I already didn’t want to be in my own apartment because my roommates wanted to have this house party. It was originally gonna be themed “climate change” which [thankfully] got nixed in the 11th hour. But I have roommates who straight-faced can tell me how you can’t really live comfortably off of $30,000 a year. I make <$14,000/year [Americorps] living in NYC and I manage to do just fine. No kids, no mortgage, no car payments—and this girl who has none of these responsibilities either, who makes about $30,000 each year is telling me that she’s not comfortable??
So I mean if you can picture this cozy little apartment where 90% of the stuff inside is owned by said person, and she’s cooking up a storm with entirely whole foods ingredients for ginger beer from scratch with a handle of beefeaters gin, sausages simmered in red wine, kale chips, fancy cheese/olives/artichoke platter, blue tortilla chips, some bean dip with goat cheese, and a flourless chocolate cake—along with a spread of liquors and wines—and then the conversations revolve around droll little topics, half of which are about the poor little brown kids they work with and teach lessons to about good food and vegetables and how limited their vocabulary is in describing what they’re eating [heaven forbid they don’t have a culinary vocabulary to discuss texture, acidity, flavor, scent, blah blah blah] and the other half about who knows what—nothing but trivialities.
Meanwhile I’m bored to tears wanting to scream out WHO THE FUCK CARES?
Then my best friend calls me, the one I’ve anxiously been anticipating seeing in two weeks, to tell me she can’t come because her parents are about to lose their house—for real. The bank has posted an auction date for the house in 3 weeks and they found out on Tuesday.
*silence*
After much painting of the whole picture, I want to punch a wall, because I can’t do anything. Even if I emptied out my savings account—which I would do in a second if it meant the difference between her family keeping her home and not—I only have 700 measly bucks which won’t even make a dent in their needs. Meanwhile she tells me she knows someone well (over 15 years) who has an EXTRA house that’s vacant, and this woman has the nerve to respond to the above situation by saying, “oh that’s a drag.”
A drag? A DRAG? WTF! A drag is stubbing your toe, a drag is breaking a heel, a drag is losing $10 bucks on the street—LOSING YOUR HOUSE AND IMPENDING HOMELESSNESS IS NOT A FUCKING DRAG! Meanwhile she can’t be bothered to let even JUST my friend and her boyfriend rent ONE of the 4 bedrooms in the extra house because the woman doesn’t like babies.
I can’t with the selfish, bloated, greedy, self-centered people who exist out here. I can’t with the people who cannot see beyond themselves. I can’t with the people who can’t be bothered to extend their EXCESSES to help someone they know personally in dire straights. I can’t with people feeling inconvenienced if their material happiness is in anyway diminished even if it is in excess and they can’t do anything with it all. I can’t with the people who live in the cushion and security of their excesses. I can’t with the people who can look someone in the face and say ‘no’ because they may experience mild discomfort for all of 30 seconds because they have so goddamn much that they probably wouldn’t even notice if something was gone.
Meanwhile, these vapid liberal arts, throwing-their-heads-back chortling yuppies populating all the space in the apartment except my closet-sized room are getting on my last nerve. To add insult to injury, now these assholes are invading my only refuge (my room). Just opened my door and came in, because they feel the need to open every door in someone else’s house and explore everything because they feel like they’re entitled to see and do EVERYTHING and be everywhere!
I’m locking the door as I write.
like black butterflies 