Comments on: Start Spreading The News.

By: Heather B.

Heather B. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:38:49 +0000

Remember that time you told me about the pasta and then said that we could go there if you’re ever in NY. We should do that. Because I’m salivating and the only thing I have to look forward to for today are peas. PEAS. I want some past dammit!

By: uberimma

uberimma — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:04:17 +0000

I love this series! Looking forward to the next installment.

You’ve inspired me, but I’m almost afraid to start my own. I had 19 mailing addresses in 12 years.

By: Kris

Kris — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 03:43:59 +0000

Late to the party, but…

I live in a tiny city in the middle of Buffalo & Rochester, NY. It’s a city-sorta-suburb; surrounded by farm country, we’re the only city in the whole county. Lots and lots of green, and 3 feet of snow at a time in the winter.

I do like it here. I like that it’s not too city, but I can get a healthy dose of city any time I want, living between two metropolii, and that there are so many colleges here. I was born here, and I’ve never know anywhere different. I do live in a house with my mother and my boyfriend, three cats and a puppy. Living here is relatively cheap, and coming home is always a good thing; it is, definitely, home.

No murderers in my basement, but I did find a dead mouse in the dishwasher.

By: Sara

Sara — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:05:14 +0000

Longtime fan and professional grammar nazi/a-hole de-lurking to say that I’m pretty sure you meant stationEry store. Unless you didn’t; I mean, odds are it WAS also stationary.

By: Ashley

Ashley — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:38:29 +0000

For the record,”North Face” is now a licensed EMT. Shudder. Also by the by, I moved to Boston over the summer. Its an amazing respite after 10 years of NYC and i think you would absolutely love it here.

By: megs

megs — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:29:56 +0000

In college, because I was too cool for school, I rented a really crummy apartment in one of the worst parts of town. It was in a duplex. My wall-sharing neighbor was a guy who never left the house. But people came all day long to visit him. These “visits” never lasted more than a few minutes though, and even though I was a naive 17 I figured out pretty quickly what kind of business he was in.

He used to do lines of coke and lift weights without a spotter, weights so heavy he would just drop them to the ground after one rep. That clanging sound became comforting–I, too, am deathly afraid of intruders (I sleep with my phone–sometimes even dialing 9 and just one 1, just in case I need to act quickly)–and knowing he was close by, however coked up, however drugdealery, helped me sleep at night. I nicknamed him Lou Ferrigno.

A few days after September 11, 2001 I walked by the entrance to his half of the duplex on the way to my own, and through the mesh of the heavy security door saw him standing, fists clenched, in front of his television, watching the footage.

He raised his arms to the ceiling and said, chantingly, with confidence: “I am the one. I am the one with the power to save the world.”

Oh, Lou. Why didn’t you?

By: Ellie

Ellie — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:56:06 +0000

I’m sorry, but the chattery about the fornicators followed by reference to a man in a hole … well. Maybe we should leave it a that ….

I recently recounted for my son (age twenty) the tale of our many moves/homes: 23 by the time he was 13.

By: rockmama

rockmama — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:33:05 +0000

I love reading all of these comments! I think maybe everyone has college roommate/fornicator/group living stories.

Although no one but me ever had sex in my room, I once knocked on the door of a friend’s room and was told to “come in!” despite the fact that she was locked in coitus with the hairiest man on campus. It took me a while to get that image out of my head, let me tell you.

I also shared living space with a man who really REALLY loved knives, a roommate who always answered the phone, “WHO DIS?” and another housemate who thought it would be funny to give us as references to the FBI when she applied for a Senate page job and NOT TELL US. (We were all contacted in various ways that freaked us all the hell out.)

By: AthenaP

AthenaP — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:45:07 +0000

By the time I was 20 I think I had lived in just as many different apartments/houses/basements, etc. One of my favorites was a little duplex in Forest Lake when I was six. My bedroom had a standard closet which, like the one in your story, had a small cubby on one side. My mother put my play kitchen and a small bookshelf in there, and it was my heaven.

I’m certain if I saw it now I would wonder how on earth I ever fit inside it so comfortably.

(Oh wait, probably not. I’m still less-than-average height.)

I guess what I’m trying to say, Alexa, is that I hear ya purrin’ kitten.

Oh, and the best part?!?! My mom took up a roommate at one point during our stay there and she had two EVIL Siamese cats (yes, just like the ones in Lady and the Tramp!) and due to their volatility they were confined to (gasp!) my closet.

I hated life for most of that summer. Luckily the woman and my mother had a falling out and she moved out. She took her awful white sofas with teal and pink confetti dots and her rotten cats with her.

And my world was whole once more.

By: Dot

Dot — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:34:19 +0000

As far as I know, students at British and Irish universities always get single rooms in university accommodation (though they may end up sharing when renting privately if they live somewhere really expensive, such as London or Dublin. But I was at Oxford and York and never shared a room). I wonder how much fun we miss this way? :-)