Thus spoke residustra
“That’s the difference between you and me Morty. I never go back to the carpet store.”
Some years ago, when I was young and could wake up before noon, I lived in Grad House with three magnificent suitemates. We made dinner, had drinks, and didn’t clean the kitchen in that wondrous concrete bunker, as we wrote our papers and wondered about where we’d all be in the years to come.
Despite the possibilities that nature and youth had held out to me, I became nocturnal that winter—waking up shortly after sundown to write my essays to the tune of the recently released My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. By the dim light of the GH-provided lamp, Perrier bottles scattered around my feet, I would think about Thucydides and how cruel and weightless our lives can be. I was always cheerful with friends.
Nietzsche loved Thucydides as the antidote to Platonism and, of course, introduced us to the preacher of the eternal return of the same. The idea, so far as I can understand, (and that is not well) is that one should live so that one could will doing exactly the same thing again, over and over, eternally. I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I crossed the street from Grad House to the Athletic Center sometime back in August and it seemed like I was living in two different times.
I love Grad House. I love the convenience of its location, and I find the concrete walls comforting. I chuckle at the idea that I have to leave Plato’s Cave every weekday to learn about the law. I am sustained by the Second Cup located downstairs, and Daddyo’s Pasta & Salads is my favourite restaurant in Toronto—an opinion I will defend with the detail of a first-year contracts class. I’m not even that vexed by the twin bed.
I love Grad House. But I am moving out.
Just before I moved back to Toronto, my mom said something horrifying to me. We were having a glass of wine, speaking of this and that, when she suddenly paused, looked at me with great intent, and said: “It will be interesting to see if Peter Pan can find his way out of Neverland.” It will be interesting. Not, “It will be good that…” It will be interesting.
I love Grad House but cannot will its eternal return.
Author’s conversation with his former roommate. 
Author’s conversation with his former roommate.
