the day after the first

Exhausted. But the move is done.

I now live in the warehouse. I have a couch of cracked black leather and a desk of hard wood. Both were inherited. I found them in the space, abandoned by their former owners. I sleep on the couch. I type on the desk. Though I still don't have a chair.

My roommates are friends. We have swept and mopped and rearranged. We have scrubbed and foraged and relaxed. Daylight filters in through the skylights. We lounge on three half-sofas and a hammock. Music plays from Josh's iPod. It's fast when we decide to work. It's mellow when we rest.

Last night we went to a bar. Eight of us. Hamer, her grad-student friend, and I spent two hours arguing about noumenon, Hegelian dialectics, anarchy, psychoanalysis, self-understanding, and individuality. I normally don't talk about these things. I normally don't argue. But I did last night, and it felt great.

I think she's part of the petty bourgeoisie. (Her own term.) She's slumming. But that's fine. I enjoy the company. Nobody else disagrees with me these days. And some deep instinct revels in the confrontation. It's friendly. But it's also fierce.

Afterwards we went to the dumpster and secured several bottles of organic apple cider vinegar, a case fruit juice, a case of canned peaches, and six gallons of spring water. When we got home, I suspected everyone wanted to continue hanging out. Josh started playing music. I sat down in the community nook. Hamer danced. I was making an appeal to the others to join me for a conversation. I now suspect they were making their own appeals to dance or play music. This all passed unnoticed at the time, and feeling that nobody wanted to join us for a social nightcap, we each went to our separate bedrooms and closed the door. Good night.