Why I am moving part 4: my roommates

This post is the fourth in a series about why I am moving. You can read part 1, part 2, and part 3.

When I moved into this house, part of the excitement was that I would be living with artists. I graduated from the Arts High School and I missed having artists around. The fact that I would have six roommates was actually counted as a plus in favor of moving into this house. Surely at least some of the six people will be interesting, fun artists to hang around with on a Friday night.

That excitement lasted for about a week.

When I first had Emily over to my place, the first thing she heard, shouted angrily from another room, was "You don't know shit about Burning Man!" Hilarious. Truly.

The first week or so I lived there, the girl in the room next to me had a dog. That dog had puppies. Four puppies.

Now, imagine if you took two yard sticks and made an L with them, and then made two imaginary lines that went from each end of the L to the area directly across from the corner of the L. You have a square yard! That is the space all four puppies were living in. By "living" I mean eating, crapping, and pissing. Fully half of the "living" space was covered by pee pads.

It began to reek a foul stench throughout the upstairs hallway. It was nasty. Eventually (and just before I was about to), someone posted a note on the puppy haver's door saying if the puppies weren't gone within 24 hours, Animal Control would be called.

The puppies were gone within 24 hours.

And then there were the passive aggressive notes, including one on the top of the mirror in the bathroom saying "If you're splattering toothpaste up here you're doing something wrong" and another in the kitchen, in February, saying "I've been noticing a lot of people coughing and sneezing in the house. My health insurance runs out next week. Please try to keep the coughing and sneezing to a minimum and be sure to wipe off all surfaces you use. Also, please don't piss or shit on the toilet seat." I assure you, there were plenty of others for this to be--not an annoyance so much, more of a hybrid of amusement and bemusement.

Why I Am Moving Part 3: Common Space Part 2

This post is the third in a series about why I am moving. You can read part 1 and part 2.

It has come to my attention that I have forgotten some pretty glaring aspects of the common space in this house. This is beyond the fact that none of the front doors are ever locked (or even closed), and that there isn't a kitchen table to eat at, and that the living room is not for TV.

First, there's the issue of the refrigerator: there's no room in it. At all. Six other people trying to store their perishables makes for about six cubic inches for me to store my food. This does not leave room for me to bring home leftovers from a restaurant (I've been keeping those at Emily's), nor does it allow me to buy actual fresh food at the grocery store and keep it.

Next, there's the issue of the laundry. Now, I'm loathe to complain, because there is free laundry in the house. However, the laundry is in the basement, where two of my roommates live. Together. This means I must announce myself when I want to do my laundry, and then I must walk through their living space, which has never once been uncluttered or remotely safe-feeling. For example: scissors on the floor, glass on the floor, other sharp, blunt, otherwise potentially painful (to start with) objects for my foot to be bashed, pierced, or scraped by. I ended up doing laundry at Emily's more than once in the past months.

Why I Am Moving Part 2: The Common Space

This post is the second in a series about why I am moving. Part 1 is here.

When I first moved into the house, I was told there were a few simple rules. One of them was no parties, which, while it disappointed me slightly (it would be a great party house), I definitely understood. But I was less clear when I was told, "Yeah, the dining room is really more of an artist space... so precedence is given to our various projects."

Yes, that is correct: "No, Art, you cannot eat dinner at a table like a human being. That is for welding glass together to make a double-vase or something else 'modern.'" And by "modern" they mean pretentious/useless/totally unfunctional and unattractive.

So, I can't use the dining room table. Fine. At least I can have my nice TV in the living room, right?

Nope.

Half of the six other people of the house wanted the TV, half of them didn't. So I decide, instead of causing a fuss, I'd just put my 30 inch flat screen in my room. Problem solved.

Besides, keeping the TV in my room with the door closed is probably a good idea, because the front door is never locked. And by never locked, I mean the screen door and porch door are generally unclosed, and the door to the house has only been deadbolted three times and is only closed about 80% of the time. This means that fully 20% of the time, you don't even have to lift your arm to enter the house where I live.

Why I Am Moving Part 1: Squatter's Rights

About four months ago, I moved into a house in Uptown. Or, more accurately, I moved into the master bedroom of a house in Uptown. (Oddly, not this did not make me master of the house. Somehow.) This seemed like a great opportunity for me: the rent was cheaper than most things I was able to find on Craigslist, the house seemed (and pretty much is) clean. Plus, if it didn't work out, I was only signing a lease for four months.

Actually, that's what I thought. I will be moving out this weekend, after four months of living in this house, without actually having been given a lease to sign.

That's right: for the past four months I have been squatting. There is a reason I am moving out of this house.

Sharks!

And now, I give you sharks.

Land Shark

How Cotton Balls Are Made

Last weekend I went to Milwaukee to meet my girlfriend's parents and to see a Brewer's game. This meant my cat was by herself in my apartment all weekend--just her and her automatic feeder.

Apparently I had not closed the box of Q-tips tightly enough, because when I returned, there, on my floor, was a small collection of Q-tip middles. Next to the small collection was Triskit, gnawing on the cotton end of a Q-tip. She had eaten the cotton off approximately a dozen Q-tips.

She then crapped out a full cubic inch of cotton.

And that, my friends, is how cotton balls are made.

