Dinner and conversation
Last night, six of us who were bumming around the house decided to pool our food resources and make dinner together. It was a hodgepodge meal, but I think we still eat well for college students: caprese salad with fresh basil from the backyard, a romaine salad with feta and walnuts, chile rellenos, shells 'n' cheese, a cantaloupe that was in the back of the vegetable fridge, and chocolate-covered dried cranberries.
At one point in the conversation while we were eating, we started talking about when we'll all be grown-ups with kids, and how if we all lived close-by we could raise them together. Even better would be to get a gigantic communal house, but I think we all know that that'll never happen, despite how well it might work.
It seems to be a rather universal progression that as you get older, you need your own space more and more, until this desire finally culminates in the purchase of a single-family home in a new development in Pleasanton with your wife and 2.5 darling little kids. Communes were the domain of the inexperienced young.
But it is not so much harder to cook for eight or ten or twenty than it is to cook for two, and certainly more rewarding. Cleaning certainly goes a lot better when done in a group. Decisions are slower and more cumbersome, and privacy is less easy to come by, but, well, I guess that matters less when you're young. It's also hard to live with people who are changing, but we've managed so far. If only housing in this area were easier to come by...
Scarier is the imminent reality of friends actually getting married and having children. A significant portion of my good friends have formed stable long-term pairings, and graduation is fast approaching to force an exit into the real world and the heavy decisions it brings. Ack! I said I was getting old.
Comments
I think there were more married people than single people at Sarah's party. This i found terrifying.
Posted by: Ping | January 3, 2003 02:55 AM
Having 0.5 of a child seems like something the authorities should be alerted about...
Posted by: Ian Hickson | January 5, 2003 09:47 AM
Ping, soon to be repeated at parties near us...
Ian, you have a point, the US birth rate is now about 2.1 children per woman. :) Deviation from the norm is not permitted.
Posted by: Nadia | January 5, 2003 03:22 PM