scenes from the season

Dec 9 - Rachael seranades BJ with a melody she wrote in ode to his awesomeness.


New Years Eve - Parisian Keith tends to the ice bar on our snowy front porch.


New Years Day - parade for brunch at Valois.

BJ's three rules of journalism

First, you tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em.

Then, you tell 'em what you told 'em you'd tell 'em.

And in conclusion, you tell 'em what you told 'em.

email to the house, 5 august

Glenn came into the room tonight carrying clean laundry. "Would it be unusual to, like, have a squirrel in your house?" Apparently he accidentally scared off an unidentified scurrying object which skittered down the hall with more energy than our cats can muster. In honor of this exotic incident, I thought I'd post an email I sent in August. This has been a reoccuring battle, to BJ's dismay.

So this morning I chased a squirrel out a few times. The weird thing was he seemed to have paper in his mouth.

I said to him, "Squirrel, is THAT what you'e risking a trip into our house for? Get the fuck outta here you knucklehead." Admiring my guidance counseling, he zig-zagged over to the heater then agreeably leapt out the window where the fan is.

I went down the hall but a few moments later heard some rustling in the common room again. Walkin down the hall, I spotted no Haymarketeer in the social area... but zeroed in on the squirrel, who was (I kid you not) squeezed next to the board games beside the orange couch and tearing off Sesame Street wrapping paper with its paws and mouth. "All right you little bugger! Get OUT!" And I chased him out the window. He dropped his crumble of gift paper so I threw it out the window after him (I'm not being cheap about the paper, just enforcing the no-squirrels policy). He paused and looked at the paper with curiousity, but decided not to fetch it and bounced off.

I turned the fan on high, so the engine and noise would scare off squirrelly scavengers, and came to alert y'all via email. I made it to the second paragaph before I had to chase the creature out of the room AGAIN.

The squirrel can get in even if the window is open an inch. Please close the windows when you are not in the room.

Thank you,

The Squirrel Sheriff

Even vegetarians don't appreciate rodent invasion (Horton was a housemate):
the Rat Hunters last winter.

pastimes

"Have you guys seen BJ?" asked David.

"Yeah, he's in his room. Just knock," I suggested. I saw David hesitate outside the crayola-graffittied door.

"He's probably playing video games," I said. "Well either that or..."

Brian whistled suggestively to finish my sentence.

"Wow," marveled David. "BJ and I really DO like all the same things."

tenure

Corrigan's discussion about shaping the future of Q as a co-op wandered into the questions of community involvement.

Although service projects have been introduced as a pleasing vague concept, concerns about selection of specific projects arose in parallel. Projects completed, time and money donated in the name of Q, speak to the neighborhood ostensibly on behalf of the interests and values of Q members. How do we choose a project of any impact that encompasses (or at least acknowledges) the diverse positions of our membership? And what about members who prefer we not make such statements at all?

Bernard, once attending a board meeting at which these concerns were articulated, responded, "I think your resistance is to a very narrow definition of community service."

Personally, I feel a few service projects a year recruiting volunteers from our organization does not bind any disinterested members into obligatory statements of personal politics. In fact collaborative community outreach happens informally all the time, as those of us invite our extended co-op family into our activities and friendships outside the walls of our three houses. BJ and Lisa attended David's sermon. Lauren suggested I present bookbinding to her public middle school students. Crystal introduced her tutoring student, a young woman with FAS, to Megan, who befriended the girl and taught her guitar.

Some folks argue that service projects formally sponsored by the board present different implications. Others reply that social responsibility to emphasize community is inherent to the co-op or IC system.

The compromise is to form a Service Project/Community Committee made (hopefully) of non-board members to research, organize and advertise semi-annual projects for interested co-opers. Whether people volunteer is another story; we originally WERE an extremely neighborhood-involved co-op. Everyone likes the notion of volunteer work, but who has the time, eh? Yet how the heck ELSE will we get to know our HP comrades?

......

When someone's bike scratched a six-inch line into the paint of our neighbors' new Yukon this summer, the classic neighborly dispute was compounded by the ideological divide between Haymarket and the retired Ames couple.

In one corner, they were driving a new polluting eco-nightmare purchased to replace their former gas-guzzling eco-nightmare (which apparently was donated to their grandson, who shall doubtless rise to the challenge of hotboxing a vehicle the size of a football stadium).

