adrenaline

Here are two stories in my life that got the blood pumping a bit:

1) Yesterday I drove a car in downtown Chicago during rush hour. Now, this is a situation i have been avoiding anyways because traffic is always crazy busy around the area i work but yesterday's experience got the blood pumping even more because a) Obama and McCain were having a meeting in the building across the street from me meaning several lanes of traffic were blocked off for security reasons, b) this was the second time i have driven in five months, the first time being an easy trip to Grinnell, c) it was a rental car. Ahhh! But i survived, I only drove about six or seven blocks to pick up the car for my boss but as soon as I had picked her up i made her drive.

2) Last weekend, i got into a fight with my roommate. So one of my roommates is not my favorite person. One time she told me that she thought i had gained weight since moving to Chicago, another time she shushed me and some friends, but for the most part, we just don't talk. We all stay in our rooms and rarely interact. Once we needed to turn the heat on for the season, this roommate decided that she wanted the thermostat set at 72 because she said she is "very susceptible to colds". I told her that 67 would be fine and cheaper, but she insisted and offered to pay the difference between heating at 72 and 67. Fine, whatever.

Fast forward to this weekend, when our first gas bill of the winter arrives. When we were discussing the bill she suddenly forgot about her offer to pay a higher share of the bill and instead tried to twist the argument to make it seem like i was a bad roommate for not realizing that when people live together they split costs. She was doing a really good job of adding extra facts into the discussion to try and get away from her previous statements, at least that is my point of view of what happened. She mentioned several pointless, incorrect and at times condescending things like how the furnace is old, how the people down stairs have to pay a lot more (so what?), that setting the thermostat at 72 is normal (ummm, no), and that she could pay the whole bill if she wanted to (good for you).

Although i did not win the argument and ended up paying an equal share, there were some concessions made. We are going to start setting the temp down during the day and at night. She is also going to be on vacation for two weeks and i think during that time we will be doing a test run to see if 72 degrees is really necessary, as she claimed. And finally, this is just one more thing on the list of things i have been somewhat unsatisfied with about my living situation and may bring me one step closer to moving out sooner rather than later.