But I had to...The total disconnect between what is going on in reality and in the media was making me feel like I need to start keeping a paper trail. To document this time for all posterity.
Let's start at home.
I lost my job in May. I signed up with like a dozen agencies and went on about 20 interviews. In the end, (and I am soooo grateful, Universe) I got something paying $15 an hour , 35 hours a week. I'll take it because it beats all the alternatives I know about but my gross before tax income will be $2100.00 a month, while my rent is $1,200, Con Ed is $150, Cable $150, student loans is $125 and I need $81 to buy a metrocard each month. I guess that means no groceries for us! No shoes or new clothes either! Hooray! We'll live simply and feel morally superior for it or something when the pain of our bare feet scraping against cement as we walk gets too unbearable. Something...
Because rent is going up, food costs more, con ed has raised their rates and gas is thru the roof.
In the city, things are just... weird. New York has been turned from a bunch of blocks and neighborhoods to a military-base-like tourist trap. The city becoming "safer" has brought in a migration of un-Nu Yawkers. I want to call them yuppie scum but they're so much more entrenched than that. They've taken over Harlem, Fort Greene and all the formerly cool Black neighborhoods and transformed this city into a weird like non-living place. For example: All the little spots where you could get cool shit are gone. There are no more artists. There are no more little start -ups, everything is a multi-million dollar jump off with big backers and serious money behind its artsy craftsy facade. There is no more "melting pot". Everyone is corporate and as disconnected from their native culture as you are. The city is soul-less.
The police presence though, MASSIVE.
Nothing needs to happen for the SWAT looking Future Soldiers to be deployed. I used to work by Wall Street and if you've never seen these fellas in real life with their M16s and full combat gear, count yourself amongst the Blessed because its a scary ass sight.
A few weeks ago, somebody left a bag on the subway or slapped a token booth clerk or something and they deployed to the subway with bomb sniffing dogs and the whole shit.
Every police precinct in NYC just put up 50 cameras.
I think everybody else is okay with it because it got no mention in the media, there was no outcry or protest and not one politician asked why this is needed when crime is so low but to me, that is like the death of something in America. Things like this aren't supposed to happen here. This is third world military junta type of living. Not fit for the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. And don't get it twisted. These cameras are powerful and swivel to focus on whatever the watcher wishes to see. Shit like that gives me the creeps.
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