That man's thoughts on my neighbors

We have officially moved. we have left the womb called Biola. my neighbors are no longer screaming college kids.....they are screaming drunken fifty year old unemployed men. Seriously, last weekend, saturday night, I was kept awake by four people on their patio barely able to stand, barely able to converse without cursing and barely able to keep from vomitting. One of the guys basically spewed all over the deck.
It's really quite interesting. I sat there, clandestinely watching them through the blinds of my window, trying to decide what to do: should I walk out on my patio and tell them "Hey, shut up you cads!!!", then bravely run back inside? Maybe I should walk over to their patio as they try to clean up their friends honk and avoid it showering upon me as they dump it over the side of their patio onto the street below (Yea...they did that..), and then say: "Uh...Yea...Do you guys think you might take this classy little soiree into your apartment because that would greatly reduce the noise level"? Perhaps I should put on my black ninja pajamas (they are white with little black ninjas on them..i mean c'mon, why would you have black ninja jammies with black ninjas on them, then you couldn't see the ninjas...Unless of course the ninjas were white, but if they were white, then they wouldn't be very effective at night, which we all know ninjas do their best work at night...assassins you know), and skulk in the shadows, shimmy up a drainage pipe, avoid the previously mentioned vomit spilling from above, and knock them out one by one as I pull them into the shadows... But then again, i was quite sore from helping my friend move earlier in the day, and the chik-fil a I karate chopped earlier was not acting very feng shui at the moment.
or maybe i should select the easiest of all choices... Call the cops. I mean here's the reality: these guys aren't going to listen to reason..they are vomitting. The cops can come over and shut things down. But whom do I call? 911? the city police department?
I gotta admit, this felt like a chicken poop way to go. Kind of cowardly. I never had to deal with this at Biola, ironically living with college students but it is a dry campus. So what do i do?
I'll tell you what I did!!! I grabbed my sudoku book and waited it out. That's what i did! very brave huh? Yea, i showed them!!! I dominated that sudoku puzzle, I laughed at it's simplistic form. I made that puzzle suffer all the while direct my vehement energies through my quivering pencil. The puzzle didn't stand a chance and my fifty year old neighbors finally had enough at 12:30 am.

Yea,....I showed them. now it's friday. it's the weekend and they probably will be getting their party on again. sigh...Well, better sharpen my pencils...

that man's thoughts on endings

I'm currently sitting on a mattress in an empty apartment...well, empty except for the mattress....
My cough echoes off the walls that were once covered by furniture or pictures. Now the room is empty and man how my voice carries in here.
This apartment is mine. well, it's my apartment for three more days and then i will finally hand the keys over to my boss. I will contact the IT department and tell them to come get my old computer so they can scrub it clean and store it in some room in the bowels of an undisclosed building on campus maybe. And like that, my career as a Resident director will be over. The ending of an Era has officially, irrevocably, inexorably arrived.
But for now I sit writing this blog on a mattress in an empty apartment reflecting on all I experienced here. In some ways I feel a little lacking in the feeling department when it comes to my reflections. I think maybe I should be crying or feeling deep overwhelming sadness, mourning the loss of this place. To be sure, I did love it here. I loved my job. and i' excited for a new chapter. It's so weird: a few days ago, I was in my office doing some cleaning and a student came up to me and asked me if I was the RD. I said "Yes". I don't know why I didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise. To be honest, It wasn't because I secretly wished I still was, but rather I didn't know how to explain what I had really become. A man stuck between two worlds, yesterday and tomorrow. The present is a waiting place and if you remember what doctor seuss says:

The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.

Yea, that's the present these days, waiting for tomorrow. Anyway, the student asks me if I'm the RD. The answer is: "well, uh, no technically I'm not, but I still have the keys, still have the office, still have the sign over the door, still have some furniture left to move, a stove to scrub, a reimbursement check to pick up (Yea!). No, That would be too much a pain in the butt, so I just say: 'Yea I'm him", then the student proceeds to tell me he works for campus safety and I've parked my car in an unacceptable fashion. I smile and tell him I'll move it in a few minutes. I won't miss that.

But i will miss this apartment. i will miss having the couch along THAT wall, and the picture of that lemon tree that stood guard over our kitchen table. I'll miss the backyard that seemed to be impossible to keep tidy because of all the pine needles continually shedding from the huge pine tree in the backyard. Heck I might even miss the stomping of men on the floor above us like tribal drumbeats at any part of the day...Naw actually I won't miss that crap at all..:)

It's weird to be in the place of ending. I know tomorrow is just around the bend, but this ending has got me beginning something new and in the meantime I'm waiting in the present, on a mattress in an empty apartment, a shadow of what once was and a reminder of what is now true....this is no longer my home. I'm not coming back. I'm standing on the precipice of something new. It's kind of a sacred place really.

I want to say "Thank you" to Biola... These last eighteen years as a student and employee have been an absolute gift. I'm grateful to be on this mattress; grateful there is a new home, new challenges and new memories to build.