Changes in Kathyland. Change can be good or bad or unexpected, but change is always inevitable.
Quinn and Kevin moved out last night.
Back in June I had offered housing for up to 3 staffers for the Jim Stork for Congress campaign. When Jim Stork dropped out of his Congressional race for health reasons, all 3 of my roomies were left without jobs. Quinn and Kevin eventually signed up with the Minimum Wage Initiative. And for the last two weeks they have been working hard while on the road trying to raise awareness of this very important initiative. They were supposed to finish their road trip yesterday, but plans changed and the tour has been extended until 2 Nov. They're scheduled to be in Jacksonville on 2 Nov and have promised to make one more trip down to Boca to say goodbye and take me out to dinner on 3 Nov. Given the extension of their road trip, they decided it was best to move out yesterday. So they did.
(My 3rd roomie Jacob is working with Kerry and is about to accept, if he hasn’t already, a permanent job with my current company once Kerry wins the White house on 2 Nov. He will be the roommate that came for a campaign and stayed for a career...and for Giselle!)
It was a bit of a shock when I got home from the Kerry rally yesterday to go upstairs and see that Quinn's room (formerly known as my Cape Cod guest room) was neat as a pin. NEAT! I almost fell over. And I could quote John Dolon right about now and say 'I kid, I kid'...but that would be a lie. Quinn is a neat guy but he is not neat. Quinn moves and thinks and eats and breathes 1000 miles an hour. He goes from zero to full bore in a nanosecond. He works until you think he can't stay awake anymore then he'll put in another 12 hours without batting an eye. Quinn has fallen asleep in the shower on several occasions (from what he's told me)...he pushes himself more than anyone I know.
Quinn was my first roommate since my college days. Was definitely an eye-opening and learning experience...for both of us. He turned me on to tons of new music, new political ideas, way cool stories of life in New York, and he wired all of our different laptops (my iBook) and the other 3 Dell's in the house.
He learned what it is like to live with someone who is an uber-anal-neat-freak (um, that would be me), he experienced his first ever 2 hurricanes, and he got to enjoy some really really killer parties that he’s said he’ll remember for the rest of his life...from what he can remember. And he makes a really good drunk pirate...you gotta trust me on that one.
Kevin moved in about a month after Quinn. Kevin and Quinn went to college together and I had originally met Kevin the same night I met Quinn for the first time. So while I had already officially met Kevin, the next time I saw him again was downstairs in his new ‘room’ - my library- standing there in his boxers. Not something I was used to seeing while eating my Cheerios, but it’s all about being open-minded and to be expected with male roomies.
Kevin is very quiet, very sweet and very kind...and has an absolutely KILLER voice. During one of our subsequent parties (we seemed to have a lot of parties) he broke out his guitar and had us spellbound with his music. Kevin had the least amount of privacy of all the roommates and was never rude or mean or the least bit territorial about having to put up with me staying up late to watch my 2nd Daily Show of the night or with having a ton of rowdy party-ers that wanted to play spin-the-bottle (and all the other things I promised I would never blog about) while all Kevin would want to do was fall asleep...but couldn’t because the living room, dining room and library all blend together and it’s really hard to sleep when you have 7 other people jumping on your bed trying to get you to stay awake.
(Doesn’t this make all of you want to quit your jobs and be campaign staffers??)
Of course, not everything went perfectly and there were some misunderstandings along the way. But you work them out and forgive and forget and know that ultimately we are all on the same side...doing what we need to do to get candidates, issues and messages out there, among the masses.
We did it for change. We had a lot of fun. Memories I’ll never forget for the rest of my life. They’ll never think of Hurricanes the same way again. Hopefully the work they’ve done for change will result in positive change for the good of our country. And hopefully they’ll remember that they’re always welcome back!
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