Poetic Dreamer or Psychotic Freak?

I bought myself a new fountain pen.
Apart from the fact that some of you, my 5,000 imaginary readers, probably think it is weird to write with a fountain pen, this shouldn't worry anyone as is. However, the purchase marks the end of a long period of self-inflicted fountain pen withdrawal. I am hereby admitting another one of my increasingly disturbing abnormal behavior patterns: Other women collect shoes, perfume bottles, sexy young men ..... I feel an urge to buy fountain pens. For the past three years, I had managed to walk away from all the fountain pen displays in stationery stores. Not so today. I unfortunately suffered a relapse. A failure, that is what I am!

While everyone is thinking (and obviously worrying) about my abnormal behavior patterns: I took another one of those to new heights: Just when I thought I was about to defeat the addiction to switch my computer screen's wallpaper every other day, I made the ultimate switch by buying a new screen. It's a good thing I am not in the position (financially, that is) to do that every other day. It nevertheless disturbs me enough to blog about it.

On another note: I spent from Tuesday to Thursday Night being sick. Poor me! Thankfully, I have the best cat ever. He kept watch over me by sitting at the foot of my bed the whole time. Good cat! I'd write him a thank you note with my new fountain pen if only he could appreciate it.

Roommates from Hell and other Nightmares

Although I should dive right into my topic of nightmarish roommates, I will first have to report some progress concerning my recently described addiction to ever new desktop wallpaper. I still have the astronaut looking down on me whenever I do computer stuff. Thanks to Thomas, I am suffering from insomnia now as I'm trying to find out what the astronaut is thinking. Due to my lack of sleep, I also lack the energy to change my wallpaper. It's a vicious circle, I tell ya!

Now, some might not suspect it, I actually went to college for longer than I'd like to admit (call me Magistra Artium, please! ... I said "please"!). During that time, I did have a couple of roommates. Those I voluntarily shared apartments with were great. They are still very good friends of mine. However, there were two people, specifically, who still cause me nightmares. Why do some people just have to be psychopaths. And, more importantly, why do these people just love to annoy me?

I encountered the first nightmare when, in my third year, I moved back into a dorm. At my Alma Mater, that meant having your own room in a kind of small apartment, sharing bathroom and kitchen with between one and three others. That's alright. No problem there; except one of those people was a cleaning nazi. I called this particular roommate "The Goose". She simply looked just like a mean cartoon goose which probably caused some kind of trauma during my childhood and which therefore came back from my subconsciousness. The Goose studied to become an engineer working in constructions. She liked making plans. My guess is her major plan was to rule the world as a tyrant one day. Her start was ruling the inhabitants of what she counted as "her apartment". Therefore, she dictated a set of regulations that would make Mr. Clean pale. Every step of the cleaning procedure was described in detail. We weren't to simply remove dirt. No, it was more like purifying the apartment from the evilness that is dust and disorder. Step 3 was to clean the legs of the kitchen chairs, Step 6 was to Kill, kill, KILL!!! all germs.

Needless to say I got out of there after two semesters.

My last roommate in college was a Psych major. Unfortunately, she should have been a patient, too. M. was 23 years old and she obviously couldn't really get over the fact that her posters of horses and kittens allover the room scared most people. I don't think M. had any kind of social life at all. One day, she came into my room while I was studying for my finals. (she did that a lot: coming into my room with the plan to never leave again) After about 5 hours of "once, in Bandcamp..."-like stories (just not THE story, thankfully - I'd have jumped out my window at once), M. finally revealed to me that the only pleasure in her life was to read an article in her animal magazine before bed. ... ... I instantly feigned complete exhaustion, locked my room, called my friends to tell them to call the police in case I wouldn't show up in the morning, and slept on random park benches until the end of the semester.

Roommates can traumatize you for life. I still hyperventilate when I see a poster with kittens.