Boston Crazy

So, I've known a lot of freakin' nutheads in my life. (For example, the person from whom I first heard the term "nuthead". That would be Obi, the Nigerian pharmacist I worked with during the Drugstore Cowgirl days. He would say it when he disapproved of someone--usually a drug seeker--and he would shake his head very slowly back and forth. When I think of this word, I always hear it being said with a Nigerian accent and that slow head shake.)

One of those nutheads was A (I won't use her whole first name, you know, just in case), my roommate the year that I lived in Boston. Here are some facts about her that should convince you that she was c-r-a-z-y:

1. She had decorated her room and the kitchen entirely in apple-themed items. (She was in school to get her teaching degree.) We had apple plates, an apple hot pad, apple napkin holders, apple picture frames, and a giant (REALLY GIANT) apple candle. There is no way that I can convince you about how much apple crap she had, but you can ask Mikey J. He witnessed it.

2. She was agoraphobic. She would get herself out of the house for her classes and her student teaching, but when she came home afterward, she would take off her clothes, and put on her pjs and not leave again. This is a weird, and potentially really unpleasant, quality in a roommate. The only way I could get her out of the apartment was to offer to get ice cream with her at JP Licks.

3. She felt that clothing was "too binding." This explains why she would come home and immediately put on pajamas, with nothing underneath. And why she did the Jane Fonda workout naked. I found this out one morning when I forgot something in the apartment and came back unexpectedly.

4. She had lots of food hangups. Most notably, she refused to eat anything prepared by anyone other than her grandmother. She'd go home every weekend and her grandmother would make her a bunch of food and she'd bring it back to the apartment on Sunday nights and eat it for the rest of the week. She also claimed to hate melted cheese. I found this particularly offensive. Who hates melted cheese? It meant no lasagna, no pizza, no grilled cheese sandwiches. Messed up.

5. She was obsessively crushed out on William Hurt. It is strange enough that William Hurt should be anyone's #1 hottie, but she was SERIOUSLY into him. For her birthday, kinda as a joke, I got her a film still of WH from The Accidental Tourist and then I put it in a frame with hearts all the way around it. This excited her tremendously. She almost burst into tears when she opened it. More strange yet, she put it on the nightstand next to her bed and every night before she turned off the light she would pick it up and talk to it, and kiss it goodnight. Further, she tried to get me to kiss it once or twice (this I would not do). She also took it home with her on the weekends, and I think that she even slept with it under her pillow a few times.

There is more, but they get a little too personal, and even though I know that she will never read this, and none of you will ever meet her, I won't write about them in a public forum. But if you buy me a drink I might tell you about them---