To Be a Bungahoe — BRAIN TABS

An entry I wrote in my journal on August 14th, 2020:

“My first apartment!

I recently moved into my first apartment the other day and I am pumped to say the least. We threw our first party the other night and let’s just say, eating strictly trail mix for dinner, coming off of wisdom teeth surgery, and mixing liquors, is a combo that will never work out in your favor…

Kayla, Julia, Alyssa, and Adia, my roommates, are very girly, basing off of first impressions.

I come from a family of five brothers, and one tomboy step sister.

Being around such feminine figures and five different hormone cycles is not something I’m used to.

So I guess we’ll see how these next 10 months go.

Nonetheless, I know we’ll keep it fun”

And boy did we keep it fun.

But also revealing, chaotic, sappy, annoying, and most importantly memorable.

Yeah, my second year of college in the Bungalow was definitely one to remember.

Accidentally throwing a rager on Halloween

Pulling Julia’s mattress into the living room and watching the Bachelorette

Leaving love notes for our neighbors

The initial love note to the boys across the street

There’s a lot of things they don’t tell you about learning to live with four other college girls.

And I think a lot of the unsaid just simply comes with experience and realizing as you go.

An experience that is extremely beneficial especially in such developing stages of our lives.

10 months ago I was a different person, each of us were.

This lease agreement brought forth lots of growth for all of us.

I learned that parmesan cheese in the fridge is a controversy

That wood floors get really dirty, really fast

And even when you put “please deliver to doorstep” in the notes section of the amazon delivery service, they probably still won’t

You learn a whole lot about being selfless

Giving up your shared bedroom to sleep on the couch so your roommate can have herself a fun night,

Driving to pick them up from a party even when you’re already tucked under your covers,

Moving your car to the street so they can come back to a guaranteed parking spot after a long day.

I can’t say we were all bright eyed and bushy tailed 24/7, and with that comes being a shoulder to cry on when they come home from work or a bad night out with some boy.

You see a completely different side to them that typical friends don’t get to witness,

Their morning routines,

Adia leaving five minutes before an early morning event, slamming cupboards, and frantically trying to print something she should’ve printed the day before

Kayla waking up with God knows what substance in her hair, eating pasta for breakfast, drowning in a giant t-shirt

Their night routines,

Julia falling asleep anywhere but her bed, with the same Tik Tok audio playing on repeat, 3 inches from her face

Alyssa, drinking coffee, getting ready to start her day at 8pm, leaving the house in outfits that the neighbors probably associate with a gentlemen’s club but really it’s just for a Wiz Khalifa music video

Living with roommates in college is so weird when you think about it,

I had never talked to Julia in person before signing a 10 month long lease where I would sleep a foot away from her every night

And the only time I had talked to Kayla before agreeing to live with her was when I dmed her on instagram asking her what she was wearing to the “Around the World” themed frat party our freshman year…

And now I get to listen to her extremely detailed IBS stories

Ah, growth.

Essentially, it’s five different households coming together, clashing and collaborating as one

Teaching each other how to parallel park and how to cook chicken with Adobo seasoning.

Some of us leave the windows wide open when we’re having a wardrobe change, some don’t,

Some of us can’t open a jar of tomato sauce, some of us can,

Some of us didn’t want a cat, some of us did,

Some minuscule situations can become extremely frustrating.

Finding compromise in every little thing and getting used to the fact that each of us grew up under very different roofs, with extremely contrasting norms.

We grow up so used to how our parents raised us, creating habits for ourselves, good and bad, and then we are sent to college where we realize that not everyone puts bowls on the top shelf of the dishwasher

But despite these small disagreements and passive aggressive sticky notes left when someone leaves a dirty pan in the sink for 3 days,

Our 1300 square feet of space was a place that we called “home” for the past 10 months

The Bungalow was a place I could always come home to with a great sense of security, not necessarily physical although we do have tasers and tactical pens hidden throughout our apartment… but mentally

A place where I could rant about anything and at least one would be there for me. Whether it’s about recurring boy problems or why the Huntington Beach mom yelled at me for giving her too much almond butter, there was always something I needed to get off my chest and always a judgement free, listening ear.

There’s definitely things that bug me about each of my roommates and I’m positive that there’s things I do that irritate them as well but in the end, we always seemed to come back around.

And if it’s authentic, no matter what they do or how many times they put the sink on shower mode or leave the brita with 3 drops of water in it, you can only stay mad at them for so long.

Alyssa doesn’t replace the toilet paper roll but she’s always down to make spontaneous, life lasting tattoo decisions with me, and drive to LA for only a cup of coffee

Kayla leaves jars of piss on the top of your car but she also gives the best advice and will always send you new songs to listen to

Julia doesn’t wake up to her 8 different set alarms but she always goes above and beyond to make sure each roommate feels loved on their birthday

Adia barks a lot of orders but she also plans all the group events and celebrates the small things like new recipes for dinner

Together we’ve raised a reckless orange kitty, scraped pumpkin guts off our terrace, Truly residue off our TV, and a flopping beta fish off our kitchen floor.

