The Walls Have Ears

...or, more accurately, The Walls Are Thin and We Can Hear You.

So Anne and I just moved into our new dorm room for the school year, in a different building than the one we've been in the last three years. And there are a lot of really cool things about our room (like the sink!) but there's one tiny little drawback - the walls are suuuuuuuper thin.

And the occupants of the room next to us are either 1) really loud or 2) fostering howler monkeys for the semester.

It's kind of a new experience for us because last year we didn't have neighbors - the closest people to our room were three rooms down the hallway - and now there are about fifty other people on our floor.

So far all we've been able to understand is a whole bunch of expletives and the occasional drawn out 'WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO!" (hence the howler monkeys.)

Then again, Anne and I just spent the last half hour moving furniture and lofting bunk beds, so maybe turnabout's fair play.

Real Estate

So my family's selling my house, which sucks.

I mean, I get it. I totally understand why. And I've known it was coming for like two years now - that eventually, we would up and move. But I came home this weekend for my brother's birthday and in the car on the way here, Dad was like, "Oh, I'm painting your room tomorrow." Which I assumed meant he was going to touch up the blue-and-purple that's been there since I was twelve years old - but then he told me it was going to be white, because the realtors and potential buyers coming through 'find it hard to visualize their own colors and furniture' when the rooms are bright colors.

And then I stayed up all night crying because that sucks.

I know it's a stupid, silly thing to be upset about. Walls are just walls. But that room is mine, and it has been for eight years. It's seen me laugh, cry, dance like a maniac, pretend to be a Jedi, sing into a hairbrush, practice my imaginary swordsmanship, and torment my cat. My home is there. My memories are there. I can be a little girl again in that room. I've grown up in that room. I've loved it. And now our realtor wants to suck all the soul out of it so some stranger with no imagination can buy it.

Which makes me cry.

So today I wrote this little letter to whoever buys my house. I know they'll probably never get it. But I wish there was some way to remind the future owner that once, a little girl who never grew up lived here, and she loved and laughed and learned here, and maybe someday another little girl will feel everything I've felt for this house.

To whoever buys my house:

I hope you love it as much as I have. I'm sad that you won't get to see it as it's supposed to be seen, with the beautiful colors and the posters and photos on the walls. I'm ashamed of how it looks now, all stark and boring because some realtor decided people liked white walls. This house may be only eight years old but for those eight years, it was mine, and I hope that it keeps a little of the love and laughter that I've felt in it.
It's strange to think that it's not going to be my home anymore, after all this. It already doesn't feel like mine and I hate that. But I hope it loves you, and you love it, because a house like this deserves to be loved. Please take care of it.

Love,
Joelle.

Entophobia

Conclusion of the day: I will probably never grow out of my phobia of bugs.

I mean, there are plenty of reasons to find bugs mildly disgusting, maybe even irritating. I mean, they carry nasty diseases, they look totally gross, they fly/crawl around and make nuisances of themselves - so not liking them is completely justified.

That said, there is no good reason why I should be heart-stoppingly, pants-poopingly afraid of them.

Did I say afraid? I meant terrified. Or maybe petrified. Panic-stricken. Because somewhere in my not-rational mind, I am totally convinced that any bug I see is going to fly in my face and crawl in my eyes and eat my brain and suck out my soul and walk around in my body like that guy from Heroes.

...any exaggeration is justified by the FOUR-INCH COCKROACH I just saw in the dorm bathroom. Crawling on the wall. TOWARDS ME. WHILE I WAS ON THE TOILET.

Which is not a situation ANYONE wants to be in, much less a borderline-psychotic entophobe.

It's been thirty full minutes and I'm still shaking. And I'm convinced every little itch is a bug crawling on me, or every speck of dirt on the floor that I see out the corner of my eye is another friggin cockroach. I'm going to have nightmares for WEEKS.

And now the worst part is I ran away without killing the damn thing, so I have no idea where it could be now. Maybe it followed me. Maybe it's hiding in my bed. Maybe it's waiting for me to fall asleep so it can lay eggs in my toenails and spawn a race of toe-fungus-cockroach-mutant-Nazis.

Hey, it could happen.

I'M NEVER PEEING IN A DORM BATHROOM AGAIN.