I'm living at Melrose Place

Originally Posted:
Monday, August 14, 2006
1:20:00 AM CDT
Feeling Happy Hearing Infomercials

I'm eight weeks into living in the dorm now and I've found that this place is a Southern version of Melrose Place. In fact, I'm going to rename the dorm SCADrose Place We're to the point now that cliques have been formed, friendships made, personality quirks exposed, and everybody knows everybody else's business. People are hooking up left and right. Who's gay, who's not, who's bi, and who's transgender is common knowledge. If you leave your laundry in the washer (the ONE working washer) for more than five minutes after the cycle is done, the next person waiting to use the washer will take your load out, put it in the dryer and possibly pay the buck to spin dry your laundry (that happened to me last week...I was not happy! I like hanging my clothing to dry so they do not shrink.).

Here's a prime example to how tight knit this little community of students is:

walked into Starbucks this evening and was greeted by a male barista (would a guy barista be called a baristo, I have to wonder?) that I recognized from the Mess Hall. He's this adorable little fella who is about my height, has a muscular physique, and is always wearing a button-down shirt with at least the top two or three buttons undone to show off his tan, his muscles and his brown leather necklace with what looks like a sharks tooth hanging from it. I've never spoken to him, waved, or acknowledged his presence in any way, shape or form, but he knew who I was when I said hello tonight. Here's a somewhat accurate course of our dialogue.

Me: (walking up to counter) Aye. (pointing, smiling) You live at the dorm.

Him: Yea!!!! You just got back from your trip! How did it go? What can I get for ya?

Me: (dumbfounded look, brows furrowing) Uhhhh. It was fun. How did you know I went somewhere? I'd like a grande hot chocolate, please.

Him: (laughing) I thought you were an RA, but your roommate said you teach in....Kentucky.

Me: Yea. That's me. (still looking confused, but smiling now)

Him: (making my hot chocolate) Yea, Adrian said, "I've got the coolest roommate ever."

Me: Me? (amazement setting in) That would be me!

Him: Yea, that's you Captain Obvious!!! (laughing)

Me: (mental note: adorable and funny!)

Him: She said you went to St. Augustine. That's cool. I'd love to do
that.

Me: OHHH!!! YOU'RE MATT!!!!!! The lil (Doh! Stop! Bite tongue. Don't call him the little guy)....The guy Adrian knows!!! (Light bulb goes off! It just hit me that this is the Matt that she's been talking about who works at Starbucks, is in her color theory class, thinks her projects are morbid because he doesn't understand what Days of the
Dead is about, is Andres' roommate, has his nipple and something I'm not going to mention pierced, has seen 48 John Mayer concerts and thinks that John Mayer is the greatest guitarist.)

Him & Me: Blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda...small talk

Me: Adrian said you have two John Mayer tattoos. Can I see them?

Him: (Looking around like he's about to divulge top secret information before hiking up his shirt sleeve and flashing a large flaming red/yellow heart with wings at me) I'm from Miami. I've got a lot of them.

Me: (actually impressed at the heart with wings) Nice!

Him & Me: (pointing and waving) See ya around. (I just made a new friend. That's all there is to it here at SCADrose Place. We both probably know way more about each other than we're letting on, but that's how it goes here. What good
night time drama's characters don't keep the juicy stuff to themselves for later
use?)

I'm getting cross-eyed. Need to sleep now. More later...I promise.

Update: Aug 16 @ 12:51 am

On average, I don't go to bed before 1 am at the earliest
here. One of us (either Adrian or I or sometimes both) always has homework to keep us up and just by default of continual late nights my sleep pattern has shifted back to being a night owl like it used to be. The great (?) thing about living in this dorm is that just about everybody here keeps the same hours---that means it's nothing to have a visitor knocking on your door at any hour if they see light sneaking out from under it. Usually it's Chayln needing a critique of her work or to mooch food. Sometimes it's Matt the Master of Chillin. Matt is our
neighbor's boyfriend who lives on the first floor. He comes over a lot. I've never met the girlfriend, but Matt likes hanging out in our room so sometimes he'll just pop over. The first time I met Matt was the night he abducted my roommate. It was at the beginning of the quarter and our neighbor's TV was blaring so Adrian went next door to ask them to turn it down and Matt answered the door. The night after that he knocked on our door looking for Adrian because Chayln told him
Adrian had the boxed set of Calvin and Hobbs cartoon books and he wanted to see them. He came in and after some awkward chit chat and looking around at her Days of the Dead painting and seeing her Looking Good for Jesus bag he decided she needed to find God. He left and a few minutes later he came knocking on the door again. This time he told Adrian he wanted to talk to her and asked her to come into the
hall. An hour later she returned in a state of shock over the bizarre conversation that just took place. They went outside to the sit on the curb and he told her all about his revelation about finding God and being saved. She said she kept waiting for him to say something awful like he had been molested or gotten a girl pregnant or he was addicted to crack or something on that level. Instead he just told her about his faith and that if she would like to be saved, he would help her. Adrian was not offended by the conversation, she was just taken by surprise by the unsolicited discussion. We both decided that when he spied her skull poster he thought he needed to swing into action and save her from herself. Since then we've found out that Matt is harmless and a good guy. He makes his own cell phone ring tones by recording himself whistling and thumping on plastic containers. They are the coolest ringtones I've ever heard. I digress...back to the story.

Tonight's 11:30 pm knock on the door came from Little Matt. Since Little Matt is new on our scene, we have not given him a better
nickname yet, but we're going to have to come up with something else soon because I think he's going to be around to stay. I think we're going to have to go with Starbuck's Matt. Or maybe Cute Matt. But, Matt the Master of Chillin is cute too in a puppy dog sort of way. Starbuck's Matt it is. He's got a bit of a crush on Adrian. I picked up
on that yesterday when he joined our group for dinner. I brought it up to Adrian and she got all excited because he's 25 and normal (She's 24 and finds it difficult to find guys at SCAD who are her age to go out with). They went out for a drink and haven't made it back yet. This proves it, I AM living at SCADrose Place.