i'm poor, but so is everyone else

The realization this week that I didn't have any money and that I was in dect to at least 4 different corporations was upsetting but not as bad as driving back from Choice to pick up the mail and realize that my car insurance policy had been cancelled because I didn't pay. there's nothing much to do in a situation like that. I tried to call, but their offices closed at 1pm on Saturdays. So, at 5pm I opened a beer and smoked a clove cigarette. What are we supposed to do? I started to make a list of all the luxury items in my life that I see as superfluous. Beer being number one on the list. What else, my emusic subscription. For someone as obsessed with music as I am, 20 dollars a month is too much to pay. What else? I think I can afford 60 dollars every two weeks for groceries. But, I can't afford to shop or even go into Fresh Market. What about weed? Is it better to be poor and fucked up than to have money and be sober? I'll get back to you on that one.

But honestly. I feel like I'm living in poverty. I see the plight of the American. Fast food is cheap food even though it can lead to obesity and heart disease which in the end cost one more in the long run in doctors' and hospital bills. It's funny that we chose to have a contest to see who can lose the most weight and now I feel like the one who gained the most will be the true winner because they got to eat that month. Its possible to live on the money that I make, I know that. People do it everyday. I'm not anything special... I just to remind myself that simple tastes are what you must accept. SIMPLER tastes. That means only buying Yuengling, if you're going to let yourself drink at all. Ukrops is off limits. Online shopping is off limits. Driving anywhere but to work and back, done. No concerts, no joy rides around the county. Thinking seriously about finding a second job, maybe I'll be able to work the after school program, tutor and serve people pizza and beer and if I'm lucky I'll be able to save up enough money to go to the dentist or buy a new pair of glasses. I'm nostalgic for the times when people worried about 9/11 and Y2K and Bill Clinton getting his dick sucked at least then I wouldn't have to drive through a nice part of town and see 5 for sale signs and one FOR RENT sign sitting on the lawn of my grandmother's house. The house that my mom grew up in, the house that sold for less than what we thought so no my grandmother might have to move into a small room at her retirement home..... sigh.....

It's Saturday night, and staying in, listening to records and thinking and finding 4 very sympathetic, empathetic ears waiting to hear everything I had to say and offering anything they could to help out. The church of poor hipsters...let's go shopping together and split the cost, let's find a way to sell more books on-line and, don't feel bad about it, you need the money, and thoughts of family dinners every night, gathered around the table in the cold like Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters." I say fuck it, lets be poor. Lets reduce our lives to exactly what we need, lets clip coupons, lets walk to buy our groceries with a back-pack on. Lets live on the bare essentials and realize that the poor of our country live like the middle class of others. Life is fucking complicated when you make it that way, but poor people have only the basic needs to fill. This is my goal, fuck Walden. Let's find our own economy and thrive in nothingness