The aftermath of pumpkin carving with Pent

A neglected beta fish we dropped on the floor but then saved

We’ve fought over a parking spot, screamed Pink! songs in our living room, and evil eyed the red vest guy across the street that’s probably harmless but also extremely sus

4 out of 5 of us got our car towed, 3 out of 5 of us got hit on while grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s, 2 out of 5 of us took pregnancy tests, and 1 out of 5 of us sh*t their pants and got chlamydia

Like I said, it’s been a very revealing 10 months

And throughout this lease we’ve built immense trust, but also completely diminished it a couple times

Countless mistakes were made, however, each one came with a different life lesson

Don’t leave your bread unoccupied while it sits in a very powerful toaster oven

Do talk your issues out with rubber sharks on your hands

Don’t lie about your covid test results

Do watch Frenemies Youtube videos together

Don’t steal printer ink

Do buy all your furniture from Facebook marketplace

Living with your friends forces lots of trust and lots of boundaries

Trusting them to not eat your food or use their bamboo hairbrush without asking

Why some roommates share their location with each other and why some don’t

You start to trust them with some of your biggest secrets and letting them in on your deeply rooted family trauma

Some of my favorite moments happened after hours when we sat at the dining room table under the last working light bulb and talked about how we wanted the rest of our lives to pan out

(If Julia’s marriage proposal doesn’t include a hot air balloon she will be contently declining)

Julia’s slide from our Marriage Requirements Slideshow

Or when we would come back after a night out and scramble to make pasta as fast as we could

(Always underestimate how much you’ll actually eat)

You don’t realize how much you grow in ten months until you look back on film pictures from the beginning of the year and forget Alyssa had bangs

Transitioning out of our teens and into our twenties alongside each other, noticing how every little decision we make leads to our overall development

How Kayla’s part-time job at a gymnasium in the beginning of the year turned into a full blown lawsuit by the end of the year

How my decision to make a blog and encouragement from all my roommates to do so in the beginning of the year lead to a minor in journalism and now getting paid to write a blog for a bathing suit company

It’s slightly similar to parents watching their children grow up but instead we’re all the same age and we’re all wondering why our water bill is so damn high

How our beginning of the year aspirations turn into our realities with Julia working as a physical therapist, Adia setting up arrangements for real weddings, and Alyssa being told she’s killing it by Ariana Grande’s choreographers

We had so many themed parties

So many living room slumbers

So many breakdowns

And since we’re most likely not getting our security deposit back, I can afford to say there’s too much clay stuck to our terrace, too many holes in our walls and window screens, some caused by push pins, some by Felix, and one by a careless frat boy.

The cat pooped on our floor a couple times, there’s so much alcohol soaked in our couch, and the cooler on our balcony has leftover milk and eggs in it from our trip to Zion 3 months ago.

There’s pink hair dye on our bathroom wall, green paint in our carpet, and one of our toilet seat covers is cracked.

The hair in our shower drain is enough to donate to Locks of Love, the cover to our window broke when someone tried jumping out of it one night, and the extension cord in our living room nearly caught this entire building on fire because a glass of lemonade spilled over it.

Apartment 296, you’ve been so patient with us.

You’ve been introduced to many one night stands, heard screaming matches, and watched us shmooze the security guards with eyes half open and a puff in one hand.

The dumpsters behind you get taken out on Monday mornings so make sure you shut your window the night before or else you’ll wake up to the ridiculously loud garbage truck at the crack of dawn and slam your window closed on your apple pencil, crushing the tip.

Street sweeping is on Thursdays and Fridays from 1:30-3:30pm so set an alarm that reminds you to move your car or otherwise collect up to $500 in parking ticket fees

You can park in the alley for a little until you receive one too many threats about being too close to someone’s garage

Always check to see if the security guard is nearby before you start telling about your time with your boyfriend last night

Introduce yourself to your neighbors so they bring you house-warming blunts and won’t send noise complaints on your birthday

Give your weekend party recycling to the guy that comes around after Sundays to dig through the trash bins out back

Invest in melatonin gummies, an air fryer, and a bouquet of flowers every now and then.

Use the emoji rule when you feel unsafe, split your fridge into sections per roommate, know if your walking distance liquor store checks ID

Every adult has a “first apartment story,” but The Bungalow made it to where I have numerous

The walks back and forth to the penthouse, the secret admirer flowers, the avocado smeared in our bath towels

The shredded polaroid picture in our garbage disposal, the giant plant the boys stole and gifted us from the showroom apartment, the trips to CVS at ungodly hours to pick up very questionable items

Driving all the way to sonic to ask if they can substitute using almond milk, locking Felix outside your bedroom so that you don’t have to hear him run through your blinds in your dreams, the smell of weed making it’s way through your window at 8 pm every night on the dot

Your decor consists of the Happy Birthday banner behind your couch that you’re too lazy to take down, the polaroids on the fridge of someone being choked out by a man with arm tattoos, and the circular mirror you secretly ripped off the wall at a party because it fits the aesthetic of your apartment better.

Saying peace to an apartment full of pleasant and unpleasant memories

To be a Bungahoe,

Listen to your body, remember that nothing is real, and everytime you say love you, mean it.

Hey there.

Jun 30 To Be a Bungahoe

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