The Poors

I once read that the bigger the news is, the smaller the story’s focus should be. I usually avoid personal narrative on here, because I sincerely hope no one cares about the mundanities that comprise everyday life. But we’re all broke and confused and cranky at the thought that something has been taken from us and we can’t do anything about it, and that all means more than we can really make sense of at the moment. So here’s my attempt: a tour of Brokesville from a recent college grad, who’s realizing she’s not overqualified to do anything.

Last weekend, I realized that I had less than fifty dollars to last the next two weeks. So on Saturday, I spent thirty of it on breakfast and beer. Now I’ve got about 15 bucks in my bank account, plus close to four dollars or so in change, and a nearly maxed out credit card with no foreseeable means of being paid off. I’ll be detailing life without the (often unacknowledged) sense of security that money in the bank provides for the next week or so, for all of you out there who can afford luxury items like coffee or lunch.

March 4, 2009

Tuesday night means two dollar drafts at East Burn, so I couldn’t not go. Got out of work early and played around with some art before consuming numerous Red Chair IPAs and some food. Put it all on the credit card, because it would suck to not be able to pay rent with the real money I barely have. While drinking some beers that I couldn’t actually afford, I wondered if this experience is representative of a new American class—college grads whose parents aren’t poor but we can’t imagine ever having health care or a savings account due to the fact that we a) don’t want boring jobs and b) wouldn’t be able to get one anyway. So instead, we find great success in functional alcoholism and lots of good times.

If the education system is a kind of a womb that you’re just kind of hanging out in for twenty-two years or so, our generation’s conception of the “real world” that we just got shot out into has got to be pretty unique in that any sense of the security we thought we’d have is quickly evaporating with every dour headline we glance at from between (embarrassingly long) facebook sessions. And by security I mean the promise of extended European vacations and a fat divorce settlement.

So I’m not too worried about racking up sizable credit card debt now, when the realities of economic doom are a much further than the delicious sandwich in front of me.

March 5, 2009

My net worth has doubled overnight! Thanks to a crisp tenner from the padres that arrived in the mail yesterday along with some granola bars, odds of making it have increased exponentially.

Last night, without the option of leaving the house to engage in recreational alcoholism known as “hanging out with friends,” I went through my closet and culled some garments to hawk, hoping they’ll find a home with the probably nonexistent person in this town who possesses both money and an affinity for striped sweaters.

The night turned out to be a cozy one with the roommates; we made some biscuits from a box in our empty cupboards and played some music. Probably due to the fact that not really being able to buy food can kind of alter your sense of stability, it was really valuable to be surrounded by people with whom I share a home and general kinship, as we try to figure out what the world is, how to live in it, and all those other valid experiences that have been rendered cliché by the major motion picture industry.

Last night was the first time in the four or so months we’ve shared a roof that I’ve felt that we’re a cohesive little unit, however pasted together by the sloppy tendencies of the universe we are.

Today the headmaster of my high school sent out an email to ensure alumni that everything will be running smoothly in the face of economic woes by cutting funds for teachers’ health care and other benefits and “school-wide entertainment functions and on-campus receptions and entertainment” plus “postponing non-essential equipment purchases” due to the decrease in endowment of 33 million dollars (about one quarter of the total). I’m just glad I was there in the salad years when they could still afford to throw away computers by the dozen and we ran around doing the drugs the school bought for us.

The email seems to serve as a harbinger of a nail in the coffin of even the upper class’ most time honored traditions of passing on the rights to an impenetrable sense of self-importance they’ll carry with them for the rest of their lives. Just goes to show that nothing is sacred to ECONOMIC COLLAPSE 2009.

In picturing high school without the gratuitous recreational events and barrage of t-shirts celebrating each and every one of them and all of the other things we felt unquestionably entitled to, I imagine that it will be a return to the classic boarding school atmosphere that spawned dozens of corrupt politicians and angrily erudite creative types: no fun allowed, with records and comic books seized by surly schoolmasters and students forced into character building exercises like enduring the physical violence inflicted on them by sadistic hallmates. I guess all of our high school memories of the constant frivolity of the summer camp will be just another fairy tale to tell our kids while we stand in bread lines.

Meanwhile, I’ve started imagining how I’ll spend my compensation for 63 hours of work over a two week period at ten taxable dollars an hour. While first affording temporary relief from various creditors, I will then use the remains to purchase extravagances such as film development and toothpaste.

Just read that the sad human that is JennAni got a £40,000 haircut, confirming once and for all what we’ve all been mulling over for decades now: Hollywood should be completely eradicated from the face of the earth immediately.