To all my single white Brooklyn females, addicted to Retail...

Some words of wisdom & an inspiring play list...

I can't tell you that my word's can actually be described as being "wise" considering I am still living in what some might refer to as "the prime" years of a human being's life. Perhaps to few, I may not be considered old enough to spit out such wisdom, but at most i can offer some reassurance for those who can relate.

However, I am arriving at the general idea lately that most young people cannot relate to my situation... but for the one's that can..

..Lighter's in the Air style..

"This one is for you"

Here i sit in my Greenpoint loft apartment, without wireless service.

That sentence should have already given 75% of my reading audience heart burn, "What does she mean no wireless service?" .. "Did she turn her phone off temporarily?" "Will she get this service back tomorrow!?" 

"Who stole her phone at the bodega while she was reaching for a new carton of half and half and left her phone laying beside a few scraps of opened splenda packages and does she know who made the mad dash with her life?"

Phone didn't get Stolen.

Recently, I made the choice to walk on one of my three clients that i have for what i guess i can call, the itty bitty self made, PR firms i have attempted to start on my own.

They were half of my weekly revenue, then after quitting this client, based on my personal emotions concerning the months of intense devaluation and under appreciated devotion made on my part, to their business. I felt slightly euphoric for a little over a week, until i realized the type of cut i was actually taking in pay.

At the end of the day, my pride remains intact, but with a bare pocket to show for it. 

My wireless service got shut off for the for time the other day, based on a week to week pay period i assumed i was going to receive my pay from one of my clients, as per usual. So instead of paying my wireless bill the week before, i called and made a payment arrangement with at&t because it was my birthday and i wanted a little extra spending money.

What i really wanted was to buy myself the first new bathing suit I have been able to afford in almost three years, which i might add was 50% of American Apparel.

Not too shabby....

Well, payment arrangements are apparently a rather final deal, after hanging up with my one client Thursday and being informed that she wasn't going to be at the showroom to pay me until the following Tuesday, i felt an immediate feeling of anxiety concerning the fact i wouldn't be able to pay my bill. So, here i sit, dis connected.

It is not so much the feeling of being disconnected from the world, as much as it is the feeling of being at the mercy of people and being once again let down.

She owed me around $275.00

I now in return owe at&t 300.00 in place of the 77.00 payment i had promised to make to ensure my services wouldn't be cut off. 

So, yeah... 

I mean, I don't really know at this point, i still am able to listen to spotify from my phone so life isn't completely terrible, but I'm definitely feeling the hit right now of utter (temporary) disconnection.

This feeling is still better than the following:

1. Joining one of those sugar daddy websites and having some disgusting old man pay for my mistakes, verses me having to wait it out long enough to pay for my own mistakes.

Alot of girls these days in NYC and other places would rather rock red bottom's soles than be able to age gracefully, mentally .. and know that although life wasn't exactly easy, their had paid their own dues and learned from their own mistakes, as one should.

You wouldn't catch me even the slightest bit conscious, with some bitter 60 year old midtown married business mans dick in me for a few purses, shoes and the promise of staying fully connected to this world, in which sometimes i totally just, don't get to begin with.

Even when i am fully connected. 

So let me sit inside myself momentarily and reflect on all the things THAT ARE WORSE than temporarily being disconnected.

2. Calling my mom and dealing with fifteen minutes of insult just to tell me that because of my younger sibling i can no longer rely on them to be of any assistance. That's just always the tip of the iceberg, i have made one call to my parents over the course of the last six months regarding any type of financial aid and the $40.00 pay out wasn't worth my while.

I don't necessarily find this a terrible thing that my parents can no longer afford to fund my immature choices made financially. 

It's temporarily inconvenient but it's not the worse, fifteen minutes of my mom repeating the same over exaggerated, dramatic lines .. is way worse.

I'd rather disconnect some limb in all honesty.

3. I'm not dying, going to jail and no one in my immediate family has suffered any untimely death or terrible misfortune in which they weren't the main causer of. 

(Side note) 

This is another thing, although this one is a tad dramatic,

 (one time for your mind)

 i think people at my age (26) should really start including this is most of their thoughts, seriously. If you have both parents alive, all siblings mostly intact .. you have won half the battle. Seeing so many people recently burying their own siblings and or parent's has really made me think how bad is "bad"?

No seriously, really.

Discovering that i could still listen to my music via my shattered screen authenticated, iPhone 4 has totally changed my general feeling of being disconnected because normally i am rather disconnected but music plays a huge role in that, it wasn't human interaction i was missing per say, rather than just the sound of.

Last, but not to be completely over looked,

4. You choose to live in NYC, you choose to struggle.

Had i never left the suburbs would i have ever known the true meaning behind feeling "disconnected" or would i have adopted some sort of defense against such intrusive thoughts, the thoughts that crept in late night, at my bedside. These thoughts, that only emerged after I was left alone in thought, pondering my existence for only 1/3 rd of the amount of time i ponder my existence in New York City. Would it have been any better, had i not ever lost wireless connection at all? Would it have been better to have never felt the burden of inconvenience whatsoever? 

Being left with only one main inconvenience in my life, "having not been inconvenienced at all"

I ask myself this question a lot, I think back to 2006 and my second time ever riding the subway, having a 40 once chugged directly at my face and having it miss me by just a mere inch or two, if i left a week after this incident, would i have found myself content in having only experiencing the feeling of being inconvenienced or temporarily detached from just that one incident? 

"Had a chance to turn back ... but look, that was then....."

