I'm addicted to frou-frou and I need to get off it. I've never really had money before, to try out the upper class life. I still don't, not really. But I have (had, right now my ass is broke from not working for a week, buying new glasses, and now not working again until next Monday cuz I'm going home for Thanksgiving) more disposable income than I've ever had in my life. Well, except for maybe when I was 14/15 and didn't bother to save any money from my part time job. But I spent that all on drugs and partying, which I suppose is a bit frou-frou in a certain teenager sort of way.
Frou-frou is going to swanky sushi bars with my rich friend who just bought a fucking condo in downtown Minneapolis (she's 24 years old) and spending $50 on four delicious, but ridiculous drinks. Frou-frou is deciding it was a good idea to spend $422 on a new pair of glasses. Well, $160 is being reimbursed, money I had to spend before December or lose it from my flex spending plan at my old job. Still, $262 is more than I should have spent of my own money. And I don't get that money (which took out the majority of my savings) back for a week or two so it's a damn good thing Ponge's job came when it did or we'd be borrowing money to pay our rent. Frou-frou is buying expensive wine and cheeses and junk food.
It's assinine. I could have saved up so much more money than I have. If it was Ponge's money, he would have. He is much more fiscally responsible than I am. Well it helps that he doesn't drink or smoke cigarettes. I do plenty of both, and that mess costs money. He also has a much better time envisioning his goals - he wants to help his dad afford a down payment on a house in Senegal so that he can get the hell out of the USA, stop working 7 days a week, and take some fuckin time off for once in his life. I have goals, too, but I'm so scatterbrained and have been under this falsehood that it doesn't matter what I spend because I can always make more. But that's crap considering what my goals are. I want a house and one needs to have quite a bit to make a down payment on a mortgage as far as I know. Shit, I don't even have furniture.
Somehow I got all caught up in this money bullshit. Looking like you have money, acting like you have money. Today when I picked up my glasses from the trendy store in uptown I was actually embaressed that the sales people might see me get on my bike. Like I was supposed to be driving a car. Shit, I used to be, and should be, proud that I use my bike and public transportation for most of my transportation. It was an active choice to avoid getting a car. And why would I give a flying fuck what some trendy lens pushing yuppee types thought about me, anyway? That's when I realized I was in serious need of a reality check. I never used to give a shit what people, especially the masses of asses in yuppie hellholes, thought of me. I always figured they needed a lesson in humanity more than I needed a lesson in fitting in.
But it's also true that I don't worship the crusty punk/hippie scene like I used to. There are just as many dumbfucks there as there are in the rest of society, they just don't take as many showers. I mean, how many people go to the Hard Times Cafe as an active daily stance against free trade and global corporate capitalism versus how many go there because it's their "scene?" As far as fashion goes, many of them are just as snottily judgemental as all the GAP/Abercrombie & Fitch type people. I mean, try going to a crusty party wearing hip hop style clothing or a name brand piece of winter gear (i.e. not scavanged from the army surplus or a thrift store) and how many people instantly judge you and look down on you and talk about you there? Just as many as a crusty walking into a sorority party. Got a pair of Carhart jeans? Wow, you're in. Crusties have their name brands, too. Carharts, while durable and maybe worth it, cost between $40 - $55 a pair. Many used clothing stores still sell their used & therefore less durable jeans for $15-$20. Not so better than someone who buys their Old Navy jeans for $22. Which isn't to say that I don't completely despise Old Navy commercials.
....
I just need to get some kind of grip on exercising the things that are important to me. It seems like it was so easy to do when I was in college, like there were reinforcements all around. Now I have to create that idealism all on my own, after spending quite some time in a country that encouraged me to conform like nothing I've ever experienced here in the states, and then spending a year in Madison where my only "activist" coherts were people that are not my peers (i.e. not my age group, not people I called up on a Friday night). I really think it deeply affected my steadfast connection between my actions and their effects. As in, there in Senegal there was only one way to do many things. There was no recycling so you just reused whatever you could but threw a fuck of a lot away. Vegetarianism was almost unheard of and I chose to accept whatever I was being given to eat & not be a huge pain in the ass. Practically everything you bought clothing wise was from a street vendor & most of the "name brands" were imitations. Try to find a fair trade, union t-shirt in Senegal. Unheard of. As for Madison, one gets tired of explaining and arguing justice over beers. One wants people who agree with you who can also add things to the conversation and challenge you. So...you don't talk about things as much. You get rusty. Lazy.
I don't know what the hell my problem with getting involved with something here in Mpls has been. It's like I want opportunity to just fall in my lap even though I know I could easily seek it out and find it. Maybe it's the frou-frou thing. I have been too involved in the immediate pleasures to be had. Have fun. Get drunk. Clean the house (sick, I know, but I really enjoy turning a mildly disasterous apartment into a sparkling fucking organized one). Talk. Most of all, TALK. Talk about your relationships, talk about the election, talk about your stupid job over and over and over, talk about crusties, talk about your health, talk about your day, talk. Talk. Talk. Rrr. Shut the fuck up, and do, for once.