Good News, Bad News

Good news. (In response to Brianna's question below). I've found a liveable living situation up at University of Michigan. At first I was feeling all progressive and independent, and looking at rooms in co-ed apartments. That soon stopped. One situation was a one-bedroom apartment I would be sharing with two foreign guys. Not a huge problem, except they would be setting up camp in the living room! The other place I looked at was one of those old, run-down college houses with six other people. There was no parking, the house smelled like the four cats that lived there, and my room was a cement block cell in an unfinished basement--cost $300 plus utilities.

I was desperate when I got to the last place. Lucretia was a mother studying opera whose husband was going to Seattle to study law, so she was offering me reduced rent in return for watching her little boy. The apartment is in the campus family housing. It is predictably drab on the outside, but it is much quieter, cleaner, and roomier than the other places I looked. I have a room with a window looking out on the communal garden and hardwood floors. There is a basement as well as a living room, my own parking spot, laundry privileges, and hi-speed wireless internet. What else could a girl want? My grandparents are giving me furniture. I will transplant my aloe, peppermint and oregano into pots, frame my prints from the Getty, buy a rag rug, and everything will be perfect! Right? I will probably take the bus (free to students) down to Central Campus, which is beautiful but a parking nightmare.

Ann Arbor is really a great town--lots of diversity, health food stores, museums, and ethnic restaurants. It's almost like being on the East Coast again. People should come visit me.

The bad news is that my little cousin, Mikey, from Wisconsin, was killed by a train today. He never developed a sense of danger--he was fishing off a railroad bridge with two friends when the train came. They ran away, but he forgot his pole and went back for it. The train knocked him off the bridge and, probably unconscious, he was beyond saving when they recovered him 30 minutes later. We weren't close, but I feel bad for my dad's family right now. My grandma is also dying of lung cancer.