noisewhere

somewhere for the noise to go

#02

move-in

Fourth floor, no elevator. The window faces the parking garage, and at night its sodium lights bleed through the blinds and turn the whole room the color of an old bruise. Orange, mostly. Sometimes closer to rust.

I asked for a single this year. The housing form had a box marked "reason" and I left it blank. It's a narrow room, a bed, a desk, a radiator that knocks, and a door that locks. That's all I wanted.

The desk is the only thing in here I like. Someone carved initials into the corner, and a year beneath them: 1987. I keep running my thumb over the grooves while I read. I think about whoever sat here almost forty years ago, hating the same hours of the night in the same chair, and I wonder where they ended up. Whether anyone remembers them. Whether they'd be glad to know a stranger does.

That's a morbid thought for a move-in post. Welcome to the blog.

#01

ok fine, a blog

My academic advisor thinks I should write things down. She said it the way doctors say "let's run a few more tests". Writing helps, apparently. It gives the noise somewhere to go.

So here it is. I'm a comp sci major, so naturally, instead of writing anything down, I spent the whole weekend building somewhere to write it. No blogging site, no template, nothing with my real name on it. A small database, one stylesheet, and me. Somewhere for the noise to go.

I don't expect anyone to read this. There's something freeing about that, talking into an empty room and knowing the room won't talk back. Mostly I'll write about whatever keeps me up. I don't sleep much. I never have. I lie there listening to the building settle while the same three thoughts go around and around, and by morning I've had each of them a thousand times. Maybe if they're written down somewhere they'll stop circling.

I'd say I'll write about family too, but there isn't much left of it. My parents have been gone a long time. What remains is an uncle I haven't spoken to in years, a man who folded himself away from the rest of us so slowly that nobody noticed when he was finally gone. Not dead. Just gone.

I'm calling it noisewhere. Somewhere for the noise to go, said all at once, the way it comes out at three in the morning when you can't be bothered with the extra words.

Anyway. Hello, nobody.