In another corner, we are a group of weirdos who chat loudly on the porch about sex and organic vegetables, and who don't seem to give a damn about the aesthetics of our garage door whose crumbles aren't quite charming enough to euphamistically qualify as antique-chic.

Plus the faces are ever-rotating, any friendly hellos in new accents with every successive season.

In the end, the incident provided an opening for dialogue with the Ames', who in fact signed the original petition to allow our home to become Haymarket 15 years ago. Then, members were heavily involved in the Co-Op Markets & neighborhood meetings. The Ames' knew everyone by name. Now we are simply the crazy kids next door... two of whom brought a check for repairing the beast of a truck. Since Corrigan's name is so weird, I suppose, Mrs Ames latched onto Megan, who mentioned puzzles at random during a conversation. Since then, we've found bags of puzzles left on the house porch, addressed to Megan... who has also moved away by now.

......

To those of us living in Haymarket, the time is thick with adventure and the community tight-knit. Even a few months in the house either seems to coincide with or initiate significant change for all who live here; we don't think of our time as fleeting. But our membership is relatively short term.

BJ spoke up at the meeting, thoughful. "I'm not sayin' this isn't a good idea to get involved. But I wonder how realistic it is to believe our involvement can get very complex when we have such a volatile high turnover membership. Like, how worth it is it for a 40-year-old with two kids to reach out to folks who will be leavin' within a year or two?"

He paused. "After the first round of livin' here, you resist gettin' too attached again. It's hard."

I thought of Eli's recent questions: How are the new people integrating? Who is BJ closest to these days? And I answered about my new housemates but couldn't speak as to who BJ socializes with most, perhaps because he is protecting himself from socializing too much with anyone.

Resistance to social codependency does not produce a bad housemate. BJ is the opposite: a respectful listener and thoughtful friend to us all.

But there is a reason that Ed moved out before this year's major turnover, which would have marked his fourth shift in majority of housemates. There is a reason there are tensions and stresses as everyone defines their space and fits her lifestyle into the people puzzle of quirks, neuroses, and strengths. In this plaid pattern of personalities, it takes time and some awkward moments, to achieve balance... and balance then tips as we watch someone drive away and hang our next welcome sign.

We are relatively high turnover co-op. Whether we're deciding the relative worth of community service legacy, or determining how to respond to an imposing request of a new member, the questions are fated to be asked but never easily answered. Collective memory being so short term means we lose grasp of answers forged before us, but at least each generation gets an opportunity to try and hammer it out ourselves. This is the beautiful, brave, chaotic co-op spirit.

rock stars

Eli: BJ is a rock star because he looks good.

April: I believe the words you're searching for are "striking good looks."

(BJ looks overwhelmingly confused.)

April: (fawning) So if that's the standard, tell me Eli why do you conclude I am a rock star?

Megan: Heroin chic...?

(pause. i acknowledge i set myself up.)

Eli: Congratulations Megan. That was one of the few times that you successfully balanced humour with meanness.

first impressions

When Cat told her mother back in merry old England that she was seeing someone in Chicago, namely our housemate BJ, her mother was quiet for a minute.

Finally, she spoke.

"Does... does it mean the same thing over there?"

BJ's Story (the Solemn Georgia Truth)

narrated in a gentle southern accent

I have a friend who's a med student. Once he was performing a check up on a large woman with sizeable and pendulous breasts. He needed to hear her heartbeat so he said kindly, "Ma'am, I'm gonna listen to your heart with my stethoscope. I just need you to lift up your breast for me."

So she did, and as he went to press his stethoscope to her chest, he noticed, stuck beneath her breast, was a slice of bread.

Naturally he wasn't sure what to say, so he went about his business as if the bread weren't there for a second before suggesting perhaps he could hear better from the other side.

Relieved as she let down one breast and lifted the other, he reached down -- only to find ANOTHER slice of bread slapped to the skin beneath the second breast.

At this point, he couldn't ignore the situation.

So he goes,"Eh hem, Ma'am, are you aware that there are... pieces of bread beneath your breasts?"

And she explanatorily exclaimed, "Child, you know I be sweatin!"