She Said/She Said
Jul 13th 2007
Karen HawkinsWhen Goddesses Fall To Earth
Suzanne Enoch and I room together every year at the Romance Writers of America Convention. This is our sixth year and every year, we have a blast. However, though we get along great, we’re very different people with very different habits.
This year, I thought it would be nice to give you our roomie report, but in a lovely She Said/She Said format. Here are both my and Suzanne’s take on Being Roomies . . . the good, the bad, and the ugly!
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SUZANNE ENOCH: Karen snored all night and the pillows were too thin to block out the sound.
KAREN HAWKINS: I couldn’t sleep a wink because the pillows were too fat and it made my neck hurt.
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SUZANNE ENOCH: Karen brought too many shoes. (Twenty-one pairs for four days.)
KAREN HAWKINS: Suzanne was in awe of my impeccable taste in footwear and kept staring in the closet in obvious envy.
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KAREN HAWKINS: Suzanne brought a schedule with a list of what she was going to wear to every event for each day.
SUZANNE ENOCH: Karen brought eight suitcases of clothes and then wore the same outfit two days in a row.
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SUZANNE ENOCH: I worked all day in between sessions.
KAREN HAWKINS: Suzanne got to level 48 in Bejeweled within six hours of our arrival. She was on level 141 by the final day.
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SUZANNE ENOCH: It was hot.
KAREN HAWKINS: It was hot.
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SUZANNE ENOCH: Karen stayed in the bathroom all of the time.
KAREN HAWKINS: Suzanne didn’t take a shower the entire time we were there.
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KAREN HAWKINS: Suzanne was the moderator for my session on How To Write Humor. She did a wonderful job and even offfered to get me pizza.
SUZANNE ENOCH: Karen tricked me into being the moderator for her session and made me fetch her pizza and beer.
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SUZANNE ENOCH: The Goddess Get Together was fun. Karen drank too much champagne.
KAREN HAWKINS: I was the life of the Goddess Get Together and toasted every one of my lovely goddess sisters repeatedly.
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SUZANNE ENOCH: It was hot.
KAREN HAWKINS: It was hot.
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KAREN HAWKINS: I found the hotel key card entry system to be tricky.
SUZANNE ENOCH: Karen kept getting off the elevator on the wrong floor and would then be shocked to discover her room key wouldn’t work on whatever door she attempted to open.
***
Have you ever roomed with someone and found out you didn’t have quite as much in common as you originally thought? Did they have any habits that drove you batty? Or was it fun, an adult version of a sleepover?
29 Comments »
29 Responses to “She Said/She Said”
ct009ct on 14 Jul 2007 at 12:18 am #
That was so funny, I can barely see the screen thru the tears!!!! What a wonderful sense of Humor!!!! LMAO!!!
ladydawgfan on 14 Jul 2007 at 12:48 am #
That was a hoot to read!! You two ladies are a real couple of goofballs, and I mean that in the best sense of the word!!! Now I see where the humor in your writing comes from.
As to roomies, when I was growing up, anytime we went on vacation, I had to share a bed with my sister. She kicked more in one night than an entire cast of Rockettes in a week of shows, and I have the permanently dented shins to prove it!!
In college, I had a roommate who liked to get up in the middle of the night and cook. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to sleep when the smells of Korean barbeque cooking are wafting throughout a 9′ X 13′ dorm room???
pri.r. on 14 Jul 2007 at 3:03 am #
i must say karen and suzanne you’re both hilarious…
onto the matter of roomies though… *sigh* the nightmares i’ve had…or more correctly the nightmare THEY had.
I once remember going to a sleepover at my friends house for the first time…and let me tell you sleep was the last thing i got there!…now i know sleepover protocol enough to have expected staying up till the wee hours of the morning trading stupid stories of crushes or some such…but when we all dozed off i was in for quite a suprise. sometime during the middle of the night i was awoken but my friend letting out an ear-piercing scream mixed with kicking and much shouting… who this was all aimed at was beyond me, as i stared at her in awe… what was more amazing was that in the morning after jokingly telling her mother what happened, the whole family seemed to think it was perfectly normal to have a harpie of a daughter screaming in the middle of the night.
cont.
pri.r. on 14 Jul 2007 at 3:06 am #
It wasn’t until a few months later when my other friend and i gathered at said friend’s house for a sleepover that my friend yet again began screaming in the night, at this point i was used to it and merely to placate my stunned friend who was new to our other friend’s mid-night spectacle that i reached over swatted my screaming friend with a pillow and told her to shut up. then immediately dozed off.
we haven’t had a sleepover for sometime….
