During my junior and senior years of college, I lived in a house on St. John's Avenue in Binghamton, NY. My first off-campus home gave me independence, freedom, and a total disregard for safety. The floor was both slanted and enchanted; if you placed a ball on one end of our dining room, it would roll, unassisted, to the other. Not that this was a problem, since we had no actual furniture in the space. Instead, it served as a Nerf basketball arena. The house also came with an unexpected bonus tenant — a woman who lived in the basement. Who was she? Where did she come from? Why did ambulances show up at all hours? No one knew, and we asked no questions. At some point, we thought it was a great idea to set up a Smoky Joe grill on the back porch, which was made of what could only be described as highly flammable kindling. One stray ember, and we would've been a cautionary tale. So stupid. Despite it all, we were a surprisingly neat group. The house may have been falling apart, but somehow, we kept it together. Would I do it again? Absolutely not. Do I regret it? Not at all.
One of the best perks of living there was the 15-minute walk to Music City, the best record store in the Southern Tier. The manager would sell us new releases a day or two before their official release date, which was such a win. The best example was getting my hands on Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness early. I bought a lot of CDs at that store during what was musically one of the most formative periods of my life.