Casa Zimbabwe

I just moved into my room for the summer at Casa Zimbabwe, the first co-ed co-op in the United States. I've been pretty disappointed to find out that I won't have time to go abroad during college, but lately I've been feeling that the experience of living here won't be that different from being in a foreign country.

Casa Zimbabwe, also known as Krackistan, has a population of roughly 130, with partying as its number one export. Homegrown weed was former number one export before the rooftop growing operation got shut down.

Here's my place as of my move-in day:

Seems like the guy before me left in something of a hurry. There was definitely a neat little pile of nail clippings in the keyboard tray of the desk that was waiting for me. The desk had a sprinkling of weed bits and dust, and the drawers variously had condoms and loose change scattered about them.

Well, at least I have my own room! Let my reign over the Kingdom of David begin!

Aircraft Carriers

He liked to sit on the carpeted stairs and read. Each step was just wide enough for him to stretch his legs out, back against the wall, head beneath the wooden banister. He liked to look in the books with cut-aways of tanks and airplanes, cathedrals and castles, the heart and the spleen. Nuts and bolts and bricks and mortar and blood and guts spilled out of the pages. He couldn't get enough. The best times to read were during the golden hours of the afternoon that stretched on endlessly, when the light soaked in through the windows and stained everything with a luminous glow. The sun traced the shape of the window across the carpet, but he did not notice. He had more important things to attend to; the castle was under seige and the invaders with the battering ram were having boiling oil poured on their heads.

Many years later.

He sat in the library of the university, staring into one of the beige boxes bolted down to the table. The keyboard clacked satisfyingly. He was reading about nuclear-powered aircraft carriers on en.wikipedia.org. Nimitz-class supercarriers can stay at sea without refuelling for up to 20 years. They displace 100,000 tons of water. They carry over 3,000 aviators and seamen and a compliment of over 50 aircraft. And for a little while, he sat on carpeted stairs on a golden afternoon.