Judy F on 14 Jul 2007 at 7:55 am #
funny blog this am. I took a cruise once with a friend, she was a happy am person I am not. LOL After the first day or so we went our seperate ways till about noon.
PJ on 14 Jul 2007 at 8:22 am #
Oh, that was so funny! Um, I gather it’s hot?
I went to Italy with a friend two years ago. While we have both been on group trips together and talk frequently on the internet (we live on different coasts) we’d never roomed with each other before. She’s a good friend, I love her dearly and we had a great trip but we definitely approach things from different points of view. For example…
1) Arrive at hotel.
Her: Immediately unpack, hang clothes in appropriate order, spread towel on bathroom counter and line up 14 bottles of beauty products.
Me: Collapse on bed, remove shoes and rub feet.
2) Me: Up at 6am, excited and ready to go exploring.
Her: Opens her eyes at 9am, yawns and sleepily asks why I’m up so early.
3) Me: Sign up for two historical walking tours of Florence then spend the rest of the day exploring historical sites on my own.
Her: Sign up for 10 hour tour of designer outlet mall.
Patty L on 14 Jul 2007 at 9:21 am #
What funny ladies you are! My best friend and I recently shared a hotel room and I knew that she snored, so that was not a surprise. The surprise was that she talked and laughed half of the night in her sleep. I still love her and the marks from the pillow that I held over her face are almost gone. LOL Just kidding, kinda.
Nicole Jordan on 14 Jul 2007 at 9:43 am #
That is too funny, Karen!
I had an awful problem at a conference, rooming with one of my best friends. She snored like a train engine. Didn’t get a wink of sleep the entire time. We’re still best friends, but I won’t ever room with her again!
NicoleJ
Suzanne Enoch on 14 Jul 2007 at 10:45 am #
I’d just like to mention that when Karen left for the plane this morning, she nearly forgot three pairs of her shoes. Yep.
Keri Ford on 14 Jul 2007 at 11:01 am #
I came out good with my roomate. She goes to eat breakfast in the lounge and gives me the bathroom first to shower and dress. When she steals my earrings I’d planned to wear, she gives me a pair of hers to use instead. She likes the room frosty at night for better sleeping. And since I’m a first timer, she hasn’t complained yet that I follow her around all day!
FeyRhi on 14 Jul 2007 at 11:36 am #
I have a yearly conference to attend for work and I room with the same woman every year. We are used to each others habits, I wake up and read for a bit while she hits the bathroom first. At night I take her glasses off and put them on the night stand when she falls asleep reading. She snores lightly and I make knocking noises when we sleep. Most importantly we have the same taste in wine *BG*
Suzanne Enoch on 14 Jul 2007 at 2:15 pm #
I guess my sister and I were roommates back when we were kids. We had bunkbeds, and she always got mad when I wouldn’t turn off my reading light at night. Little did she know where that would get me. *g*
gannon on 14 Jul 2007 at 2:39 pm #
You ladies never fail to make me laugh!
Long time, no comment from me. Just got settled after our cross country move and our internet connection is up and running! Hooray!
Kim (aka KMB25) and I finally met yesterday at the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games. She is an amazing celtic fiddler! We did take some pictures on my camera–yes, even a few with some kilt-clad Scots! As soon as I e-mail them to Kim, she’ll compose a blog. Karen, you definitely need to attend the Games next year. Men in kilts…hey, what’s not to like.
dbrown3400 on 14 Jul 2007 at 2:58 pm #
Suzanne - Karen. I don’t understand the problem. You sound totally in sync to me or was that opposite sides of the same coin? Either way, it seems as though you had a marvelous time, Dallas heat aside.
