the Forty Fourth Story

The Mushroom story: (this one's good! it has a punchline! it's worth reading to the end)I lived in one apartment for almost the entire time I was at Massart, but during that time, lots of folks moved in and out. After I'd been there for six months, everyone but me left, and Svea, Tom, and Sonia all moved in. This was ideal. Everyone got along, everyone had similar ideas of personal space, things were great. Svea moved out and Tyrell moved in. Things were still great.  Sonia moved out and Amber moved in. It still worked. Then Amber decided we needed a chore schedule. This pissed off everyone, and everyone, without talking about, decided they were only doing chores as they were assigned, but mostly still only did the chores that they had been doing before the schedule. Previously, Tom pretty much didn't clean, but he regularly made chilli and cheese cakes, and that was a fine balance, as far as I was concerned. I kept the bathroom and counters cleaned. Everybody did their dishes (including Tom). Sonia had done most of the neatening, and I admit, we were collectively falling behind in that department with her gone. One month, on Amber's bathroom cleaning turn, she made everything in there REALLY neat. Cleaned the mirror so it shone. Put the shampoo bottles in order by size. Looked great.
That night, Dustin was over. About three AM he got up to go to the bathroom. He shouted back "Kest, come here! You've got to see this!" There is, I thought, nothing I could need to see in my bathroom at three am. I shouted back a simple "no". He insisted. I put on a bathrobe and went out, bitching in my head. There, though, in the corner of the bathroom, were mushrooms. Sprouting right from the floor. They were aesthetically pleasing, and also absolutely hilarious, particularly after the scene Amber had made about how she was the only one who ever really got anything clean in the house. Dustin and I stood there and laughed for a while, I took a picture, and we went to bed. I left the mushrooms in place, knowing that Tom would enjoy them at least as much as I had.
In the morning, I got up and asked Tom if he'd seen the mushrooms. He hadn't, and I took him in to show him, but they were gone! We were both upset by this tragedy, and asked Amber if she knew anything about it. She was livid, and utterly unamused.

the Forty Second Story

When I dropped out of Oberlin, I called up my mother first. This decision was based soley on the fact that she, too, had taken the long route to graduation, so I figured she'd understand. I told her I had dropped out, she asked if I planned to go back, I said yes, and that was that. I didn't manage to get in touch with my dad till that night, and somehow, either through mom or my brother, he had heard before I got a chance to talk with him. I hadn't even said anything, and he was terribly upset- it sounded, over the phone, as though he might be crying. My dad doesn't cry. This was disturbing. We talked around in circles for a bit before he blurted out "But why did you have to elope? You could have told us, we would have supported you!" I was baffled. I had no idea what was going on. I assured my father that I was not married, nor was I knocked up. It wasn't until later that I made the connection that, progressive as he may be in his thoughts, in the world he was raised in those are the only reasons a woman drops out of school.

The Forty First Story

Takes place during the one semester I spent at Kent State University. The parking for commuting students was quite far from campus, and in the beginning, I had to wait for a shuttle after class to take me back to my car. After a few weeks, I made friends with a fellow who for reasons I do not remember got to park right on campus, and on days when we got out at around the same time, he'd wait around and give me a ride. One afternoon, we dropped by the local camera shop - I think he had film to pick up from a recent vacation or something. In retrospect, I was probably supposed to ask to see the pictures, and then ooh and aah over them. Instead, we walked in and I immediately spotted a object which I had been coveting, and had been unable to find, for years. There it was- a perfect little 50mm fixed focal length macro lens for my old OM-1. I needed that lens. I didn't have my wallet. And, on the spot, I asked this fellow to borrow two hundred dollars. Poor kid, there's this gal who you don't know at all but you've been kinda trying to pick up, and she asks you for the equivalent to a full month's rent. He was so utterly shocked that he agreed. I did pay him back the next day, and he did keep giving me rides, but I think he stopped trying to flirt after that. win-win.

The Twenty Ninth Story

Today's story takes place in Ohio. For my birthday, my mother gave me some amount of money and told me to use it to learn to fly. I wanted to go hanggliding, but much of Ohio has the wrong geography for that, and the amount wasn't quite enough for a flight lesson, so I decided to jump out of a plane. There was a place not too far from Oberlin where you could take a two hour course and then they would take you up; so I signed up there. The class was about 20 minutes of knowledge one might need when jumping out of a plane. This advice included the nugget that we weren't to have long in freefall and should pull our cords about 15 seconds after leaving the plane; but this was our first jump, and it would probably take us that long to start counting, so to just scream FUCK! at the top of our lungs about 5 times and then pull. (this was good advice)

The rest of the two hours was looking at a map of the surrounding farmland. We were supposed to land on their property, but again this was a first jump, and if we screwed up, we might end up at the neighbors'. Most of the farms we were to gather up our parachutes as best we could and find the nearest gate (gates were marked in red on the aerial view). There was one place where they were breeding thoroughbred race horses, and we were on no account to open any gates there; the woman had raised the lowest bar on the fences towards our goal and we should be able to roll under. "And THIS field. This field here- there is a bull. If you land here, fuck the parachute- there is a knife in you jumpsuit pocket, cut your lines and run for whichever fence is closest. Jumping out of a plane isn't dangerous. That bull though- that bull is dangerous" (I'm not sure whether this was good advice. Should one run from a bull? or back away slowly? Don't know, didn't have to find out)

the second story

Another short story: I transferred in to Massart, having already attended two (yes two) other schools. I still had to take a few freshman classes, though, including something that involved painting. One of my professors caught me hiding my enormous paintings in a stairwell, and gave me a key to an empty room to use as a studio. This was awesome. For weeks, I had that room to myself, and, being the person I am, I would frequently take off my shirt to paint, as to avoid staining it. That was great, until one day, the professor gave a key to another student, who opened the door to see me, nearly nude, painting a still life. He squeaked, turned beet red, and slammed the door. We later became great friends.