I had to laugh tonight, thinking about how i was so caught up in the moment earlier today after having read a brief article on Freewilliamsburg.com over the excitement of Mccarren Park Pool to be opening on the 28th, I was totally hypnotized by the flawless pictures displayed of the pool's  new and improved look.
 Being a sucker for all things corny concerning Brooklyn's history, I was most moved by the promise of new interior siding that was made up of the real coney island scattered remains that washed up shore after the aftermath of hurricane Sandy. 

It is weird how i almost view "New York City" as not only being a real human being, but almost as a finite being, as if he or she should be praised and highly regarded despite it's ability to display so many real, humanistic flaws.

Why do i treat New York City like my Irish grandfather did, by displaying his picture proudly in the kitchen of the home he worked for and will die for?

I treat New York City like my grandma treated things that predated the Clinton Administration, nothing worth reading into. She was convinced she had seen the best and the idea of something better would never truthfully be entertained.

#LCDSOUNDSYSTEM

I mean, sometimes it's just like .. "fuck this place", what's it really worth anyways? If i were forced to cross over the great barrier line's that separate New York City from a state in which i was born and raised, would it really be so bad at this point?

How much longer can i keep convincing myself that the pro's might someday out weigh the con's.

Had i not felt some burning desire to flee from all things concerning my existence at the age of sixteen, would really would have been "saved" about who i really feel that i am.

Had i not spent a grueling summer working for a ridiculous Jewish man out on Coney Island in a hot, rather "questionable" smelling office would i have been forced to live without ever knowing that Coney Island looked better as it disappeared, Manhattan bound on the F train, more so than it ever would look as the F train came barreling towards it? Had it not seen the dark clouds moving in on the wonder wheel and the sudden flash of lightning strike shortly after the dark clouds emerged on the F train, Manhattan Bound on the day in which i finally quit that terrible office job. 

I most likely would have just admired Coney Island from the highest point of the jetty on the over privileged beach i spent almost every single summer of my human life at on the Jersey Shore. Would i have been content with just knowing it existed and seeing it from a distance, on a particularly clear summer day?

An actual picture i took myself last year, souped about being on the same pier that the cast of Requiem for Dream had once been on, it was super amateur hour of me, i admit this.

Had I just continued to spend all of my beloved summer days at that very same beach club private beach club that i had been a member of since before conception on the Jersey Shore, with all  those very same individuals I see every summer would i have ever found it within myself to be excited about the opening of a public pool in Brooklyn?
 which offered me no choice but to strip down and enter, forcing me to surrender my cover up, my music and all reading materials just to sit amongst the masses.

Just to be forced to listen to those who qualified as being in my class level, those who could afford a three dollar lock?

Lined up, stripped down and felt up like new inmates
 we all gather and swell the public pools, looking for some temporary distraction from the hot summer swelter & the lingering body odor of a bum that passed by you ten blocks before.

Although, New York magazine is available for purchase at several bodega's and new stands in and around where a lot of where, NYC's "Sorry People" live, we must never look to fulfill an inner fantasy of our's formed from starring directly at some Absolut Vodka summer ad that graces the pages of New York magazine, but we should be reminded rather consistently and accept the harsh reality that at the end of the day, we may just be forced to live a life, being apart of, but standing rather far from the sun that sets over the Manhattan Skyline. 

Another one of those sunsets, this photo was taken by yours truly ..  finding myself in the middle of serious instagram opportunity

With no distractions, I am only forced to understand my accumulated worth here in New York City, which at this moment is in the negative.

All these inconveniences brought on by myself and my unconditional love for a place that has essentially offered me nothing in the past three years but a dozen beautiful sunsets and a shit ton of hard life lessons.

Being out here alone and having to deal with such inconveniences all alone, something like feeling disconnected via wireless service is small potatoes compared to the ways in which New York City has made me feel disconnected in these past 7 years.

After spending a few months taking piping cold showers and being able to see my own hot breath as it emerged from my mouth, as it emerged in the comfort of my own living room, verses only being offered this same opportunity on the walk to the subway during the coldest winter days, It is now that i can endure such minor inconveniences. 

We all love to hate it, but hate to love it at the end of the day, knowing life would be much easier some place else, anywhere in the United States..... 

So yeah, "said" Play list...


1. LCD Sound System - I love you New York but you're bringing me down (#1 for a reason)

2. Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence

3. Supertramp - The logical song

4. Sbtrkt - Trials of the Past feat. Sampha
5. Summer in the City - The lovin Spoonful'
6. Sbtrkt - Pharaohs feat Roses Gabor
7. Thieves like us - Stay blue
8. Washed out - Eyes be Closed
9. Take on Me - Aha
10. Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls
11. Joan Osborne - One of us
12. Aretha Franklin - Say a little prayer for you
13. Diplo - Summer's gunna hurt you
14. The Killers - All these things that iv done
15.  Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek
16.  A tribe called quest - Buggin out'
17. Deadmau5 - Raise Your Weopan
18. OMBRE - Tormentas
19. Nas & Damian - As we Enter
20. Santigold - The keepers
21. Aluna George - You know you like it
22. Teen Daze - Brooklyn Sunburn
23. Heart - These Dreams
24. Physical Therapy feat Jamie Krasner - Drone on
25. Empire of the Sun God's - Standing on the Shore
26. J. Dilla - Workin on it
27.  Bobby Byrd - I know you got soul (if you didn't.. you wouldn't be out here)
28. Jewel - Hands
29. Ice Cube - It was a good day
30. Memphis Bleek - Dear Summer