I was fortunate in that my girlfriend and I could travel together and want to sleep, eat and read at the same times. We seemed to understand when one or the other needed space. I remember there was one time eons ago, we were reading “together” in separate rooms, and I was cracking up laughing. She came in and guessed which of the many books we’d brought I was reading. We used to finish each others sentences too like I do with my daughters.
Those were great times. She now spends much of her time in Hawaii with her grandchildren. Is that anything like New Jersey?
Donna
Mad on 14 Jul 2007 at 6:03 pm #
That is so funny….love it!
Karen Hawkins on 14 Jul 2007 at 7:20 pm #
Suzie, you can admit it … you’re here among friends. You had Shoe Envy, didn’t you? You certainly spent a lot of time keeping track of my shoes!
I roomed with my sister when I was younger, too, and boy, was she messy! She also told me ghost stories which made me deathly fearful of spiders. Ah, the ‘good’ old days!
And ladydawg . . . Korean barbeque? Too funny!
Karen Hawkins on 14 Jul 2007 at 7:50 pm #
Btw, a lot of your roomie horror stories have to do with being with roomies who had different Energy Levels. Suzanne and I do well because we’re both VLE (Very Low Energy). In fact, we’re SO VLE that we’re quite happy being immobile . . . just lazing about, watching the telly, or writing on our puters. I couldn’t room with one of those CPP (Chirpy Peppy People). I mean, if we were in Florence, that’d be one thing. I’d be up at the break of dawn, my Great Walks of Florence book in my hand. But at home or at a conference? Puuuleeeeze!
The hardest thing about rooming with Suzanne is going to bed at night because we’re usually giggling like teenagers long after the lights go out and it steals all of my Restful Sleeping Powers. Of course, that’s the best way to lose one’s RSPs!
doglady on 14 Jul 2007 at 9:41 pm #
Okay, this was priceless! Too funny! At present I room with three cats and a chihuahua. The cats weigh in at 23 lbs, 17 lbs, and 8 lbs. The chihuahua weighs @ 10 lbs. We share a full sized bed. I get one pillow and approximately 6 inches by 65 inches in which to sleep. Need I say more?? Karen, are we sisters separated at birth? When I traveled with the opera company I had one large trunk just for my shoes! This did NOT include the shoes I wore on stage. Bellboys in hotels all over Europe who are still cursing me. Another funny thing is when you travel from town to town, usually in the middle of the night after a performance, you sometimes wake up in your hotel room and don’t know where you are. I was awakened by a phone call @noon one day (opera singers sing all night and sleep til noon, not a bad gig!)and the handsome young baritone in the adjoining room asked “Where are we?” I had to look at the phone book on the nightstand before telling him “Budapest” Wake me in an hour.
Manuelita on 15 Jul 2007 at 11:13 am #
That was very funny! Thanks for making me LOL!
You two have roomed together at RWA for six years? I think that’s great that you have formed such a wonderful and lasting friendship.
TinaLouiseF on 15 Jul 2007 at 12:54 pm #
My best friend needs nature sounds to sleep by, I prefer quiet.
My watch alarm is set for “hey stupid if you hear this, you should put down your book and sleep for 3 hours”. If I’m sleeping, I don’t hear it. My best friend didn’t appreciate the alarm going off at 3 AM.
While we were on our 8 day vacation, I reset my watch alarm for her. Unfortunately I couldn’t do anything about the sounds of nature.
Lismore on 15 Jul 2007 at 1:27 pm #
You ladies crack me up! Thanks for the laugh.
A couple of years ago, my friend and I were sharing a hotel room in Taos, NM. I was just about to fall asleep and the thought struck me, “hey, this is Martha Stewart’s first night in jail, how do you think she is coping?” We started laughing and could not stop. I don’t know why we thought it was so funny, but just got the giggles. the next morning, some other friends staying in the room next to us complained that our laughing kept them awake.
I guess you had to be there, doesn’t seem quite as funny now.
