Tag: favorites

“Ahhh, amerikai!! Where in America you live?”

The cool thing about Europe is that not many people know that Cleveland isn’t cool. It’s not a New York or a Los Angeles, but try telling someone from SoCal that you live in Oradea, Romania. Chances are they haven’t even heard of Bucharest, so they won’t know that you live in a backwoods town that isn’t really reaping any benefits from the fall of communism outside of those delicious Big Macs. Cleveland even has the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and everyone has heard of Rock and Roll.

“I went to school in Cleveland, which is in Ohio, but when I get back I’m moving to Washington D.C., where I’m going to work for the government.”

It’s harder to impress another ex-pat.

“Well, I’m going to work for the patent office. Yeah, I get to review patents and determine if they are new ideas or not. We’ll see how it goes. Uh-huh, yep, that’s what Einstein did. ”

It’s the first day at a new school, excepts it’s everyday. A pack of college students and recent grads sitting in a hostel courtyard, each expecting adventure and insight from this trip. No one knows who is cool, who is weird, who is secretly a complete loser. We’re all instantaneously ourselves, or at least the selves we can project.

“I don’t know. The job sort of came out of nowhere, it wasn’t something I really pursued so much as fell in my lap. I was planning on going to grad school but (that didn’t pan out) I decided to take a year off.”

The longer you know someone, the less you’re able to change their opinion of you. Be it good, be it bad, it becomes harder and harder to look at the story you’re living objectively, life becomes habit, expectations are set. Most people don’t get asked astonishing questions by people they’ve known for a while. That part is often played by intriguing stranger #5 (always with a scarf), who just happens to be sharing a train compartment with you. Fate proceeds to take its course.

“Beats me. I’ve always kind of thought I’d get a master’s in Computer Science, get a technical job and work my way up. I like coding, but I know I’m better at other things. Part of me thinks about law school, but … I don’t know.”

Backpacks. Guidebooks. Maps. Trains. Mountains. Museums. Cafes. Parks. Benches. Food. Languages. Coins. Postcards. Insignificant compared to a simple question.

“Are you happy with who you’re becoming?”

Twenty three years doesn’t prepare you for much.

Background:
Picked by Chase in the summer of 2005, the apartment has had continuous habitation by its current population since mid September, 2005. Situated close to a metro stop and the offices of our employment, the apartment provides a sanctuary for those in need (of a drink, a hug, etc).

Location:
an enclave of the United States in north-east Virginia, just inside the beltway

Geographic coordinates:
38.799N 77.066W

Map references:
Google Maps is the best

Area:
land: 0.00013 sq km

Area-comparative:
a little less than twice the size of the Oval Office

Land boundaries:
total: 0.046 km
border countries: United States 0.046 km

Coastline:
0 km (landlocked)

Climate:
temperate, cold by the windows in the winter

Terrain:
mostly off white carpet with rugs and linoleum

Elevation extremes:
lowest point: kitchen linoleum 8.8 m
highest point: ceiling of porch 12.2 m

Natural resources:
sarcasm

Land use:
Mike: 23.4%
Sam: 11.0%
Chase: 15.3%
other: 50.3%

Irrigated land:
0 sq km (2005 est.)

Natural hazards:
none, now that we own a plunger

Environmental – current issues:
trash can occasionally get pretty stinky, Chase yells at me to clean up my room

Environement – international agreements:
party to: clean your own dishes, except when you cooked for everyone (then they clean)
signed, but not ratified: take out the trash when it needs to be taken out

Population:
3 (2005 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 0.0% (male 0/female 0)
15-64 years: 100.0% (male 3/ female 0)
65 years and over: 0.0% (male 0/female 0)

Median age:
total: 22.6 years
male: 22.6 years
female: #ERROR_UNDEFINED

Life expectancy at birth:
male: 74.2 (2005 est)

Ethnic groups:
White 66.7%, White Chocolate 33.3%

Languages:
English (official), French and Japanese (with encouragement, liquid or otherwise)

Literacy:
male: 100.0%

Country name:
conventional long form: Sam’s Apartment
alternate forms: Mike’s Apartment, Chase’s Apartment

Goverment type:
direct democracy with yelling and spreadsheets

Capital:
couches around TV

Administrative divisions:
4 districts; Sam’s room, Mike’s room, Chase’s room, mutually administrated common area

Independance:
18 September 2005 (from US)

Legal system:
gentle reminder, followed by increasingly loud threats upon the accused’s life

Economy – overview:
Small, landlocked and without desirable resources, the entirety of the population work outside of the country in the surrounding United States. Though this does constitute the overwhelming majority of all economic activity, trade in slightly used electronics and furniture has flourished in recent months.