On Living Your Life

There are a lot of articles online that suggest you delete any evidence of having a good time or living your life from all of your social network pages. “If an employer sees a picture of you drunk at a bar, they will fire you!” these articles seem to suggest. “If you mention a hedonistic allowance, if you blog that your favorite movie is Blazing Saddles, if you use a swear on Twitter, kiss your job goodbye.” I reject this sphere of thought.

The Internet blends our personal lives, our professional lives, and our idealistic lives. This is definitely a good thing, but it means that everyone is your audience. On the internet, unlike talking face to face, you can’t have a distinct work persona, bar persona, and family persona. But it doesn’t mean you should pretend to be a flawless, one dimensional person online.

Please, do not read this as a rant against professional responsibility. I understand there is a time to be interesting and a time to be professional. The best of us can exist in the happy grey area between the two most of the time. I try to.

Instead, read this as a suggestion that we all have personal lives, and to sanitize the Internet of our personalities for the sake of seeming flawless to potential clients or employers is ridiculous. If an employer does not want to hire me because I have interesting, honest content on my social network pages, I can conclude one of two things:

1) The hiring manager is holding me to a very harsh double standard

2) The hiring manager is a very boring person

In both cases, I say: who needs ‘em? I want to work with fun people who appreciate personality and a sense of humor.

So I humbly bare to you my presence across the Internet: my website, my Twitter, my Facebook… hell, even my rarely-used MySpace. I have nothing to hide. I embrace my love for Blazing Saddles and Scotch. I (reluctantly) share with you the (mostly unflattering) pictures of me on Facebook. I want you to know that I--like you--am a complex, interesting human being.

Pun #3

A young man played percussion in his college’s varsity marching band. Two weeks before the big football game, the young man was hit by a car and sent to the hospital. After a several days in the hospital the doctor approached the young man and said, “Son, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. We’re going to have to amputate your legs at the knees.” This devastated the young man; he could no longer march at the big football game.

The time came for the big football game and all the young man’s friends were there to see it, despite the fact that he was not marching. They were enjoying the game, when whom do they see but the very young man who had his legs amputated but two weeks before. Confused, they went up to the young man after the game and asked him how he was able to march after having his legs amputated. “Oh,” he said, “I was marching with the feet of a different drummer.”

Twitter Pun Storm: Swine Flu Edition

Yesterday on the popular social networking website Twitter.com, I saw a tweet by @doughamlin that went like this:

@doughamlin *Cough* *Cough* *Honk* *Honk* #swanflu

This inspired me to make all sorts of swine flu puns:

@punsultant @doughamlin *cough* *cough* *swirl* *smell* *sip* #wineflu

@punsultant @doniree @doughamlin or, you know, *cough* *cough* *pickles!* #brineflue

@punsultant *oink* *oink* *smoke* *smoke* #swineflue

@punsultant George Bush was a great president! #swineflew

@punsultant *cough* *cough* *forest* #pineflu

@punsultant @doniree my back is coughing! #spineflu

@punsultant I stepped on this device and all of the sudden I started coughing #mineflu

@punsultant I think my fork is sick. #tineflu

@punsultant as I've been waiting here at the bank I've developed a cough and a fever. #lineflue

@punsultant OR my cough and fever only exist between two points #lineflu

@punsultant I am sick as an objectivist. #aynflu

@punsultant @MHMorgan if I do work I might get #tryin'flu.

@punsultant your lady doctor is sick #gyn'flu

@punsultant I am sick, but only when I'm lying on my back #supineflu

Which, in turn, inspired many others to make swine flu puns of their own:

@maxsparber Argh, I be struggling to catch me breath in the salty deep! #brineflu

@maxsparber @punsultant Funny, I had the same experience waiting to get pork in England #swinequeue

@eigenman @punsultant @zwjohnson I feel awful with this illness... I think I'm going to go lie on my back #supineflu

@eigenman @punsultant fuck I must have missed it while I was sacking Halicarnassus #rapineflu

@eigenman @julielyda @punsultant @zwjohnson but I do so enjoy upsetting you Julie! #malignflu command it in #()flu form and I'll stop :D

@eigenman @punsultant @zwjohnson MUCH better #anodineflu

@briannepitt @doniree @punsultant *sniffle* I can't even afford medication... #declinedflu

@doniree @punsultant @briannepitt *cough* *cough* *moooooooo* #bovineflu

@briannepitt @doniree @punsultant "Bueller... Bueller..." #Steinflu3

@doniree @punsultant @briannepitt *cough* *cough* *meow* *purr* #felineflu

@briannepitt @punsultant *cough* *grumble* *gripe* *sneeze* *exaggerated sigh* #whineflu

@doniree @punsultant I'm a poet and didn't know it #rhymeflu

@zwjohnson @punsultant it's not your fork, it's your food! #dineflu

@chessie @punsultant i got sick because i returned my library books late #fineflu ?

@zwjohnson @eigenman @punsultant I actually feel pretty good #fineflu

@doniree @punsultant *cough* *cough* *river* *europe* #rhineflu

@eigenman @punsultant oh JESUS my hypothalamus just threw up #endocrineflu

I'm sure some swine flu puns have slipped through the cracks. Although, I'm sure you're already pretty full up on your swine flu pun quota for today.

Firfox Spellcheck Fail

Not only did Firefox erroneously tell me a common pronoun was misspelled, it provided me with no help in how to spell it correctly: