, I’m not so bummed that they didn’t win a third straight Stanley Cup. I’m bummed because I won’t get to watch anymore Red Wing hockey. Nothing beats playoff hockey, and I love watching the Wings. But now it’s over, and I only got to watch two or three games.
Did you know that there are places in this country where the house numbers are single digits? You could live on 7 Recreation Drive. A friend of mine lives on 3 Ellen Lane. No boring three or four digit house numbers for them. America. What a beautiful country.
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I look up into the dark night sky and ask what sweet perfume this is on my lips.