I've been working at the front desk of an upscale apartment building in Chinatown that is mostly filled with people my age. The men wear suits and the women look like they want to be models but I'm pretty sure their dads pay their rent. They can't be models. Some of the people are really nice. One couple just moved in today and brought me a cupcake because I was nice to them. Isn't that my job? Well, I was nicer to them than the fake models. The fake models treat me like some kind of lower life form so I treat them like what they are. Fake models. I let them think I'm dumb and they're in charge. It feels good to know that my apartment is five times larger than theirs and we pay five times less. I don't really care about their apartment, but I like to think about things I would tell them if I weren't being payed to be nice to them. I try to make small talk with them and I don't know if they think they're too good to talk to me, or if they don't understand what I'm saying. Maybe their over-priced clothing has some kind of intelligence deterrent.
The connection between these things is that I'm really glad to not have to listen to anything or smile at people who think they are better than me. I like the quiet. It's really nice to enjoy it after hours of hearing people thank me for pushing a button to let them into their own apartment building. Apparently people who pay for over-priced apartments don't know how to use keys. If they want to get in the front door and I'm not there, they have a little thing they wave in front of the lock that unlocks it. Keys are so 2009.
So I'm going to go to bed since it's 2 a.m. and enjoy the quiet. I've got a lot of things I want to write about but they'll have to wait till I'm not tired.
This is how I have to act at work.
The noise is what frightens me. I'd hate to be seen as a bumpkin or something, but I have toyed on and off with moving into Chicago if the house sells, and I really don't think I could handle the noise. Does that make me uncool?
ReplyDeleteI appreciate all the other city stuff -- I'd go to museums (as I do now) and maybe even take advantage of student discounted opera tickets. I would eat cool things from markets and take pride in cramming life into a small space. All those things I could enjoy. But I don't know about the noise. Seems like a lame reason to stay out of the city.
I guess my way out of the suburbs is to find a mid-sized city. A low traffic hum and occasional night disturbances are ok. And many of them have as much exciting stuff as a big city, but without all the crowds and filth. The college town makes for a good mid-sized city. Madison, Ann Arbor, Knoxville, Boulder -- these are the liberal college towns I hope I could live in someday, and be able to eat strange foods at strange hours and haunt strange bookshops, despite the "small" populations that will probably never rise over half a million.
I hope you find your way to a quiet place that's less Bronxy.
Let's move to Yonkers.
ReplyDelete