Senior journalism major Ellen Fishel is a typical college student — except she lives with five boys.
“The 12th of the month is Pink Floyd Day.”
This message, scrawled in pink highlighter on scrap paper, has been taped to the fridge for as long as I can remember. The activities of the day are pretty self explanatory and not very monumental: We listen to Pink Floyd.
But what’s most special about Pink Floyd day is how indicative it is of the house as a whole.
It’s hard to imagine now, but believe it or not, there was a period of time in which all the housemates were not super close. We got along fine as roommates, but didn’t ever do much all together.
But some time around October of last year this gradually started to change. And in those new buds of friendship, Pink Floyd Day was born. We’ve attempted to create other holidays since — the 14th of the month was once drunkenly declared wine in a can day, whatever that means — but Pink Floyd Day has somehow managed to stick.
The nature of the holiday is appropriate, since music seems to dominate the day-to-day house life. Musical instruments are known to often outnumber people in a room at any given time, and guitars usually occupy half the seats on the couch.
Ryan restores old pianos, Mark has an electric violin and Garrett is the resident jazz guitar major/prodigy, creating a trifecta that brings with it everything from your classic drum set to oboes and mandolins.
And they all have friends who love to come over and “jam” in the basement. Before you feel bad for poor me listening to crashing cymbals while painstakingly trying to write this blog, they actually sound really great. I like to think of it as my own personal live band serenading me throughout the day.
That doesn’t mean, however, there hasn’t been some music-related tension. We once got a noise violation in the middle of the afternoon. And Garrett, Mark and Ryan’s new band, Supermoon, has had some early morning band practices that didn’t exactly thrill the rest of the housemates (promotional plug: you should check them out; they’re awesome and I’m only a little bit biased).
So when you really look at it, Pink Floyd Day has grown to represent a lot for us. I don’t ever find myself looking forward to it. In fact, it usually sneaks up on me. But every month, somewhere between all our busy schedules, it serves its purpose: To make us stop for a second and acknowledge the holiday together.
Tomorrow, feel free to join in the festivities: Listen to “Dark Side of the Moon,” maybe watch “The Wall,” and have a happy Pink Floyd Day.
