A somewhat twisted ode to the Butler quad

Once upon a time, we lived in a Butler double. There were waffle ceilings, and the rather cramped nature of the room inspired us to spend lots of time in bed, as there was no other surface on which to sit. We lived so far away from anything and everything that once we got an espresso machine, there really wasn't any need to leave the room. Antisocial behavior, to be sure, but I find that when you have an espresso machine, people tend to come to you.

Now, of course, our cozy little Butler double is a pile of dirt being pushed around by bulldozers and other fun construction equipment, and my roommate and I have upgraded to a three-room triple in Cuyler. We have a common room with chairs to sit in, and the ceilings are totally commonplace. It's a good thing we have the extra space because ironically, our bedroom is now even smaller. There is approximately two feet of space between our beds, which progressively shrinks over the course of the week as more and more of the contents of our closet find their way onto the floor.

Distressingly, the result of this new arrangement is that we both spend significantly less time in bed, resulting in two increasingly sleep-deprived girls. I won't even start on our third roommate, who, as far as I can tell, thrives purely on Small World cappuccinos and granola (she's from Vermont).

I'm not going to wax nostalgic about the loss of the Butler Quad. There's a reason it was nicknamed "the Butt," and, for all the crude jokes that can be made, none of us actually really loved living there. But there is something kind of sad about how the dynamic has changed. The offshoot of sharing a single room is that you develop all sorts of weird codependent ticks that require the invention of new psychological terms. For instance, "sleep envy," which describes the state in which one roommate goes to sleep, and the other finds herself unable to continue working because she's so jealous of her roommate's peaceful slumber. It lent a sort of coherence to our days. She'd go to sleep, and then I'd cave and go to sleep a few minutes later. If one of us didn't have class in the morning, it was more than likely the other one wouldn't go. I adopted her dislike for wearing anything that wasn't sweatpants or pajamas, and she picked up my snobbish rejection of the dining hall food, resulting in a budding friendship with the people at Olive's.

Now, though, things have changed. With the addition of a common room, sleep envy has ceased to be an issue. And with the divergence of our sleep schedules, we hardly see each other anymore. Pillow talk is a rare and exciting event, and, what with Nassau Street no longer being a yearlong expedition and Frist Campus Center being practically next door, we're all of a sudden inspired to actually leave the room, which means even in daylight hours, talk is rare. It also means I've gone back to wearing real clothes to face the world, which is quite a tragedy, as jeans are significantly less comfy than sweatpants.

It's not that I exactly miss living in our four-by-six box of a room. Space is really quite nice, and I wouldn't give up the window seat for anything. But it boggles my mind the way 20 extra sq. ft. can become an ocean of distance. Nice as it is to be able to go into another room when she's blathering on about null pointers and while loops (whatever that means), I miss the togetherness, the totally excessive bonding that, were it anyone but her, would probably evoke an intense dislike and incite murderous acts.

I still get excited every time she comes home, even though it happens less than normal. It makes me nostalgic for our little room in 1940 Hall. As much as we bitched and moaned and complained last year, sometimes, when you cram two girls into a really small space, good things happen. Alexis Levinson is a sophomore from Los Angeles, Calif. She can be reached at arlevins@princeton.edu.