Life at home

Room mate ness.

I've fostered two cups from Deruta, a gift, for a bunch of years. They have been hard to break - so well formed and kilned that they bounce in ordinary circumstances. I finally broke one, luckily my lesser fave. I might be out of my tree re someone else breaking it, bad enough with me (a reason for a kitchen rug with my tile).

Only advice - sequester what you most care about. That can take some figuring.


(I still have my stupid mug from UCLA, a sole wave of connection from a non-campus person. I've never cared about it, but I could never throw it out either, yet anyway. Stay tuned.)

There is one strange coincidence about this. I've had 2 memorabilia of my time at Harvard (worked at a foundation there). One was a nice white hoodie, another was this cup. Both were given to me at the end of my 3 years there.
Last Sunday I had a canoeing accident. My boat capsized and my Harvard hoodie drowned in a muddy brown river. Mud was up to my mid thighs...there was no way to find the hoodie...or my digital camera.

The very same day, and possibly the very same time, the housemate broke the Harvard cup. I wonder what constellation of stars caused this, something surely must have happened that higher powers arranged it this way.

In my situation, I went there to school (and sev later jobs) but was in college years always catching the bus to go to work (you weren't supposed to work, back then, or at least not much). So the ugly mug was a token. I've a token mug from Tlaquepacque near Guadalajara too, from a one hour touristic visit. In either case, I might have someone's hair if they broke it.

Don't think his hair will help me much. Unfortunately, since he didn't consult me, he has long thrown the broken mug away. I would have liked to keep even just a piece of it. Wish he told me when it happened. He won't have a chance with my BU cup, that goes into my cupboard. No more sharing.

These particular things are replaceable, hoodie, mug.. probably near forever, but they aren't the same ones. Trick is, one doesn't always fully cotton on to what one is attached to until it's gone.

On the other hand, of course, there is much verbiage for not being attached to any thing at all. Pish, I like the memory connections, whether or not the actual 'thing' survives.

Yeah, I know the verbiage. I had to purge about two thirds of my worldly posessions recently, so what was left is actually pretty meaningful. Unfortunately, it is not replaceable. It was that year's class of Nieman's fellows that had these made. I can get a generic HU mug...but I don't need or want that. Some things are special only because they are gifts, not because of what they look like or what's printed on them. So no replacement for these two, just memories in my head.

No situation is perfect, eh? Breaking your favorite cup is one thing, but using your toothbrush is just gross. You really can't leave anything in the bathroom,
except soap and shampoo maybe, but I am sure he's using that too.

Dag, at cafepress you can get some other Nieman t-shirts, if you're interested
http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/nieman-harvard and here is the mug
http://mugs.cafepress.com/item/nieman-university-mug/140620775

Yes, I am sure he is using my soap, too, and the other housemate's. His soap and shampoo have been empty for weeks. I have moved my shampoo and soap up high (it's in a small shelf with suction cups)...that way also water doesn't stand in it. I think he stopped using it. The shampoo, whatever... doesn't make me happy, but I don't mind terribly. But I would hate if he used my bar soap. He did at least once, there was a dark alien pube stuck on it. Yechchch.
I brought a small plastic cup and put my toothbrush in it and put it on my shelf, away from the sink. I am a bloody introvert to begin with. My territorial imperratif is the size of a Caspic Sea. He's not just trespassing...he's having a party and dancing up a storm in it.
....only with these things though. Irritable, yet still rather little things. I hope nothing else will come up.

These are interesting, but that's some other university. This was the Nieman Foundation at Harvard, and the shirts and mugs were a one time thing. I'm sure somebody has a design to it somewhere...but that doesn't matter. I don't really need a new one. That wouldn't be a gift anymore anyway.

When I moved to northern california, I moved three times in a short time, with a lifetime's worth of stuff, and some of the timing was horrifying. The person who bought where I had just moved in and then needed to get out of in less than a month at the last minute offered his old house, just before I almost rented a place that I seriously worried about the drainage around. It was a stretch for him, as he is/was a serious collector and trusted me to live in that house. He and a helper helped me move, no money. That was before I found and bought my own house.

So.. how could I be mad when I came home one day just after I moved in and he or the helper had fixed the paper towel rack in the kitchen? (and broken my grandmother's tea cup and saucer from japan, probably something like 1870? that I had on the counter in a bit of unpacking...) Well, the cup is ok, the saucer I just have the pieces. He had reason to be there, but I forget now what it was. Sure he was only being helpful.

I couldn't even talk about it, much less complain.

Maybe a lesson in there for you about detaching... you're moving to Holland, aren't you? Lots of things you'll be letting go of soon - your friends, your job, your classy roommate (snicker)...

I always try to find some lesson in everything, but maybe I'm just weird. Still, I'm sorry about your things - I know what it's like.

Well, it's the lesson that i'm trying to figure out. I have already moved to the Netherlands, a month ago. I have purged an enormous amount of stuff - most of what I have owned. All of furniture, of course, most of my clothes and things. So I truly did bring only the most meaningful stuff.
I had 2 tangible memorabilia from my Nieman times: the cup and the sweatshirt. Both perished on the same day. I've nothing else.... it's either a strange coincidence or indeed a lesson....but i've no idea in what.

I was just thinking, and I am not a particularly violent person, but if I found out that someone had used my toothbrush I would have to tell them that I was going to get a new one and if they ever did that again I would sit with both knees on their chest while I shoved the entire toothbrush up the nostril of their choice.

Joe(Yes. I would make them choose and then begin shoving.)Nation

Eek, I'm sorry I haven't kept current with your move and life situation. Really. I'm embarrassed because I know you had a thread about it and I did read it.

Maybe the lesson is about the past, or just more of the same about "stuff". It may not be clear for a while, but I think there's a lesson in there somewhere.

If we could PM, I'd tell you about an interesting series of lessons for me this year. Very challenging. But I'm not going to do it here.

time to join under a different name perhaps, so you can post anonymously? something totally different...like mamacita or something.
no worries, i was barely able to keep up with the move...no wonder others didn't. it came and went like a hurricane.

I not that big a fan of philosophic detachment. My parents died many decades ago in hard ways; I have no brothers or sisters, and no children. I do look to facets of my life, however small, re some elements of continuity. Not that anyone else should do that, or not do that. But of course the items are only symbols of old connection and any one or all of them can be destroyed and I won't have lost the connection. Still, I have liked having them.

On the other hand, my husband used to comment on a baby picture of mine, me with three small toys nestled in front of me, at probably 15 months. Not that I ever had many toys, at all. Did have photos, though.

Which brings up photos, I care about them.

Joe, you make me laugh. It's pretty disgusting that someone would use someone else's soap (without asking, without being known to them), never mind a toothbrush.

Maybe the only lesson is that crap happens?


I asm sorry about your hoodie and your cup.

Ha. Either the nostril shoving, or I can also set a booby trap... a toothbrush coated in something vile and preferably also laxative.

Also if I get a huge black and green toothbrush with a chain that rattles and a sign saying "Touch it and DIE", that could also perhaps help.

Indeed. Crap happens. I wouldda believed it without the reminder. Thanks, life....(grumble).