The Stinky Cheese, Man

I found my "group" late in college. Initially I knew these people only peripherally. Then when I came back from studying abroad I needed a place to live, one of these people was going abroad herself, so I took her spot in an apartment. It was in a building called "Habitat Soo Zee" -- we just called it "The Habitat." The Habitat had become a strange place where lots of people would kind of wander in and out, but there were always the core Habitaters. We were almost all budding artists of some kind, partied like crazy, totally nerdy, and it was some of the best times of my life in that shitty apartment.

Senior year we all got a house together, 10 people. We tried to name it other things, but it ended up just being The Habitat. We had many big parties, and all (save one, thrown for the bitchy person we all hated by the end of our lease) were successful and fun. I never realized how many people even knew about The Habitat until after graduating and running into a USC professor at a book reading. A few of us from The Habitat were there, and mentioned how we lived in the house, and he knew it by name.

Needless to say, those were my "college glory days" or whathaveyou. I had never felt so connected with a group of people, all artists/writers/musicians, and we just had a great fucking time. Then we graduated. A few left, but a majority of us stayed in LA, a few of us lived together here and there. Then what I call "the great migration of 2008" happened, and almost everyone left, mainly to NYC and northern CA. I hadn't realized there were only two of us Habitat people left in LA until yesterday, when the other guy told me he was leaving. Today. Then, to top it off, he said, "you're the only one in LA now!"

So here I am. The last of the fucking Mohicans over here, late into the clan to boot. I guess the cheese stands alone.