I Hate Money
This post is entitled "I Hate Money" because I hate thinking about it. It makes me feel like a grumpy frumpy old adult to worry about keeping my credit below my credit line and my bank account balance above zero (neither of which is true ATM), and then to need a new computer because this crap old one is crap and completely falling apart. I don't like worrying about where it all goes and why I don't have it and why I'm probably going to get an urgent scary message from the folks at Wells Fargo saying "You have no money. You owe it all by tomorrow or else CONSEQUENCES." The real world sucks.
I constantly have visions and dreams about going to live on a farm and being an uncivilized troglodyte (at the Summer Writing Program somebody commenting on Jonathan Skinner's Ecopoetics lecture called Wendell Berry a troglodyte because he lives on a farm and doesn't want anything to do with the global economy - remember Number Munchers? That's what that word, "troglodyte" makes me think of - but yeah, as opposed to Gary Snyder, who was quite "sophisticated" because he enjoyed cities - interesting word use and word meanings). Or, no, my future musings don't involve me doing it by choice, but by necessity - that is, some catastrophe makes umm...every...city in the world - kind of a ridiculous notion - but it's all the post-apocalyptic science fiction in my head - every city unlivable, and just endless plains, with drastically fewer people, most in nomadic tribes, and my house/farm that I built with my hands in the middle of the vast stretches of wilderness, the ruins of cities in the distance where people huddle together, rebuilding the first vestiges of economy.
Yeah. It's a strange fantasy, but it just resurfaces in my mind again and again and again. Or going through the ruins of cities looking for people I once knew, that sense of everything's-destroyed-so-now-I-finally-feel-alive. There was a frickin HAIL STORM today. I'm serious, I walked out of the Boulder Bookstore and looked up, and the cashier said "have a good night!" to me and I thought, is it really night-time? I must've spent more time in there than I thought. It seemed dark outside from inside the store, but it was just these towering clouds moving abnormally (in from the north and slightly toward the mountains), so that was weird. It was a powerful storm to withstand traditional weather patterns. The Mall was quiet; people were putting their instruments and street performances away. Slight patter of rain. I'd be home soon.
Then, as I was crossing 13th street, this hail stone, like a tiny meteor crashed into the ground. It was unbelievable, like little bombs shooting from the sky. CRACK! CRACK! CRACK on the pavement, and exploding in white fragments. Somehow I thought I could make it home, but then they started falling faster, faster, and I was running down Pearl St. alone, being bombarded by these little rocks, my books in one hand and my other hand shielding my head. THey smacked into my arms and body, stung like hell, and I finally couldn't take it, ran into a store where a young mother with two children and an older woman and a couple were huddled in the lobby watching outside. We watched as the sidewalk was covered completely by this layer of hailstones, the color of snow, the apparent solidity of ice, but they melted as more stones pelted the walk, and water flooded in under the door. This is two days after the summer solstice, right? It felt like some kind of crazy apocalyptic scene, and the clouds really were fierce. I was confident that it'd stop soon, because this is Boulder, we're right at the foot of the mountains, in liminal air pressure zone, so weather moves through here really fast, but it didn't look like that. For, it must've been 20 minutes, I paced inside the store, alternately really nervous and really excited. Made small talk with the other people in the store, except it was small talk all on the same wavelength, all tinged with that same terrified fascination. The couple tried going out a couple of times, but the hail was still so powerful and they had to come back in. There was a sculpture of a tiger outside that one of the kids kept worrying about "it's a doggy, mommy, a doggy outside," and trying to open the door to save.
It was like gunshots! The streets were flooded, and the hail pelted the rivers, sending out spurts of water. The sidewalks were white with clumped spheres. But then, since this IS Boulder, the land of meteorological impermanence, no wonder it's such a hub of Buddhist studies, after about fifteen minutes to the north the clouds were thinning. The sunlight showing. Eventually the hail turned into light rain, and I decided to head home. I was wearing my converses, of course, bad idea, socks sopping wet as I tromped through the sidewalks.
