What it means to live in the basement...

Pangloss, you are correct. I do live in a basement. What is more, I live in my parent's basement. I took control of an unused room, neglected my former chambers upstairs and took root. I have not unpacked many of my belongings because to do so would be to admit residency. It is one thing to stay at my parent's house while I endure an interim of purposeless unemployment. It is an entirely different thing to live with them after I have graduated. There is a semantic difference between saying I live "in my parents' house" and "with my parents." The former describes an unfortunate but transitory state. The latter is as firm as a granite tombstone. And reflecting on that thought, I have another: I now hold semantic differences between descriptions of my residence to be of the utmost importance. When the ship sank, I never thought I'd find such flimsy flotsam.

But there is an upside to living in the basement. For instance, I am left to myself, except when there are activities in which everyone living here is expected to participate. The furniture is a little rudimentary (my desk is a card table and my headboard has collapsed), but I have internet access and cable television. My parents rarely come to visit and know that if they need to talk to me, they probably should just call. I can't have girls stay the night because there are rules about overnight guests and I get in trouble if I drink in my room, but then again, it's pretty unlikely I'll get busted. Besides, if they caught me, it would only be the first time. What could they really do? After all, I had the exact same situation as a college freshman -- Oh, wait.

Four years away from home and an education worth more than I may ever make in one year, but I still feel like I'm 18 years old.

The decision to move into the basement was based on the idea that if I went back to the room I had when I was in high school, it might feel like a regression. The basement was new territory. Now I feel like it is more of an exercise in stereotyping. I sleep a lot and drink a lot and spend countless hours watching television. I tell myself I will read a good book or start a novel or make it to the gym, but then again, there is so much to see on the internet and Lifetime has a Frasier marathon playing all day. I think that being at home, no matter where you live in the house, is bound to feel like a regression.