Shaking Things Up

This week has been long. Loooooong. That “long” should be read during the span of an entire week, 9-5, for you to get a feeling of just how long this week has been. I like what I’m doing at The Art Institute, even if some of it does fall under the category of “seemingly minute yet oh-so-important” work, like cataloging artwork in the database. Which involves the occasional research, like today when I had to find information about an art dealer whose name wasn’t even established, and reading through French (why is French so important? Why doesn’t anyone care about ravioli? What is it with the brie?) books to figure out states and editions of prints.

The other side of it is helping out with recreating lost colors in Winslow Homer watercolors. I would tell you more, but I would have to kill you.

The other shaking occurred in housing. I had to move this week, which happened in the space of about 2 hours on Wednesday.

Moving also means that I will have to somehow have to say bye to Mary Kate and Julie as roommates. They have been the most constant people in my lives for the past 3 years. They’ve seen me at my very worst, at my better times, with my head in the toilet, out of the toilet, when I purr, when I’m too moody to purr, when I’m happy, sad, mad, sleeping, awake. I can confidently say they are the only two people in existence who know the true content of my iTunes music library. Within the first week of living together first year, our RA wondered if we knew each other before college. Nope. We just had personalities in which our humor would build on each other until sometimes it nearly spiraled out of control. We just clicked. Plus, we were all almost the same size. I’m a wee bit taller.

However…

HowEVER…

(there is always a “however”)

Not everything was perfect all the time. Yup, we were that 00.0001% of college students in the world who had problems as roommates. I still don’t know exactly why there was always tension at the end of the school years, but I think it has to do with limits. You seem, first year I entered college too eager to make sure that people liked me. Which means that as a roommate, I tried initially to be very accommodating and doing things I would not normally do, and then you try to go and turn things around after months of pretending to like something differently. It’s hard. It makes you feel like a fraud. So then instead of talking I would sulk which, as everyone knows, solves all ills. And get increasingly frustrated.

I’m not shouldering the fault all onto me. I already blame myself for enough. I am convinced that my existence is responsible for chemistry, but I recognize I am a difficult long-term roommate. I get along with strangers and friends well, because limits are clearly defined, but how do you combine friendship with people you want to do their own dishes and take turns taking out the trash? Where you want everything to be fairly divided in close quarters and you can’t help but keep score in really, really meaningless things?

This blog post, I suppose, is to say what I don’t know how to say to Mary Kate and Julie in person, because I’m very, very bad with saying how I feel with people I’m close with and who mean a lot to me. Public display of affection has always come easier to me than sitting down and saying “Look, so this is how I REALLY feel…” And even if they never read this, maybe someone will and tell them how Adrianne is crazy about her old roommates, Mary Kate and Julie. Because at the end of the day, despite artistic differences and all, there were no other people I would have preferred to go home to at the end of the day to let them see my deep and burning passion for Dancing with the Stars and to just sit in the Armenian chair at the eating table with my feet on the chair, spinning around, complaining about every living creature on earth while sarcastically holding a running commentary during Queer as Folk. Or with whom I would have talked about the complications in my life I did actually choose to share with people, or done the floppy man or Center Stage moves for.. Sorry about the snags that came with being my roommate. But when all’s said and done, I remember more the times when you guys would make me laugh so hard I’d cry instead of the times I’d get annoyed over the head hairs hanging on the wall of the shower. For better or worse these young ladies have changed me, I've done a lot of growing up with them, and I don’t know how to properly thank them.

So just in case you see them around, tell them that Adrianne might seem a little distant now, but has something really important to tell them that she just doesn't know how to say in person. You tell them that, I'll take care of the hugs. Thanks.