Everyone was smiling! Everyone was smiling and laughing as I walked by them, I shared laughs with so many people just as we passed, everyone dressed in summer gear, sandals and shorts, so much incredulous joy. College boys having a snowball fight, two days after the solstice, I couldn't stop laughing. It was so wondrous. Well done, Ma. Well done, indeed. I had to navigate and leap to avoid stepping calf-deep in water as I crossed streets. Grassy areas were turned into swamps. Leaves and twigs ripped from the trees littered the sidewalks alongside hailstone pearls. Even when I went out later that day, the hailstones were still around, like little pearls, tiny alien flowers growing in the grass.
But I mean, everyone was smiling, laughing! The city was so alive after such an intense scary experience, and so was I. I actually connected with everybody I saw! I LOVE that! It's been the only time I haven't felt isolated from the people surrounding me. There was a student panel in the Summer Writing Program, and one of the people on it has been organizing poetry readings in New Orleans since before the hurricane and flooding, and after. The topic of the panel was, in this world filled with so much social inequity and warfare, in this world with environmental and economic problems, how can we ethically devote ourselves to art? This person talked about how after the hurricanes in New Orleans, the poetry readings provided a venue for people to share their human reactions, and to hear the humanity of others, and just be reminded of the sparks of beauty and aliveness that perception affords through its expression. She talked about how the aftermath of the hurricane claimed so many lives - through suicide - because of the difficulty in facing a world so devastated. Her answer to the question, then, was that art helps people through such a pain-stricken world, hearing and seeing other people's perceptions and being reminded of the beauty that life affords. And while it's not going to rebuild houses, or make money appear, or stop senseless killing, it can build connections, and it can make people feel like they're not alone. Art can help to combat despair, depression, suicide, the psychological states that immobilize necessary actions... It's all just notes in my head now, really, but this is my livejournal. I don't have to come to a brilliant conclusion.
I don't know. A summer hailstorm is hardly a crisis of epic proportions, and maybe I'm just naive, but it's not like I _try_ to fantasize about post-apocalyptic futures. It just kinda happens, I don't know.
But anyway, back to money. See why I hate it? I have negative 300 dollars and no credit, though a check for $1000 is going to clear soon, and then in a week I get my paycheck, some money from home, etc., and hopefully I can get my computer by then. I might have to ask my dad to help chip in on the computer costs, but I _hate_ doing that, hate asking him for money, because then he gets that tightness in his voice as he asks if I really need it, and I mean, I guess I don't REALLY, I guess I'm just getting the computer so I can play Final Fantasy and so Hadley and I aren't in this constant give-and-take of playing on her computer, where one of us is playing and emotionally unavailable, and the other feels both jealous of that sublimated-emotion-state (not to mention, jealous of the other person having fun in Vana'diel), and needy for attention. So we can both play at the same time and roleplay and I can feel like I have a consistent group of friends again, which is a bit pathetic buuuut...yeah. And eventually, so I can play Hero's Journey if it ever comes out. And then I remember all the times when I was younger and my dad asked me to think about whether I was addicted to video games and if I wanted to be, and then I don't know what to do, because that seems so simplifying of the emotional/psychological issues wrapped up in the fact that yes, I do like to lose myself in video games, maybe if my parents had friends while I was growing up I'd be more capable of making casual connections with other people in real life, etc., etc.
So. Stupid money being an issue. I mean, at least this old hunk of junk is getting to the point where I can barely even run Word, so I can use that as a reason to beg my dad for more money. Ugh. I hate asking him for money, having to rely on him. That parental indebtedness demands truthful connection, and if I did that, if I got into the habit of being myself around him, we'd be constantly, constantly getting into fights, which I hate.
Maybe. Maybe it wouldn't be too bad. Maybe I just have a habit of taking things to their most paralyzing conclusions as a way of staying depressed.
Maybe I think too much.
God...it was so beautiful today, the hail storm. The whole experience. That's probably the richest thing that's happened to me in a long time. The older people in the store said they never saw anything like it in all the years they've lived in Boulder. Heh. Word use again, "richest." I wish I could make money just from having that experience alone, but maybe I have to work for it. Write a piece about it. Or something.