local minimalism, or maybe just an inflection point thereof

things.

i’ve gotten rid of a lot of things in the past six months. big things, like a place to live, musical instruments, a bicycle, a job. little things, like shoes, shirts, phone numbers, pencils. and now that i’ve reached somewhat of a stopping point, i’m starting to reaccumulate those things. and it feels great. right now i “live” in a series of friends’ apartments in the mission district of san francisco, and i spend my days trying to find jobs, so i can have enough money to get another one of everything i’ve left behind in north carolina. since i have no money, every purchase carries the same electric rush that i felt when i saved up my allowance for whatever the hell it was worth spending on way back in 1995. for example: since i don’t have a key to the place i’m sleeping in, when i leave, i can’t get back in until my friend gets off work. if walk out mid-afternoon in a t-shirt, i’m stuck in it till midnight. last night i got cold and walked into a walgreens to get a tshirt, and even though they only had $2.99 shirts in my size in purple, i’m still excited about my purchase thirty-six hours later. since arriving here, i’ve also bought a pair of slightly-too-small-but-super-sharp shoes and a pocket-sized map of san francisco, all of which have made me positively giddy for inordinate periods of time.

some things, however, come even easier. getting off the BART on the way to Berkeley, i found a pair of shoes in almost my size. a pair of tims. a pair of brown suede tims. a pair of brown suede slip-on grad student tims. i was hoping they’d be at least comfortable, but they aren’t at all. why the hell do people wear those things, then?

my job search has been trying, at times. it turns out there’s like, a recession, or something? my one success thus far (among many “promising” leads, although the threshold of promising is pretty much the existance of a lead in the first place) is a cashier position at burger joint, whose fancy flash website underscores the glut of web designers in san francisco–one more thing to cross off the resume. basically, if i end up flipping burgers, it’s because i got a promotion.

Advertisement