I am a late adopter of technologies, trends. Having grown up in the, like, Valley~or whatever~as one of the girls un-ironically volunteering to be gagged with a spoon, I am the inspiration for Moon’s song, the movie (shot at the Galleria, Oh My GOD!), and the otherworldly persistence of our culture’s attachment to the acronym OMG, along with our like, lingering tendency to Totally say, “Like” all of the TIME as we add random inflection in our speech (and, like, DEFINITELY raise our tone at the end of every sentence so that it sounds like a question, or whatever?). In short, I grew up AS the trend and have a deep phobia-level fear of being (or even, like, sort of appearing to be) Mainstream(?) OH. MY. GOD!
So I came late to this new, like, Earth-loving, anti-capitalist tiny house/homeless trend. And, sadly, I’m not doing it to be cute.
Dammit.
I am, like Moon and every other true Val, the perfect consumer. My bo-ho style fools the Millennials into believing that I am some sort of Gen X version of a Baby Boomer hippie, but the truth is (and has been for quite some time) that my “vintagey” look has been carefully, consciously, and conscientiously cultivated from an impoverished childhood in the, like, Valley~where I HAD to create my own style to survive.
Oh, my, God, you guys! I spent my “mall time” scouring Goodwill in order to avoid being without the tasty duds and yet not MAINSTREAM(!) Not because I could not even afford, like, Jordache~or whatever~(I mean, it’s like cool, or whatever, but I just saw Stephanie AND Jennifer in the same Reebok Hightop Aerobics! I mean, like, I was so EMbarrassed for them! They both asked where I got these knee-hi brown suede lace-up boots and, I mean, it wasn’t in, like, Hot Topic?! I’m sure!)
Anyway. . . .
Point is, I would rather stay at my current level of quiet impoverishment in this comfy little flat (zero mod cons) in an amazing neighborhood. (Yep, I Thrift Shopped my apartment and got an impossibly gorgeous flat amongst proper Earners because who wants to live without a washer/dryer within the confines of your very own home (instead of ALL THE FUCKING WAY IN THE BASEMENT)? Me. Yep. I prefer it this way.
So…. Turns out that I am on the wrong side of history here. Turns out I forgot to become a billionaire (choosing, instead, the glamorous life of a Ph.D. in literature and a sad tendency to choose shit men~all while (as I mentioned) utterly failing to, at any time, become a billionaire.
To be fair: No one told me when to run. I missed the starting gun.
Also to be fair: I was so busy being cute-on-a-budget that I completely and utterly failed to realize that I had A FUCKING LOT further to go to become a billionaire then did my cohort of friends who had, like, Reebok Hightop Aerobics, two whole parents (who actually seemed to like, LIKE them~or whatever), and dinner every night (which, I mean, they totally puked up, of course, but I mean. . .you see what I’m saying, right?).
Point being: I’m becoming homeless against my will and to my surprise. What happened to all that “Be a Good Girl…. Work hard…. American Dream…. Cream Will Rise….” Ad nauseum, barf?
I did my part.
But because I’m a woman from a genocided culture, raised in poverty, and proudly rocking the mental illness that some studies show can be attributed to the role genocide plays in the health and well-being of kids raised in poverty (you reckon?), I’m going to be very, very grateful if I can pull off this hip, new Silicon Valley sort of homelessness and be able to buy a VAN (that I will totally park DOWN BY THE RIVER!) before I am forced to simply unfurl my sleeping bag on to the urban sidewalks with the rest of my ilk.
Stay tuned!
I’ll keep writing as long as I don’t die or become immobilized by my inability to afford my meds, tra la la.
Sedem Xosi 