I am so poor. "How poor are you?" I am so poor that one time I dipped dry noodles into peanut butter and tried to eat them because I was so poor I didn't have gas and couldn't make boiling water. I am so poor that I spread my batteries around. I'll take them out of the discman at the end of the day and put them back in the remote. I am so poor that I once spent twenty minutes scouring the floors of my apartment looking for enough nickels and dimes to take the train.But do not feel sorry for me. Poorness is the price you pay for leaving a job that paid well but also made your soul rot, being unemplyed for three months and then taking a temp job at a place you love that pays...let's be generous and say "half" of what you used to make. All because you wanted to follow your god damn dreams.
Poorness is the price you pay for getting a degree in Creative Writing so that you can write creatively while everyone else is buying yet another tiny silver gadget or booking yet another vacation to wherever. I love my creative writing degree, I can come up with a whole variety of different ways to talk about how I should have majored in something useful.
Poorness is the price you pay when you live in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city because there was a younger day when you wanted to be "right in it" and that day has come and gone...and you're still in it. And now I'm going to scream if I hear one more boy shout "Girl!" or see one more poster of a half naked houseboy in the window of the trendy boys clothing store or walk past one more pretentious double date of any orientation feeding each other sushi while sitting outside at the Japanese place on the corner. Not to mention the drug addict trannies roaming the streets drinking "fruit punch" all night or the frightened straight fratty boys who wander into Boystown after someone referred to it as "North Lincoln Park" or that heroine addict girl who is ALWAYS wearing a tutu, or the endless endless endless endless construction on my street which is now starting earlier each day...this morning between the construction and the alarm and Lucy's unending curiosity about plastic it was like I was at my own private Stomp performance. I will scream if I have to listen to Crazy M from Walgreens announce all of my purchases as she scans them, "Oooh! Buying a birthday card! Oh, getting a pizza, I love pizza! Ooooh! Time for tampons eh?" I will scream if the new manager at Chipotle asks me one more time if I enjoyed my burrito...I always enjoy my burrito...that's why I go there. I will scream if the old manager at Chipotle says to me one more time, "It's nice to see you...again...today." I will scream if I see three hundred drunk musical theatre fanatics throw cocktail napkins into the air during Evita at Trax ONE MORE TIME.
Not that I won't cry my eyes out when I leave the boys of boystown...but I'm discovering that there is a reason why girls who are older than me always say, "Oh, I used to live in Boystown." It's your playground, boys...and there comes a time when every hag must cut the gold lamme apron strings, take a final sip of her cosmo, wipe some mascara off from under her eyes, suck down her last free Miss Foozie shot, go to the bathroom and decide it's not quite time to leave, order another cosmo, have one more guy who is not attracted to women scream with delight over how beautiful she is, smoke another cigarette, say goodbye one last time, ok...seriously just one more and then I have to go...mouth along to "Defying Gravity"even though she really does hate that show...shove her exra pantyhose back into her purse...and head out.
Long story short; I'm heading out. Boystown has been good to me, I've had some crazy times here...and I promise to come visit...but FEELING KINDA BLOG TODAY: TRUE STORIES FROM THE PRINCESS OF BOYSTOWN as of July 1 will be called FEELING KINDA BLOG TODAY: TRUE STORIES FROM SOME CHICK WHO LIVES WITH TWO GAYS WHO DON'T DO THEATRE IN RAVENSWOOD.
It may not be as jet setting and glamorous, but it's cheap rent, awesome roomates, less chance for depleting my bank account all over Halsted, a backyard, a kitty friend for Lucy and..as God is my witness, I will never eat uncooked noodles again.
More info to come!
7 comments:
Every hag...no...let's call them "fruit flies"...has her day of reckoning. Mine came while scraping up change to purchase the Walgreen's tampons and spending my last $10 on canned goods, only to find that I didn't own a can opener. It happens. The stories you've collected will last a lifetime. But it's time to join the older, wiser, former "fruit flies" in the north.
Boystown...it's a great place to visit, wouldn't want to live there.
But Brookie-poo, if you didn't have your creative writing degree who would I ask for help?????
Someone with a "creative writing degree" should write a little better...
I really hope it works out for you, wherever you end up. You can find life.. wherever you go :)
From two guys who 'don't do theatre' in Cornwall UK.
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if you're eating chipotle, you ain't poor.
i eat cereal twice a day. and I play violin. I am poor.
stfu.
This post is really old, but thanks for the comment! I neither eat Chipotle nor am really poor anymore, this post was also sort of tongue in cheek at the time. Good luck with your violin!
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