Roomie Ruminations

I have had plenty of roommates over the years. In college, I first roomed with a perky cheerleader type who I got along great with. Then I roomed with a rocker girl: she played bass in a band, took karate, watched The Highlander, and was gone every single weekend. We got along fine, though she would chat on the internet, click-clacking her keyboard, all night long. Fine. I bought earplugs. Then came the challenge. I lived with five other girls in a house with one bathroom. With our combined efforts, we managed to make the place homey enough: we had a full set of dishes, a nice couch, flower pictures on the walls. There were tensions, as you can imagine. We posted a shower schedule on the door and if you wanted a morning slot you only got fifteen minutes. People got angry about dirty dishes and loud shoes. But we remained friends and for the most part were pretty happy.
For six months I lived with a Taiwanese girl. She cooked for me. I proofread her papers. There was a puke-colored stain on my carpet, but my room was the size of a football stadium.
Then I moved to NYC, and the rotations really began. There was a house full of Jersey girls in Hoboken. When the floor got dirty they wanted to hire a maid. Profuse eye rolling commenced on my part. Then I subletted from a 40 year old man named Zorik. He was going to work at 6 Flags for the summer, and left me with his cat, a full jousting outfit, and a lifetime of books, movies, buttons and filth. My roommates were Fred, a creepy bald man that I avoided at all costs; Paco, a gay set designer who was never home; and Boogie, the Belgian stripper/dominatrix/witch. She too was forty years old, had long blond dreads and once brought me out to Brighton Beach where she proceeded to sunbathe topless. Her nipples were pierced with hunks of metal the size of keychains, creating a parade of teenaged boys past our towels. At least they kept the seagulls away.
After that summer, I moved to Manhattan in a six room apartment with seven, or sometimes more, people. Kim, who was from Texas and could open beer bottles with her front teeth; Joe, who gave me a black sesame seed doughnut the first time I met him and later became my boyfriend; Ali, the crack whore who had run off to Sweden when I moved in; thus Sunny and Christian, a punk couple also from TX moved into her room until she came back; Spike, the computer/video games genius; and of course, Oriana, my bohemian friend; Zad, her toothless Iranian boyfriend and their two dogs. It was the happiest place I ever lived. Sure Ali would get hopped up on crack and fall asleep in the bathtub. And Spike dated a string of slutty girls from craigslist who eventually gave him herpes. And don't forget how I could hear Zad and Oriana fight from halfway across the apartment.
It didn't matter. We had a ROOFTOP, strung with Christmas lights. You could see the Empire State building. The fridge was always filled with beer, so even if someone ate your cheese you couldn't complain. Friends from far and wide would come to sit on this rooftop. And every Wednesday night we'd pile into Joe's room to watch South Park and the Daily Show.
But good things don't last forever. When the lease was up in December, we split up. Oriana and I picked up Jen and moved to Brooklyn. Soon it was apparent that Zad was living with us too. Joe moved to the Upper West side. Spike moved in with his dad in Jersey. I don't even know where everyone else is. I live an hour away from my boyfriend, who I used to live with. Now I feel like I live in two different places. Still, our apartment in Brooklyn is very nice. We have a dining room, which we painted mint green. My room is tiny, but my rent is fairly low. We'll see what happens December 31st, when my lease is up, and my wanderings begin again.