GDP (purchasing power parity):
$167,000 (2006 est)

GRP – real growth rate:
2% (government cost of living increase)

Labor force – by occupation:
patent examiner: 100.0%
something cooler: 0.0%

I forget where I found him.

It was probably on the floor, lying with his eyes and mouth open, drooling on the carpet.

His face was pale, his voice quiet, and his body no longer moving. I had never seen someone look so dead before, never seen someone who was so thoroughly trashed out of his mind that he couldn’t even focus his eyes. He looked up at me and mumbled something about the velocity of an electron, pointed at the wall, and then continued to drool on the floor.

I forget how much I had drank. It must have been at least 10. After 10 you forget unless you make a true effort to remember. I was in a strange strange place compared to my home, filled with people I didn’t know and parties I barely remembered. During the course of the night I had been to several bars, sang “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” to the passengers of a bus, and randomly visited people who I didn’t know, following the couple of people I knew.

I got back to a house to find merry making in full swing. Drinking games, bongs, marijuana, the full shebang. Someone even mentioned cocaine. I had never heard someone mention cocaine before when I thought they were serious about using it.

I forget who told me to help him, or if I decided on my own. I dragged him into the large multi person shower, reminiscent of a locker room with 6 shower heads. I was bigger than him by about 50 pounds, so I hoisted him up into a standing position.

“Now make him puke,” said my commander, a guy named Stew who proceeded to do more weed in front of me than I had seen in my entire life. His voice was raspy from the smoke, and he held a small bong in his hand. As he said that he pulled up a baggy and refilled the bong, lit it, and took another hit.

How do you make someone puke? The patient turned around waveringly, pointed his finger at me and with dazed eyes told me, “If the ssssspiinnn on the eeellleecctron isssn’t righttt, then the uniivverrrseee wooon’ttt reeecorrrect itttseellfff for plaavnovvss constant . . .”

I spun him around and began pushing his stomach in and up, rolling his stomach in my hands to try and induce nausea. It took a bit, but he lurched forward and spit a little. Again, a lurch and finally a bit more splashed onto the floor. Onto my shoes. Fuck.

“Here, use this, it’ll work better.” Stew handed me a bottle of mustard.

“Mustard, what the fuck is that going to do?”

“Just squirt it into his mouth, trust me.” By this point Stew was having a little trouble standing himself, and went and found not only a chair, but a beer to accompany his bag of weed.

I stood my little friend up and turned him around. He started to lecture me about how quarks were the answer to all of nature, and we should worship the quarks, but stopped when I shoved the bottle down his throat and squeezed a hefty amount in. He lurched forward and spit mustard all over the wall, and again on my shoes. I quickly started giving him a drunken Heimlich maneuver to get him to throw up, to no avail.

“Lucky fuck, I wish I was having my 21st birthday again,” Stew said after another hit. He smiled and looked up at the ceiling, reminiscing of days long past.

“He turned 21 today?” I asked, heaving him to another splash of multicolored fluid on the floor.

“Yeah. Who knows how much he’s had, he was going for twenty one shots I know. Hey, look at it this way. He may live thanks to you, but tomorrow I guarantee he’ll wish he was dead.”

I had milked him dry, so I wiped his mouth and my shoes, and dragged him into what Stew told me was his room. I looked at his bookshelf and saw Electromagnetic Fields textbooks, a book by Richard P. Feynman, and a Quantum Theory book with the Borders price tag still on it. Physics major. No wonder he was trying to tell me something. Rolling him onto his side, I waited out a lecture on how he knew the answers to the universe because of the way electrons danced to techno. When he finally passed out, I wandered off to find my bed for the evening.

Before I left the next day I asked if anyone knew if he was still alive. Someone said they saw him breathing when they got up, so he should be fine. There is no way in hell he remembered me, and I to this day don’t know his name. I saved his life.

Happy 21st Birthday.