the new economy

its still cold here in seattle. which means the kids of capitol hill are still freezing their tushes off at night, living in these big old crappy houses, paying like nothing for rent but wasting the rest of their tiny paychecks on useless space heaters and booze to ward off the feeling of cold feet.

april. what happened to global warming? what happened to spring? the other day i was weighing the pros and cons of my semi-dating slash not dating slash man-friend situation, and we decided on one thing. "its still cold," frey said, shrugging. "might as well keep him around at least until it gets warmer at night."

good point.

speaking of which. in light of The New Economy*, one must consider ways to make money, feed oneself and what to do for entertainment and hobbies. for cheap and/or free. here are a few ideas:

1. as mentioned before, sell your clothing. not stripping. take clothes that you are currently not wearing, preferably semi-fashionable and with no apparent deodorant rings (i learned this the hard way), and walk to (in this order) buffalo exchange, crossroads, red light and then crossroads again. in this cascading order, the pickier stores will buy the best stuff for higher prices, the vintage items will trickle down to red light and crossroads will have a different clothing buyer every eight hours, so who cares. they take anything.
2. collect all the pennies and jars of change in your house and take 'em to coinstar. don't take jars of quarters, people will get mad (i.e. laundry, bus money, etc). but they probably won't notice if you take that creepy, beer-stained glass under the coffee table in the living room full of 43 cents. hey, it all adds up.
3. sell shit on craigslist. that weird bookshelf you found on the street? sell it! the lamp "from pier 1 imports, just bought it but it doesnt match my new paint job"? yep, that's a good story. someone will want the smashed lamp you took from your dorm lounge three years ago. profit!
4. get crafty. my neighbors found beads and feathers somewhere, no they are gluing them to headbands. $10. hey, these things sell at urban for my $20.
5. food bank. i hear they exist. i should look into this, actually.
6. food stamps. i tried to apply. but the application form that came in the mail got lost. oops.
7. cheap medical attention! country doctor, like 18th & republican. you go there for your eye infection, weird cold, refill on thyroid meds, whatever. its only $15 if you're poor.
8. planned parenthood. yes and yes. its free if you're poor! free birth control, free condoms (boys can go too!), free annual exam. better safe than sorry! better late than never! ha!
9. someday we will live in a place that has socialized medicine. well, at least i hope i can move to europe someday... haha bad joke. anyways, more cheap medical stuff, which SHOULD NOT BE A SECRET! quality food center pharmacy. ask about their $10 for 3 months worth of generic meds deal. so legit. fill out a application, show your prescription (which you can get at country doctor or PP, yay!) and you're good to go.
10. busking. find a talent, dress up a bit, go hit up pikes place market on a saturday. might work. or you might get shooed along by police. whatevs.
11. yard sale. my neighbors are about to move to new york, and they are going to sell all their stuff out on the sidewalk. nice!
12. actually, there are a lot of semi- to un-legit ways to make money. selling smuggled drugs and stripping are just two things i have actually, seriously considered. stripping might be a pain because i hate shaving my legs. ...and i'd probably have to shave a lot more than that, now that i think of it. hm. back to selling mescaline.

once you got the money-makin' and money-savin' thing down, its time to move into the money-free entertainment category. how to have fun for free!

1. play at the park. no joke, its sort of fun. i wish it was warm though.
2. watch movies online. and TV shows! yay!
3. get dumpstered snacks and watch aforementioned TV shows.
4. go to a karaoke night at a bar. pre-funk beforehand and maybe they won't notice you're not buying drinks...
5. actually just get a friend who has an actual job to buy a pitcher.
6. sing for your drinks. (have done it)
7. frye art museum. free, i've heard.
8. sort through all your old bus transfers and find the right color for today. ride the bus! its fun!
9. naps.
10. cuddling.
11. making out.
12. sex.
13. actually all those could have gone under one bullet.
14. making cookies out of things you find in your kitchen. aka really old lumpy sugar.

okay enough fuzzy, free ways to have fun. on to other things. frey left, by the way. ridiculously sad, not sure what to do with myself. i pick up my phone like once a day in a mad rush to text out: MUST TALK, PRESSE, NOW, FRITES AND BLOODY MARYS??? but then i remember that our french fry and cocktail traditions are over for the moment. frey packed up her bags, her cat, and left for san francisco a week ago. seems so much longer ago. the night before she left, the goblin kids and i moped around until someone suggested that we grab a coupla six-packs of fat tire. next thing we know, a fat tire night is in full-swing, all of us blasting our favorite songs, sing-along time, laughing at the old stories, shouting across the room when normal indoor voices would have sufficed, and wow, where did all this beer come from?

