Thursday, October 23, 2008
Try Our Special Internal Tax Bracket Caramel Commotion Free Trade Blend
I remember never having many friends, especially when I was very little. I remember a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear, too.
I remember coming home from kindergarten one day. My sister used to always wait for me in the yard, and we would have a tea party, but this day we couldn't have one, because the table was gone. She was crying, because it had disappeared. It had been stolen.
We lived in a suburban project, one of the first in Chicago. Many middle-class families had opposed its construction. I suppose they didn't want us shopping at the same Dominick's or going to the same fancy schools.
It was a fancy school, too. I remember we went to a computer lab, where graphic images combined with words in a program designed to teach us how to read. This was 1985. I don't remember seeing anything like in the schools I went to since, and I went to a lot of schools.
I remember little things, silly things, too, like how we got to go on a field trip to the zoo, and my mother had packed some Oreo cookies in my lunch. We didn't always have cookies or candy, because we didn't have the money. I was a saver from an early age. I remember I ate less than half of them, when afterward, one of the chaperons offered to carry them for me. She didn't give them back, and I felt this hate, like "She stole my cookies!" Ha. OK, I was five but, in the sense that children are first learning the meaning of "mine," it was more than that. It was like part of my special day had been taken from me.
My mother hates it when I talk about things like this. She doesn't want to remember some of the things I remember, like cracking an egg into a bowl for dinner, and microwaving it for a minute. Once, I did that in a piece of good China, and when I took it out, the bowl broke in half.
Some things people don't want to remember. Some things people don't want to forget. Regardless, these things become part of you.
It's like how a friend of mine wrote something recently about quality vs. quantity, and how sometimes if you buy low-quality things you have to buy more of them, in the long run. When you are poor, though, you don't have a back stock of money to be able to buy the higher quality things initially, and you are forced into a cycle of always paying more.
Then even when you get the money it's hard to distinguish between want and need. Being poor is so deep in my consciousness. For the most part, it makes me cheap, which is good when it comes to some things, but not for others. Take food and clothing: Not long ago I remember telling my mother I couldn't afford fruits and vegetables. "But you're vegetarian. What do you eat, then?" she asked.
Last semester I had an exceedingly difficult time. I stayed in a friend's living room for $200 a month. I actually made a little money, but took out a loan to pay my tuition, that cost me roughly $800 a month. With my other bills, I didn't have much leftover after that. Mostly, I bought macaroni and seasoned it myself. I didn't even want to pay for Hamburger Helper, which I usually made with veggie meat. At $2 a box, it was too baller for me.
I guess what's different is that I'm doing so much better now. I got a raise, and I received more financial aid than last year. So, why is it I only recently figured out -- like in the last week or two -- that it's OK for me to buy broccoli?
I'm taking vitamins too. I've even been buying clothes. On the one hand, I look at consumerism as a sickness. The more I buy, the more I still feel like I have to buy. I hate that feeling, but I also hate not feeling like myself in my own skin. For a year or two, on any given day, I have worn one or more pieces of clothing which I acquired free of charge: either one of my sisters or roommates or friends or mother had no use for it anymore. At the time, I was grateful. I wouldn't have even been able to do the temp work I did leading up to this job, had it not been for the suit my sister loaned me or the slacks she gave me, or the button-up shirts.
Still, there's a Rilo Kiley song where Jenny Lewis says something about standing in "somebody else's clothes," and I literally was, only when I get new clothes it takes internal effort to not feel exactly the same.
I want to know, to remember, where I'm going as well as where I came from. It's a hard sell when you have trained yourself to think of so many things as luxuries and lived off the bare necessities. It can be confusing.
A couple weekends ago I bought two shirts and a skirt. I spent more money on them than I have in the past on a summer wardrobe (which obviously has never been much, but still), and I felt this strange sense of guilt and pride mixed together. I wore one of the shirts out to dinner, and I felt like a queen in it, though. The same night, all my friends who saw me complimented me, and for a moment, I felt like I deserved it, and I earned it.
For some reason, knowing I will never vote Republican makes me feel better. I just don't want to be a latte-drinking Democrat who eventually finds herself hanging out at American Apparel either.
