Friday, June 24, 2011

Bald Man from a Commune

The other day, I met a man who lives in a commune. In Cambridge (did you know there are communes in Cambridge? Me, either!).
I asked him some questions. He said they don't share underwear, but they do sometimes share socks (they get mixed up in the laundry).
They don't have chickens (against city code).
He works sometimes, when he feels like it.
He went to an extremely prestigious Boston school.
He's a vegetarian.
He has a dog.
He doesn't have a car (but, like other people I've known who don't have cars on principle, he asked me if we could use my car -- to take him and his dog swimming this summer).
He has his wife's name tattooed on his knuckles in the characters of a language he doesn't speak, but then she became his ex-wife, and he had some lines added to the characters, so it no longer means her name but something else (he doesn't know what).
Why not just get the tattoo removed? I asked.
Because that would be like erasing the past, he said, And it happened -- I don't want to erase it.
The contemporary word for "commune" is "co-op." They spend a lot of time getting to know people before they move in, inviting them for dinners and making sure they're a "good fit." He says, Joining the coop is like getting married to twenty people.
Euuuh, I said, and cringed.
When I asked if they all wear matching blue Nike's, like the cult in Texas, he said, Maybe those people in Texas just got a good bulk deal on those shoes at Wal-Mart, and they had nothing to do with the cult.
Touche, bald man, touche.

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