Inspiration

My friends and I do this every night. Jackie texts me, and then I call Allison, and then Allison asks Jessie and before we know what happens, we are all “doing homework.” This term is surprisingly ambiguous. To most people, it seems straightforward: assignment, research, draft, redraft, quiz, exam, blah blah blah and most students favor the library or their room, or maybe a study room in Ontario or Kirkoff. Let me tell you that the living room in 10246 is rarely successful.

Invariably, half of us act insane while the other two have a random burst of productiveness. The two crazy ones annoy the other two, until the energy levels even out and then switch. If we can be serious and actually do homework for more than five minutes straight, it is a very, very good night. Otherwise, we are “watching” movies [though nobody else seems to have any appreciation or respect for the process], eating junk food, laughing at things that are only funny with the four of us, and lamenting the huge amount of work that we still have to do. By the time we all go home for the night, somebody has spoken in a random accent, somebody has antagonized the chinchilla, somebody has danced interpretively, and somebody is nearly in a coma from laughing too hard.

It doesn’t make sense that we are friends – we talked about it the other day. If the four of us had gone to the same high school, we probably would have hated each other. Jackie would have pulled a prank on somebody, Jessie would have cried about it, Allison would laugh at Jessie for crying, and I would probably be watching the clock to figure out how much longer I had to be there. I don’t know what it is about college that brings such different people together; maybe it is being away from home for the first time, maybe it’s the amount of work that we have to do, maybe it’s the sheer amount of hours that we spend together, but something has glued these girls into my heart.

Surprisingly, then, they are an integral part of my writing process. Tonight, for example, we were sitting in our assumed positions, and I was stuck for a topic. “What should I write about?” I asked them.

“Write about me!!” Jackie said, after she suggested writing about pooper-scoopers.

“Write about how you met me!” Allison said, only half-way kidding.

“She wrote me six cards for my birthday,” Jessie beamed from the floor. I just groaned; whenever I ask ANYONE what to write about, they invariably say themselves. It’s not that I care…I’m used to it by now. I should warn people, though, that the last time I wrote about the two people who asked to be written about [my little brother and sister], the short story morphed into a tale about a wealthy family going on a retro road trip with two children, a girl and her little brother. Before I knew what happened, the girl turned into some snobby, mean concoction, and the little brother became a cute, albeit slightly ridiculous eight year old. Just putting it out there.

Still, there is something about good friends that inspires me. These girls make me think, make me laugh, make me love. It’s not always easy for me to get work done around them, but it’s worth the late nights, the long hours, and the extra stress. And look – they proved to be the easiest two pages to write in my life. I guess you can check this off as another great night in 10246.