• Where else but in a communal house can you crank up the stereo, tear off all of your clothes by the back door, and spontaneously run out into the backyard to dance under a pouring rain storm with all of your nekkid housemates?

• It's great to have homecooked vegetarian or vegan meals to sit down to eat with all your friends everyday.
  • Get lots of variety in your meals 'cause different people cook on different nights of the week.
  • Vegetarian cooking is harder to screw up than other kinds of cooking, so it's pretty much always good, even if someone has an off day.

• Since you don't have to cook as often if you're sharing cooking responsibility, you can afford to be extravagant when you do cook
  • So you can afford to do things like: Make Bread, Make Tofu, Soy Milk, Enchiladas, Lasagna, i.e. time intensive stuff - ever tried a gluten pot roast? It's great but takes forever to make.

• Hang out with a bunch of cool and interesting people whom you might otherwise never meet, and learn all about them, what their interests are, etc. and then get to meet and hang out with all of their friends, whom you might otherwise never meet, and so on, and so on, and so on...

• Save money by buying things in bulk. It's cheaper to buy a case of soymilk, 25 lbs of beans, 50 lbs of rice, etc., than it is to buy just a few ounces.

• Pooling your resources makes many things easier. For example donating a 50 lb bag of rice to a soup kitchen costs less per person than the price of a matinee.

• Have lots of parties and stay up all night talking to people about Life.

• Plant a garden with help from lots of other folks, 'cause they're your housemates.

• Eat big group dinners outside in the summer time. Once, a friend of mine said to me after a filling dinner "You know sometimes when you're full after dinner, don't you just want to huck your plate?" So I made a big tostada dinner, the kind where people like to stuff themselves. We ate outside to some lively Hungarian Gypsy music. Afterwards, I told everyone they could just huck their plate (I had bought special plates just for the occasion) but they just looked at me and smiled politely. They didn't BELIEVE me! I tried convincing them, and finally everybody started hucking their plates which all went smashing at a safe distance. The contrast between the odd moment where I was trying to cinvince them that it was ok to huck their plate, that I had planned it that way, and that I was not going bonkers, and the plates finally sailing through the air and smashing had everyone laughing hysterically with each plate that smashed. (we actually had a consciensious objector who declined to huck her plate, a bit too violent, but that's ok, she thought the dinner was great). Afterwards we cleaned up and had a scrumptious desert and coffee as the sun was setting.

• "Come on down to the Mermaid Cafe, and I will buy you a bottle of wine..." -j.m. You can form a study contingent and walk down to the Saturn Cafe (if you're in Santa Cruz) for coffee, and Chocolate Madness.

• Put on the Ventures at 45 RPM (that's a record player, for the younger folks in the audience) and play smash ball in the Kitchen.

• Watch Star Trek together.

• Have continual, passionate debates about feminism, sexism, racism, politics, the meaning of life, sex, crumbs on the breadboard, and how could someone put an empty soymilk carton back in the fridge.

• Form a bicycle caravan down to the farmers market on Saturday mornings and load up with yummy fruits and veggies.

• There is always someone around to go to the movies with.

• There is almost always someone around to talk to.

• Play cards.

• Tell stories to each other.

• Dress up in lingerie and sing happy birthday.

• Make beer utilizing the wonders of an in house labor pool.

• Take dinner down to the beach for a big fire, and sing songs on the way there and back while you ride in the back of the pick up together.

• Invite other communal houses over for dinner and get invited to other houses for dinner

• and so much more......

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