Mr. Bill goes to Washington, T-Minus 14 hours, 43 minutes

Ok, so my name's not Mr. Bill. I suppose it could be if I went by my middle name, but I don't, and if I did, it'd be William -- maybe Will. But I digress.

Yeah, I'm leaving tomorrow. I know I should be feeling something, but I'm just kinda numb. I'm sure it'll hit me sometime Sunday night when my mom flies back to Atlanta and I'll truly be on my own for the first time ever, but until then, I'm not much of a 'feelings' kinda guy, so I'm just gonna pretend everything is cool.

I've done a really half-assed job of packing. But I suppose that's ok. I'm not really taking much with me -- mostly just clothes, my books, TV, and things of sentimental value. Everything else I'm buying up there. I'm not really one to brag about cool stuff that I buy because 1. I'm not so shallow that I feel the need to display everything I own as some sort of status symbol, and 2. I'm not self-centered enough to think that anyone would give a rat's ass what I buy, but I will say that I kinda splurged on myself and got one of those NASA memory foam beds. Should be quite cool. I've been having problems with my back lately, and I'm hoping that'll help. Plus I hear they're comfortable as all get-out. Not to mention the fact that I got it on sale for like 65% off. That's what I'm mostly proud of. Getting a $1600 bed for $600. No ethnic jokes please.

Other than that, I'm pretty much winging it. I'm starting to find that it's a real pain in the ass to move somewhere by yourself where friends and family aren't readily available to help you. Doing everything yourself blows.

I made my final trek to Athens (at least for a good long while) earlier today. It was incredibly depressing. I was there for all of 15 minutes, paid my last two months rent (which incidentally is roughly half of a month's rent in DC...yeah...), and got some stuff out of the cabinets that I'd forgotten. Empty apartments always depress me...especially when they're mine. This was the first apartment in Athens that I'd actually liked. (On a side note, John, if you're reading this...when I got there Matt Day was apparently in the process of moving in. He wasn't there, but his stuff was everywhere. I moved some stuff around in the kitchen just to screw with him. I thought it'd be funny. I toyed with the idea of writing a threatening message on the bathroom mirror, but I was too lazy.)

I think it's time for some fun room mate stories...

My first year I lived on campus -- first semester in Myers Hall, second semester in Russell. Myers is/was like the oldest dorm on campus. It was the dorm everyone avoided. Due to the housing crunch, I was on the waiting list for whatever I could get on campus. Up until the week before band camp, I thought I was going to have to live off campus -- not exactly an appealing thought to a 17 year old without a car. At any rate, I ended up in Myers. There was no AC (which is great in August!), the entire building was concrete, save for the purely superficial layer of carpet in the halls and rooms -- which incidentally seemed to have been there since the Carter administration. My room mate was a pot-smoking hippie (so you know we got along), and two guys on my hall got expelled for getting drunk and spraying a fire extinguisher in some other guy's room (that ruined pretty much everything in his room and set off the fire alarm at 2 in the morning). So you can imagine all the fun I had that semester. Eventually they kicked us all out at the end of the semester so they could renovate. That figures. Now Myers is the most kickass dorm on campus (except for maybe ECV), and it's where everyone wants to live. My class will be the last one to remember it for the craphole it really is.


Next semester I moved to Russell, which is weird enough in itself 'cause that's where my dad lived when he went to Georgia in the 70's. I got a different room mate. He was a decent guy. Neither of us talked much, and we were ok with that. We were only in the dorm for like 3 and a half months before the year was over, so we didn't get to know each other that well, and then we went our separate ways.

My second year, I got an apartment. It was my first experience living with girls. Bad idea. My thought process was 'Girls don't like gross things, so they'll be pretty neat, pick up after themselves, etc.' Ohhhh no. The only person to ever do dishes was me, the only person to ever vacuum was me. The only person not comfortable living in their own filth, was me. My one room mate had a pet rabbit, which was already against the lease agreement. Second problem - the rabbit was not house trained. Third problem - after the rabbit crapped in the floor, my room mate wouldn't bother to clean it up. Which I suppose isn't surprising when she wouldn't clean it up after it crapped in her bed.

Aside from that, she spent most of the time at her boyfriend's place, which means getting money from her for bills was a lost cause. Eventually she just stopped paying them, and after that, she stopped paying rent all together. The phone got cut off, and she got evicted. Whatever...it's her credit.

The only other guy in the apartment was an absolute nut case. He was a hardcore Catholic, and a few clicks to the right of me on the political spectrum (I know! Can you believe it?!) He and my other room mate (before she got evicted) would get into rather heated arguments about various things. It was funny because they were both usually wrong. But I digress.

Not only was he totally batty, but he had some of the most disgusting habits I've ever seen a human being exhibit. Bathing was apparently not a priority for this one. Nor did it seem to occur to him that digging in his pants (yes, IN his pants...both sides) might be revolting to anyone in the room trying to eat. Speaking of eating...I know there are people out there that bite their fingernails and pick their nose. I accept that. However, picking dandruff and popping zits and proceeding to eat the remnants is where I draw the frigging line. Excuse me while I have a full body shiver and a few dry heaves. And here's the best part -- after all the butt and nut scratching, nose picking, zit popping and head scratching, he would routinely go and get ice out of the freezer to chew on. I drank a lot of warm soda that year.

Much like my other sane, clean, considerate room mate, I spent most of that year in my room.

The next year, I rented a townhouse with my sane, clean, and considerate room mate, two of her female friends, and the daughter of one of my mom's co-workers. Pretty sweet gig, right? Me and 4 girls? Not at all. Again, I seemed to be the only one concerned with any semblance of cleanliness -- and that's saying a lot. Not only that, girls get flatout bitchy to each other. One of them moved out within 2 months to live with her boyfriend, sticking us with the responsibility of finding another room mate, or covering her part of the rent. The daughter of my mom's co-worker felt like she was getting screwed with the smallest room (which she was), so eventually she breaks her lease and moves somewhere else, just to screw us. The room mate that moved in to take the place of the first girl had a cat. I don't like cats, but I can deal with them. However, this cat had digestive problems, and its favorite plays to exhibit them was right beside my bedroom door. Again, I spent most of that year in my room. But I had the whole basement as my bedroom, so that almost made it worth it. But it still wasn't.

This year I lived in a much nicer place. I was technically sub-letting from a friend of mine, but she was a girl (I really need more male friends), so I got a new apartment and all new room mates. Judging by my past luck of living with people I didn't know, I was less than thrilled with the idea. But I must say, it turned out rather well. None of them had any disgusting habits (that I know of), they weren't dirty hippies (although John did buy Bill Clinton's autobiography), and actually liked some of the same things I do -- such as music, sports, video games, and looking at attractive girls. Not only that, but they were cleaner than me. By the time I felt like it was time to do dishes, they'd already done them. The trash never got too piled up, and the people they brought over weren't shady or painfully annoying. They introduced me to the glory that is Halo and XBox Live, and from that came many hours of entertainment and procrastination.

Anyway...enough bullshitting like some old man on a porch all like 'Well back in my day...' I've got a long day of driving ahead of me. The next time you hear from me, I'll either be in Washington, or somewhere between here and there in a hotel.