My House

I turned 26 years old over the weekend and I still live in a house with 4 other guys. And in no way is that depressing.

Here's a thumbnail sketch of each of my roommates:

Jeff G. - Med student, swam at Iowa St. Doesn't have a defined "type" of girl, considering he dated a nineteen year old stripper and a thirty eight year old mother of three within a week of each other.

Jeff M. - Friend from Rice. Started his own real estate company out of our house. Will have no recollection of the night if he has more than a drink and a half. Has had a healthy, fuctional fuck buddy relationship with MMM for over a year and a half. That would be most impressive if I wasn't lying about the "healthy, functional" part.

Blake - Med student, friend from Rice. Quite possibly the nicest guy I know when sober, but a truly horrible (yet very funny) person when drunk. Is dating Jennifer, who I also dated and is the sister of our good friend Kevin, who is roommates with Blake's brother Reid. Incestuous and confusing? You don't know the half of it.

Dave - Med student, but I'll let him tell you about himself in his own words. There are too many gems in there to count, but I think my favorite part is where he claims to be 5'10.

Me - Law school dropout (twice!!) turned professional poker player. Doesn't that just sound better than unemployed?

We are all pretty loyal to each other, but that doesn't mean that we trust each other at all. If you get black out drunk, you will wake up with writing all over your body (Blake apparently loves man chowder), a cast on your right arm (me), or photographic evidence of testicles on your forehead (basically everybody). If you go out of town, your furniture will be rearranged or someone will inevitably hook up on your bed. And with girls...just forget it. Whenever one of my roommates brings a girl home, she will inevitably be ushered immediately out of the common area and into the bedroom. Sure, part of the reason for this is obvious, but I think the primary reason is altruistic. No reason to offend

Even if you have never been to Houston before or never met any of my roommates, I bet that you can picture what my house looks like. Dishes piled up in the sink...check. Pizza boxes, mail, and beer bottles cluttering the living room...yep. A lawn that could swallow up a small child...uh huh. We even made up a house chore list, but that only serves to make us feel less guilty about ignoring the jobs that are assigned to others.

As a house, though, we didn't reached our lowest point until last week. Our evil landlady dropped by unannounced on Sunday and was aghast at the number of plants we had managed to kill while still managing to nourish our yard's numerous weeds. To help correct the problem...and to accomplish her alternate goal of making us feel like horrible people...she hired a young parapalegic to come over and take care of our lawn for us. So five active, twentysomething guys now have a high school boy mowing their lawn so he can raise money to play wheelchair sports. Hey, better him than me...

Welcome!!

I'd like to welcome all of you to my newest writing experiment. My old column (www.geocities.com/glenng79) isn't exactly dead, but let's just say that Thomas Ian Nicholas's career is healthier. It was fun while it lasted, but I just think that it outlived it's usefulness.

You see, three years ago all of my friends were basically in the same boat. We were just out of college (or just finishing up), were all single, and were more or less directionless, despite what we said in our job or grad school interviews. Today, things are very different. I have friends who are practicing law, friends who are starting there own companies, and friends who have replace the "Mr." or "Ms." in front of their name with the title "Dr.". It seems like I can't even check my email anymore without learning that someone else got engaged. Some of my best friends from high school already have multiple children! And yet, here I am, roughly in the same place that I was three years ago.

I still love writing a column, but I don't think my perspective is as representative of the group any more. With that in mind, I have recruited a few of my friends to help co-write this new blog with me. I don't know how often anyone will post or on what topics, but I think this new forum should be a lot of fun. In addition to the line-up of writers, anyone is welcome to add to the comments section or to email me a guest column. Also, check out the new "Ten Songs" list on the right side of the blog. You can now click on a link and be redirected to a site where you can hear the song. This will be a continuing feature, with different writers contributing their song lists.

I hope you all enjoy...I can't wait to get started!