it was good. just like the night we all met, two years ago. and the next day, her new McBoyfriend arrived at the airport, came to the house to help her load her car, and they drove off. us goblin house kids took a quick snapshot in front of the house, hugged her one-by-one, and then ran alongside her car as it drove off down the street. someone shouted, "just married!" as a joke and i called out to "write the ol' fam a lettah." but it did feel like we were giving one of our daughters away, in some sort of ridiculously backwards, old-timey shotgun wedding. weird.

anyways, frey is gone, hopefully soaking up the sun and her McBoyfriend and new coffee job. the house has been quiet since she left. josh is out, moved over to 20th & union or something. everyone else works a ton it seems. actually. work-wise, i have moved back into the poverty category. and thus the aforementioned list of ways to be poor and survive. i mean, its bad. i overdrew my account twice in the last two weeks, my credit card is basically maxed out and almost bounced a check. plus student loans. bam. one day, feeling the pangs of hunger, i looked through my drawers to see what i could sell. i sold my clothes. for money. to eat. welcome to the new economy.

and so, when a couple of shifts opened up at my A.R.J., i snatched them up. opening shift? no problem! 10 hour shift? yes, please! two doubles in one week? i'll take it. I AM DESPERATE. and have no problem sharing that. yes, working sixteen hours in one day makes me want to die, but when you are begging your roommates to for any random pennies they might want to get rid of so that you can haul a jar of coins to the change machine just to buy yourself a pita and hummus, things start to look a little different.

back to the dilemma of to date or not-to-date? things are... the same. always. i am enamored, i am pissed, i am confused, his phone dies for a week, i am over it, he shows up at my window at 3 in the morning from all the way across town throwing little pebbles and telling me he couldn't stand not seeing me for another second, i am flattered, he is drunk, it doesn't matter anymore. we go on. one day last week he came over, surprised to see a tall, freakish-ly good-looking french man sleeping on my couch. its a traveling couchsurfer*, i explain. he is not comforted, and asks me if he should be worried about "some european guy stealing his girlfriend." i just laugh at his sudden show of jealousy and wonder why he is calling me his girlfriend.

the next day we hung out with some of his friends, running around downtown. the convention center was hosting "sakura-con 09," which is about the most fucked-up shit i have ever encountered. like 10,000 anime fans gathered for a three day event in which apparently there are workshops and anime celebrities or something. oh, and EVERYONE dresses up. i wasn't surprised at the 400 sailor moons i observed. the 200 pokemon characters seemed somewhat appropriate too. there were several thousand obscure anime characters that i did not recognize, but the kids kept running across the place shouting, "OH EM GEE its ka-won-tee from dragon magic riders!" or something. but then there were a few super hero characters, TV personalities (i saw 3 stewies from family guy), and then the line bewteen anime and disney was blurred. at one point all the snow whites of the convention had gathered. cinderella (time two) joined in also. i can see how disney is animated. i was also pretty confused by indiana jones, three nuns and a girl in a green bathing suit. that didn't make sense. but then all was trumped when straight-up jesus came strolling by with a cross. anime? not so much. he had braces too.

anime fest 09. the boy and i strolled around, laughing, sipping vodka out of paper coffee cups and taking pictures. several of his friends joined us and while it was cool to meet them, the title girlfriend was busted out a few more times. weird. the day ended with dinner at pikes place market and a return to the hill. nice.

easter morning was all work, but afterwards i was itching to just curl up and watch movies. what's better than watching movies? watching them with a boy. what's better than cuddling and watching movies with a boy? building a roaring fire and having the whole house to yourselves. ha. well, at least you think the house is empty, and then you walk around in nothing but his tee-shirt and half of his housemates are having a pow-wow in the hallway. ah yes.


appendix!

*The New Economy: its a recession, let's be honest. money is tight, jobs suck, we are all poor, no matter what our conservative republican parents say ("people are just imagining this. things were fine under bush!" no, no they weren't.)
*couchsurfer: i like traveling. i like travelers. i am signed up for couchsurfing.com. i let cool travelers stay on my couch, and when i travel, i crash on their couches. pretty legit.