Apparently this seems to be the case.
The main problem is that frankly, I don't get as much privacy as I used to. My free time is spent between hanging out with Soren and spending time with the girls on my floor. Dorm life suits me; idle time to my thoughts is down to a minimum. The only time I get to even think about the past is in my dreams, and those nightmares aren't anything new.
And -- well, there's a more practical purpose for not signing into my blog until now. In true college tradition, the girls on my floor (and the guys from their wing down the hall) have a tendency to play pranks and generally snoop around; they wouldn't hesitate to go into an open laptop to find an embarrassing photo or leave a stupid Facebook status, and in theory, a blog is the kind of thing that can be made fun of pretty easily. I've just never wanted to take that chance.
So I put it off. And then I put it off again. And again. And again. I'll update when I have something meaningful to say, I told myself. If something odd happens again or something goes wrong.
Now we're sitting near the end of semester, and thankfully, I haven't had anything that's forced me to come back. I take the chance of my own accord that the girls may stumble on this and find out my secret. The reason I stay up at night. If I'm careful, they'll still never know.
The dorm buildings at Miskatonic are coed, with the girls on one half of the complexes and boys on the other. The dorms themselves are designed like small apartments; three students to a dorm, a little kitchenette and a common room at the front and a bathroom and bedrooms to the back. It reminds me of the dorms that MICA had when I used to visit Violet there -- in fact, those were inspired by these.
On the bright side, the dorms are the trendsetters for the suite-style dormitory. They were built in the 1970s when the old dorms, traditionally styled, were torn down. On the not so bright side, it doesn't seem like they've been repaired, upgraded, or given any attention at all since that time.
My roommates and I are on the third floor of the five-story building, nestled between the crumbling foundation of the lower floors and the creaking, leaky roofs of the upper ones. In exchange for that small comfort, the heavens saw fit to rob us of a working heater. That was fine for a while, but now I'm getting a crash course in New England winters -- Penny, my roommate, who is Texan born and bred, is suffering the worst in the alien cold; for once, I count myself lucky to be from a place that bakes in the summer and freezes in the winter.
So we're saving up for some space heaters. I've gotten a weekend job at a local jewelry store. Between that and class, my time is pretty well kept in check.
I still call Violet every day, sometime before I settle into bed. She's doing online courses from MICA from the Gray Haven. Riley is still with her. Ava left before even I did, saying she needed to strike out on her own. Now the big Haven is empty, for the time being. But it's there, for when those who need it come calling.
Miskatonic is everything I dreamed of, in sometimes surprising ways. I guess I was expecting dark cherry wood benches and blackboards, since I was kind of surprised to find modern lecture halls of plastic and fabric, filled to the brim with the clicking laptops of students taking notes.
The one place that completely lived up to those antiquated expectations, though, was the library. Other than the computer room on the second floor, most of the Orne Library has remained in much the same condition and style that it has for much the past century or so. In 1942, a successful former student honored his Alma Mater by donating a statue of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer to the school, who situated it at one of the old tables as though he was at work. He stays in fairly good condition, staring at the bare table as though writing on a page.
I've spent a lot of time sitting across from Geoffrey in the library. I've always felt at home in old buildings, buildings that carry a lot of time with them -- if that makes sense. That might be why cathedrals always give me comfort. The library is open late, on some nights until midnight; when I had a few hours to myself, I'd sit and watch him. I guess that's where the title of this blog came from. I've never been very good with titles.
Soren Murphy was the first person I met here, other than my roommates. Unlike myself, Soren majors in musical theater, which means he's just like me, except louder and with broad flourishes. He's free and easy in his ways, and adorable in the way puppies are adorable; they don't try, they just are. At the same time, he also has a sense of the dramatic, and naturally, seeing me being even slightly introverted compared to the other Performing Arts students, decided that I needed his friendship, and eventually also that I was hiding a deep, dark secret.
He was right on all counts.
It's refreshing to have someone around who isn't paranoid or crazy. Someone who doesn't come from a family that hates each other. Soren is a Massachusetts native. His family, I've learned, is a typical New England household. His mom and dad are still married and love each other. He has a little brother and sister, who are twins. He went to Catholic school up through senior year and had to fight against his parents to not go to an equally Catholic college. His family is big and full of lawyers, and they had me over for fall break when I "couldn't make it" down to Maryland and my own family. Much to my surprise, they absolutely adore me.
Yesterday, Thanksgiving day, was when his family all gathered at his house. His cousin, bold as brass, walked up to me and shook my hand, in what must have been the sixty billionth introduction I'd been through during that day.
Naturally, the room got awfully quiet just in time for him to boom, "I'm Ryan. You're Soren's girlfriend, right?"
I froze. Soren said the look on my face was a combination of bewilderment and the terrified expression of one who has just pissed all over themselves in public without the excuse of being drunk (his phrasing, not mine). The sound that came out of my mouth wasn't quite words, nor was it a noise human beings typically make.
No sooner had I made it, however, than the entire room burst into roaring laughter. "No, I'm just Celie," I meeped, not even making the effort to be heard.
Unfortunately, bedtime is nigh for this evening. Now that I've broken the seal here, I won't hesitate to come back and write once I'm back at college and settled for the final stretch of the semester. I hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving.
I'm back. Stay safe.
