Holding Together Your Principles

I talked to my father on the phone and caught myself doing something annoying. We were having a serious discussion about money and the apartment and the costs of putting down payments, whether I was going back to school or not, and how much money I would contribute to all this. There was the implicit assumption on his part that I would fork over a hefty portion of the money. The reality is that I don’t have much more than a few grand, and once that’s gone (and that will go quickly once all the moving costs are factored in), I still don’t make enough money per week to support myself.

My goal at the onset of my taking a year off was to save up money to buy some recording equipment so I could have the freedom to record myself and actually contribute something that extended beyond the people watching me play piano in a room. My goal was also to be able to, at the end of the year, support myself financially.

I fucking failed at both things.

Right now I’m spending my time exhaustively setting up the logistics of moving into a new and cheaper apartment, while enjoying the hovering cloud of guilt and self-loathing that comes with being hit hard with reality, and failing at two things I’ve spent a year trying to work on.

Are you going to go back to school?

Are you going to pay for all this moving?

30 hours of working a week is not enough.

And talking on the phone with dad, that annoying moment of mine came right at the pinnacle of feeling truly useless and pitiful – I ceded and was about to ask him:

“What do you want me to do?”

As soon as I could hear those words form in my head, I knew I was fucked and that had I asked him that question, I might as well have surrendered my balls and every ounce of personal responsibility in my life.

I was literally about to ask someone who is NOT me, what is best for ME.

Right after I wrote a post about doing just the opposite. That’s fucking annoying.

The Hardest Things to Find in New York City are a Place to Live and a Job to Pay for It

Apartment hunting in New York City when you’re broke as you were in high school can be atrociously difficult and time consuming. Everyone is busy and late to meet and it takes forever to get everyone on the same page. Especially the brokers. Going through brokers that charge fees is ultimately “easier” – if your definition of “easier” involves getting it up the ass.

Getting a good deal is tough if you can’t afford much, but need a fair amount of space to live. You literally have to take the first thing that comes along that fits the bill relatively well, otherwise some asshole will come in and take it within the hour.

Brooklyn is weird. It is strangely desolate yet populated, the buildings look ratty, and there is a general uncleanliness about it. This is not like the situation I had growing up in various rich neighborhoods full of rich and often snobby white people. What happened to the life?

On the train ride over to where me and my two roommates are going to probably end up moving, I got a view of a large portion of Brooklyn. I thought about all the people living here with ridiculous dreams involving their art, doing pretty much the same things we’re trying to do, only at different stages in their lives. Have they gotten anywhere? Maybe that’s not the point. Who the fuck knows.

Every once in a while I have to repeatedly isolate the things I enjoy doing. Frankly, everyone should do this – eschew your “realistic” responsibilities and allow yourself to think freely. What. Do. I. Like. Doing?

Forget about what will make money or what looks good or whatever your parents think. Throw all that shit away. If you like jerking off and reading books, that’s awesome. Set up your life so you can do those things as much as possible.

You can do that even in New York City, only your minimum level of livable income is still a fair amount of fucking money.