| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- dead-end American dreaming... I am so bad, bad, bad...I am supposed to be finishing up a workshop story and I'm just procrastinating...I really only have a page or two more to write, plus proofing...but I guess I just don't know how I want this one particular scene to develop and so....and so here I am....I suppose I could just write up something slap-dash...it's just an informal workshop after all...but I'm not fond of slap-dash when my name is on it... Today I realized that I've really missed my calling as a rich housewife. It was glorious getting up at 9 a.m. and checking my e-mail in my pajamas, sipping coffee. I then did some weights, took a shower and then talked to my mom on the phone for a while before heading to the store. This afternoon I did some freelance stuff and then made a splendid Summer Bean Salad.... I would love for this to be my life....freelance work, maybe teaching two or three days a week. Would I miss the job I have now? I keep thinking that I can't imagine a life not doing what I'm doing...but then again, maybe I could...I can certainly imagine the life I lead today....or would it grow old fast? I wish it were even an option. On the phone today my mother said Don't you wish you didn't have to work and you could just go to grad school and do all those other things? I think she was thinking back to when she was in grad school and didn't have to work - my dad made enough for her not to work. I bit back a sarcastic response - of COURSE I'd love to be able to focus more fully on grad school - it would have been great if I could have applied for a full T.A. position and thus gotten a free year of school not to mention being able to graduate in the spring instead of next December. I would love that. I would love not always feeling frayed and tired and maxed out and at a loss if I don't have a to-do list safety-pinned to my shirt. And sometimes I wonder what all of this is for anyway? What's the point? I'm not going to Columbia or Harvard or Iowa - so what does it matter? Agents won't show up at my thesis reading...yeah, I know, blah blah blah...that's not what it's all about...but that is part of it...and damn if it doesn't depress me to realize that I'm only half as talented as I wish I could be - only half as talented as is probably required to "make it" as a respected writer. And to rub salt into the proverbial wound, I've been feeling really pissed at America lately. You see, I feel like I've worked really hard during my 20s and now my 30s and here I am, with my spouse, making a decent salary and yet, living where we live, is there any chance in hell of ever affording a house that is not in the worst possible neighborhood? The chance is decreasing daily, it seems. What's the deal? I kept up my part of the middle class bargain...I've worked hard, paid off my debt and tried to keep my lifestyle goals modest (a 2-bedroom, 1 bath 1920s /1930s era house with a detached garage - that's all I'm asking for...)...but as we actually get within spitting distance of being financially ready to buy a house, I'm finding that we're at least $25,000 short salary-wise of my little dream house because housing prices have just skyrocketed in the last five years. Five years ago if GB and I had this combined income and lack of debt - we'd be in like that - and with a low mortgage rate to boot..but now? Now we're going to be lucky if we can buy our way into one of the most run-down houses in one of those neighborhoods that all the yuppies are supposed to be gentrifying...and even then it'll be on the cheap side of the street.... Feh. I guess I should go finish that scene even though I seriously doubt a best-selling novel is in my future.... 8:37 pm - 07.22.03
sounds: J*sh Rouse ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- previously on ... - next time on ...
money can't buy happiness but it does buy small pieces of of serenity - 15.07.12 - 4:29 pm sh)t's about to get real, y'all - 31.05.12 - 9:46 am why the hell not? - 29.04.12 - 8:38 pm Hear that lonesome whistle blow... - 02.04.12 - 5:18 pm a faith in something I can't see - 30.03.12 - 3:33 pm |
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