(Originally 3/18/07)
I decided to defy my circumstances this morning and go to the gym. Walk to the gym. Two days after the snow/ice storm. Like I walked to the mall yesterday to get my taxes done. Like I walked around last year-plus before I "bought" the car from My Benefactor/Dude I Don't Like.
Yesterday and today I was reminded of a few things that I had lost track of over the past year-plus.
One; I H8 New Jersey. It couldn't possibly be more pedestrian-unfriendly even if designed by Porsche. Sidewalks as an afterthought. Ice and snow piled high on any conceivable curb. Roads that spin on angles away from anything remotely convenient, forcing you to either cross The Garden State Parkway, or walk 45 minutes out of your way to the right. Busses that don't run on Sundays (???!?!?!?!!!!!--well, in Paramus). Because after all, everyone has a car anyway, right? So why should the busses run seven days a week?? And for those who don't have a car? Well, we barely tolerate those kinds of people anyway. They ought to count themselves as lucky that we don't just round them all up and dump them back in their third-world country from whence they snuck. I hate this state.
Two; Sometimes it feels good being powerless. I had forgotten what it felt like to just give up with a shrug and a mighty Eff-You to the Universe. I had forgotten what a weight off my shoulders it was to be able to say "I did everything I could do. I got nothing left." I forgot what its like not to have to fight, and scrimp, and scratch for survival. Not to have to contest with my fellow capitalist and try to be the Most Significant White Guy in the Room With The Biggest House In Tuckahoe (Yes, Childhood Bud, that one was for your friend). It's liberating to be a bum.
But apart from those two sentiments, I find that I'm still mostly angry. Angry that I got myself into the kind of mess that precludes my ability to have good credit and have a credit card for just such an emergency. Mad that I felt like I couldn't afford to pay for full coverage on car so that I might possibly have some kind of money to cover my car accident. Furious that when I try to go get a car tomorrow that I'm going to have to play phallis-hockey with a salesman as he tries to get me a loan, and wind up with about 18% interest after probably a week of bank rejections while the Lying Liar and His Lying Bosses stall my application because they're having trouble getting me an approval but they want to keep my deposit, while every rejection harms my credit score just a liiiitle bit more, because God knows, if you can't play the capitalist game successfully in America, they make sure you get penalized for it in one way or another.
And even as I'm seething with these feelings, I return back to this house, looking forward to some peace and quiet, when for the first time in maybe four months, The Benefactor's Son is here, practicing his guitar lessons with his regular lesson-chick.
This was not the weekend to see this ugly boy.
This may be the weekend I decide to move out of this house. When my sad little existence takes a blow, which seems like an inevitability, given the nature of the utter CRAP planet we live on, I need a haven. Somewhere to go and get away from it all. Without a car, on a cold ice-encrusted day, this house is all I've got. And now I have to field a white boy's melanin-fixation?
I titled this blog with "This American Life" in mind, which I was listening to today on my way back to the house. It made my snow-crunching journey ever so slightly better. Today's episode was particularly good--it had diatribes about television, where Sarah Vowell said some mean things about Pilgrims and America, David Rakoff said some means things about a Sweet 16 "reality TV" girl, and Ira Glass' gave an account of his experience when he heard his favorite characters on "The O.C." refer to his radio show in clever and snide tones. You know, like his show does about everyone else. I'm not sure, but I think I had been inspired to come blog some witty, snide observations of my own. Then I find this boy is in the house and I realize I have nothing snide or witty to say. There's nothing snide or witty about the way I am living. I am the Crown Prince of failed, miserable wasted-life losers and my life is one huge spectacular grand-scale exercise in How Not To Live.
I'm not supposed to make rash decisions when I've experienced something traumatic, such as not-dying in a car accident. I know that. But I can't live in this man's house anymore. I hate his son and I hate him. I hate everything. Hate hate hate. I'm mad and angry and resentful at myself and every electron spinning around every atom in every object in every part of this entire Universe.
And yet, somehow, I'm fixated on survival. There are milestones in my immediate past that I can look back at. There are improvements now that I can take comfort in. There are reasons that I don't have to eat a bullet or force others to.
I'll get through this. Surely. Why else did I live through the accident with just two scratches? I've got a hero who wants to see me again this week. I've got friends I can call (I haven't told My Friend The Doctor about my car yet, because I heap enough Sad-Ass Life drama on him, but my friend Grim Jester pursued my cellphone until he could make sure I was okay, and he had been pissy to me ever since we had the tiff during D&D those weeks ago, but yesterday all the piss was gone, and he was just the caring friend who I was hoping he had been when I had first decided to call him one.) I've still got my job and despite the fact that I have to now spend it, I did manage to get through the pay-period with some savings. And now my taxes are done and I'm getting a cute refund.
So I guess I'll be alright--even though I hate everything--because sometimes, everything deserves to be hated on a little. In my opinion.
So that's alright then.
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