this university has never been accused of being aesthetically pleasing. hard to do, anyway, located in a big city. but now, they have sunk to new depths.

first, some background: there are 3 identical high rise dorms on campus, creatively named "the high rises." til recently, they were individually called high rise north, high rise south, and high rise east (HRN, HRS, HRE, respectively). couple of years ago, they renamed them harnwell, harrison, and hamilton, and mandated, academie fran�aise style, that only the new names are to be used. this, of course, makes it nearly impossible to keep them straight.

last year the university started to remodel the high rises, one at a time. they started with HRN, and are currently doing HRS, moving on to HRE next year, one presumes. this is what all three buildings used to look like: tall tan concrete structures with dark brown windows. boring..

in a surprisingly pleasing move, the university put a green wash on the front part of HRN, and installed new green windows. the effect is rather lovely. when, last summer, they painted the front of HRS with a purple wash, i was nearly giddy. brilliant! have the 3 dorms be DIFFERENT COLORS! we can all call them by color names (the green one, the purple one) instead of those ridiculous 'h' names! i love it!

you know there's a catch.

the beautiful purple-washed HRS? they are currently installing GREEN windows in it.

i know, i know. in the scheme of things, having to refer to it as the "purple one with green windows" is not that big a deal. but it would have been so ELEGANT to have a purple building with lavander windows. sigh... all last summer, after they painted it purple, i was eagerly anticipating what the color of HRE would be. would it be red? orange? blue? oh! the possibilities! now, i just want it to be over with. the effect is ruined. the joy is gone.

part of the club

01 July 2004 - 3:07 pm

oh fer fuck's sake. this is what i get for living in the city. is it not enough that i have had my car broken into um, hang on lemme count, 5 times since living here? the last time having my trunk crow-barred open and my cd-changer stolen? apparently it is not enough. i have now been inducted into the A Crack Whore Stole My License Plate Club, meetings held monthly at your local auto tag shop, please bring an appetizer or dessert.

for those not in the know, drug addicts steal the stickers (well, the whole plate or part of the plate to steam the stickers off later) and sell them for $5-10 drug money to bums who can't be bothered to put up and get their own registration/insurance from the city. now, i feel the pain, y'all. insurance on my 198-fucking-7 honda accord is $1500/year. car's only WORTH $1000. but put the fuck out. step the fuck up. get it the fuck together. fucking crack addicts. fucking illegal drivers.