I remember never having many friends, especially when I was very little. I remember a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear, too.
I remember coming home from kindergarten one day. My sister used to always wait for me in the yard, and we would have a tea party, but this day we couldn't have one, because the table was gone. She was crying, because it had disappeared. It had been stolen.
We lived in a suburban project, one of the first in Chicago. Many middle-class families had opposed its construction. I suppose they didn't want us shopping at the same Dominick's or going to the same fancy schools.
It was a fancy school, too. I remember we went to a computer lab, where graphic images combined with words in a program designed to teach us how to read. This was 1985. I don't remember seeing anything like in the schools I went to since, and I went to a lot of schools.
I remember little things, silly things, too, like how we got to go on a field trip to the zoo, and my mother had packed some Oreo cookies in my lunch. We didn't always have cookies or candy, because we didn't have the money. I was a saver from an early age. I remember I ate less than half of them, when afterward, one of the chaperons offered to carry them for me. She didn't give them back, and I felt this hate, like "She stole my cookies!" Ha. OK, I was five but, in the sense that children are first learning the meaning of "mine," it was more than that. It was like part of my special day had been taken from me.
My mother hates it when I talk about things like this. She doesn't want to remember some of the things I remember, like cracking an egg into a bowl for dinner, and microwaving it for a minute. Once, I did that in a piece of good China, and when I took it out, the bowl broke in half.
Some things people don't want to remember. Some things people don't want to forget. Regardless, these things become part of you.
It's like how a friend of mine wrote something recently about quality vs. quantity, and how sometimes if you buy low-quality things you have to buy more of them, in the long run. When you are poor, though, you don't have a back stock of money to be able to buy the higher quality things initially, and you are forced into a cycle of always paying more.
Then even when you get the money it's hard to distinguish between want and need. Being poor is so deep in my consciousness. For the most part, it makes me cheap, which is good when it comes to some things, but not for others. Take food and clothing: Not long ago I remember telling my mother I couldn't afford fruits and vegetables. "But you're vegetarian. What do you eat, then?" she asked.
Last semester I had an exceedingly difficult time. I stayed in a friend's living room for $200 a month. I actually made a little money, but took out a loan to pay my tuition, that cost me roughly $800 a month. With my other bills, I didn't have much leftover after that. Mostly, I bought macaroni and seasoned it myself. I didn't even want to pay for Hamburger Helper, which I usually made with veggie meat. At $2 a box, it was too baller for me.
I guess what's different is that I'm doing so much better now. I got a raise, and I received more financial aid than last year. So, why is it I only recently figured out -- like in the last week or two -- that it's OK for me to buy broccoli?
I'm taking vitamins too. I've even been buying clothes. On the one hand, I look at consumerism as a sickness. The more I buy, the more I still feel like I have to buy. I hate that feeling, but I also hate not feeling like myself in my own skin. For a year or two, on any given day, I have worn one or more pieces of clothing which I acquired free of charge: either one of my sisters or roommates or friends or mother had no use for it anymore. At the time, I was grateful. I wouldn't have even been able to do the temp work I did leading up to this job, had it not been for the suit my sister loaned me or the slacks she gave me, or the button-up shirts.
Still, there's a Rilo Kiley song where Jenny Lewis says something about standing in "somebody else's clothes," and I literally was, only when I get new clothes it takes internal effort to not feel exactly the same.
I want to know, to remember, where I'm going as well as where I came from. It's a hard sell when you have trained yourself to think of so many things as luxuries and lived off the bare necessities. It can be confusing.
A couple weekends ago I bought two shirts and a skirt. I spent more money on them than I have in the past on a summer wardrobe (which obviously has never been much, but still), and I felt this strange sense of guilt and pride mixed together. I wore one of the shirts out to dinner, and I felt like a queen in it, though. The same night, all my friends who saw me complimented me, and for a moment, I felt like I deserved it, and I earned it.
For some reason, knowing I will never vote Republican makes me feel better. I just don't want to be a latte-drinking Democrat who eventually finds herself hanging out at American Apparel either.
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