MJ on 15 Jul 2007 at 6:57 pm #
Gosh. That’s even more shoes than I usually take…. (my brother-in-law calls me Imelda…and I’ll admit he has reason). But I only have one pair of feet and all those little piggies need to be pampered (it’s truly not a fashion thing. Truly. Well only partly.)
I admit to snoring, so provide my roomates with really nice earplugs and my lovely little sound machine (my favourite is the ocean waves sound, but I’ll play whichever they prefer).
Last summer, my Cathedral singing roomie was nearly 20 years younger than I….and surprisingly, we were just like sisters. It WAS hot - no A/C in England, you know? We were in a creaky 14thC Inn, above a bar with live rock entertainment…. I’d brought 2 Chinese silk paddle fans (they’re flat so you can hide em in your music)….so we lay in the dark fanning ourselves and talking men. For hours.
We were on the same trip last week as well, and hung out together, man spotting (you know, muttering ‘Three o’clock’ ‘behind you’)
Karen Hawkins on 16 Jul 2007 at 9:25 am #
doglady, what an adventuresome life you’ve had! “Budapest” indeed!
What a grand, adventurous life you’ve had. That’s tres cool!
Manuelita, I consider Suzanne one of my best friends and every year I leave the conference grinning because of her. She’s awesome and just as sparkly and talented in person as her writing.
TinaL, I don’t think I could ‘do’ the sounds of nature for someone, either. My mother once got me one of those little fountains that are supposed to offer ‘white noise’ in the form of softly running water, ‘like an outdoor stream.’ She thought it would make my life less stressful, but instead, the running water noise only makes me want to pee.
Lismore, I know EXACTLY what you mean! Suzanne and I have to have a ‘wait for the giggles to subside’ moment every night before we sleep, or we’d just lay there and snicker. Which happens a lot, too, now that I think about it. Ah, the giggles of little girls! So refreshing!
Karen Hawkins on 16 Jul 2007 at 9:27 am #
Mj, oooooh! MAN SPOTTING! Now that’s a lovely hobby! Suzanne and I would enjoy that, too, but between the romance authors and the Mary Kay women, there weren’t many men. Well, except for waiters, and they weren’t all that. It’s neat when you meet that one person at that one time, and laughter ensues. It’s rare … but oh so sweet!
Glad you have such a great travelin’ partner!
Caren Crane on 16 Jul 2007 at 9:33 am #
I had the great good fortune to once again room with Sabrina, Claudia and Deb Marlowe. This year, we picked up Laura Maldonado, who is the President of our local RWA chapter Heart of Carolina Romance Writers. We had such fun! Everyone is an “up” and energetic person. We laughed and talked and consulted on outfits and accessories and shoes. Such fun!
Deb Marlowe and I were in the same sleeping room. We have roomed together before. She is the best roommate ever! We both try hard not to leave a bunch of stuff laying around and we both snore, but in a delicate and ladylike way. *g* I look forward to the conference every year because it’s like being at the very best sort of slumber party!
Kasey on 16 Jul 2007 at 10:31 am #
It looks like you two had a great time.
Just one question, was it hot there?
zambonigirl on 16 Jul 2007 at 11:09 am #
Oh my gosh, I’m chuckling so hard right now! That was hilarious.
Yeah, I like to sleep a lot, and for some reason, I always find myself rooming with Miss Mary Sunshine who likes to get up and eat breakfast at the crack of dawn every morning-and insists that I go with her. On the “She Said” side, though, I’d rather stay up late and sing Kareoke really badly all night whilst flirting with the Tom Jones impersonator (or was it actually Tom Jones?), so I’m definitely no peach.
Karen Hawkins on 17 Jul 2007 at 12:37 pm #
Kasey, yes, it was hot. Unbearably so. Even to me, from FL!
And zambonigrilfriend, what’s wrong with singing Kareoke and flirting with Tom Jones until the wee hours of the morn? That’s the sauce of life, m’dear!
zambonigirl on 17 Jul 2007 at 1:14 pm #
Well, Karen, I think it’s definitely not unusual…
I also think that bringing along 45 pairs of shoes is just practicality.
Actually, scratch that. I think that you should bring one pair of shoes, and then buy another 44 pairs while you’re there…