Free I Totally Meant to Do That by Jane Borden Page A

new Volkswagen Jetta, at the top of Pikes Peak on a hiking trip. Her suntanned face smiles back, unfazed and unaware, like the mentally challenged kid in school who interprets your mocking as friendship.
    Standing against the wall of that Brooklyn apartment—smiling, posing, pretending—I wondered what my three adjectives would be.
    a pair of sunglasses, I found my new home in the last place I looked. Again, I thought of Rush, during which each girl is assigned a counselor at the start of the week. The counselors are all in sororities, but remain anonymous so as not to sway the decision-making processes of those in their herd. Therefore, they are absolved of all duties within their own sororities. There are two ways one becomes a counselor. Either she requests the position because she is an enlightened woman who’s already realized that Rush is insipid. Or she is nominated for the position by her house’s Rush chair because she is deemed an embarrassment to the house. Perhaps she is geeky. Or overweight. Or has cankles.
    When I was a freshman, my counselor said to our group, at least a dozen times, that we didn’t need to worry about how to choose ahouse because as soon as we walked inside the right one, we’d know it. It would speak to us.
    This is categorically false. Sorority houses can’t speak to anyone in particular because they have no individuality. At best, they’re amalgamations of hundreds of women, and, at worst, creations of their national business offices. In effect, they all kind of feel the same—synthetic and affected. Therefore, anyone who claims to feel an instant bond either is lying or will end up working for Corporate.
    So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that what isn’t true for sororities is on the nose for apartments. A New Yorker’s home speaks volumes. The four-story walk-up littered with incense sticks hinted that my potential roommate didn’t like to clean. The two-bedroom with sheets and blankets taped over its windows told me that its resident was either depressed or a vampire. And the inch of mold growing in the corner of the three dudes’ shower mocked me for having considered that a man under the age of thirty would take responsibility for anything, ever.
    Then, in the three-bedroom, third-floor walk-up in north Greenpoint, I knew. Real-estate lightning struck. When Mary met me at the door, I thought,
I like her dress. And her hair
. Then I realized that she looked exactly like me. So at the same time I found a home, I also discovered that I’m narcissistic. The place was clean, cheap, and not too far from my office. And then, without taking a photo, offering me nachos, or stealing an inquisitive glance at the girth of my ankles, she offered me the room. I said yes, realizing that this time around I wouldn’t be forced to chug a bottle of Boone’s Farm the night I moved in. I know; I was disappointed too.

strains relationships. During long journeys through foreign country, animosities brew and small disagreements flare into full-fledged fisticuffs. And ours had been a long and taxing journey indeed: We’d been on Staten Island for three hours.
    My friend Morgan organized the trip as a destination birthday party. She called it “an exploration” and posted a call for crew members over Evite. The first item on the itinerary, after we were to arrive on the island: “6:30 p.m.: Drop anchor and plant flags in new territory. Commence conquering of natives.”
    She promised to provide streamers and tissues for our loved ones during the bon voyage “from the Manhattan port of call.” She told us not to worry about communication as her friend Annemariespoke “Islandese.” She explained that we wouldn’t come home until we’d concluded “the spreading of smallpox.”
    Like proper pirates, we prepared for our work by drinking. Blessedly, the Staten Island Ferry sells beer. Unless you’re a commuter, and sometimes if you are, boozing is the paramount reason to