living with a boy.

thanks to my dear college roommates i have a constant stream of "friends" quotes running through my head at pretty much all times. i seem to be able to conjure up one for every situation in life.

today i'm thinking about when monica and chandler are moving in together and it's rachel's last night in the apartment. she's all packed up and about to move out and they are all crying and monica says "and now you have to leave, and i have to live with a boy!"

well friends, i've lived with a plethora of beautiful ladies in my life. from living and sharing a bathroom with 30+ girls in the dorms, to an apartment we called the womb with my 4 soulmates. one summer i lived with 7 other girls for two months in a tent made out old sailboat sails on the shores of catalina island, and another time i lived with 3 other girls in a trailer that the university tastefully called a "mod." i've lived in vietnam with vietnamese women and in pink vietnamese hotels with girl teammates. even growing up my poor father was outnumber by my mother, sister and i.

some of the girls on 5th south, circa 2005.

my wombies. photo circa 2008

my hotel roomie the summer of '08, miss erica.

the little pearl, my vietnamese host sister.

baby sister leah and i, circa 1994.

miss marina, one of my catalina tent roomies summer of '07.

(photo by promise tangeman.)

i've lived with amazing girls, smart girls, creative girls, super clean girls, messier girls, funny girls, responsible girls, loud girls, quiet girls, silly girls, serious girls... yet none of that prepared me for having to live with a boy for the rest of my life.

while we really are having great fun getting to know each other as roommates and figuring out how to live together, here's a fun little list of some of the differences i've observed.

• the change piles. for a while it would really perplex me why i'd find little piles of coins placed around the house, or loose change scattered on the floor in front of the closet. then one day i realized! boys don't carry purses and their wallets don't have change compartments, so they just put it in their pockets only to be set out on the counter or the coffee table later.
• everything is a musical instrument. this may not be a boy thing as much as it's a chad thing, but let me tell you... that boy can make some sort of rhythm on anything.
• xbox. living with girls all my life i've never really experienced the xbox. sure we had a wii (that actually belonged to chad) and we played freetetris.org like no one's business, but never shoot-em-up kind of games. now, however, it is not uncommon for me to go to bed to the sounds of gunfire against zombies.
• this conversation. erin: "what are you thinking right now?" chad: "nothing." erin: "seriously? you can't be thinking nothing." chad: "honestly, i'm nothing thinking about anything." erin: "then what are you feeling?" chad: "nothing" erin: "oh good grief."
• the tivo list. in addition to modern family, cougar town, mad men and glee (our favorites) our tivo is also full of csi type shows and modern marvels and tnt dramas.
• oh, and this conversation! erin: "i'm really craving something sweet! let's go get ice cream or chocolate or make cookies!" chad: "eh, i don't really like dessert." erin: "that doesn't make any sense."

and so on and so forth. oh he may be a strange creature to live with, but boy do i love the mystery that is living with my husband.

yes he is a boy and his ways may be foreign to me, but at least i like to look at him.