Everything You Ever Wanted in Life, You Can Find at Circle Thrift

Including this chair I'm currently sitting on, purchased this evening for $4 (it was really $8, but blue dot items were half off). Yesterday, Celia and I went to H & M and I almost bought a dress for $34 without blinking, because that was the basic cost of dresses there. Tonight at CT, I found myself switching my parameters of what was acceptable based on the prices there. Like, I'd see something I wanted (for instance, this frame with 100 crosses on it, $8) and evaluate it in a different way. Then I realized, Everything is cheap here. Get whatever you want. For under $20, I walked away with a sweater from Old Navy, a black button up shirt from Express, a chair, and the aforementioned frame. I'm starting to like my house more and more if only because I'm hanging things on the walls and putting out my photos and so it's starting to seem more like mine and less like a place I'm squatting.

(Just as an aside, channel 61 only plays Mama's Family--one of the worst TV shows ever made. Because I have the best reception with just the crappy stations, I found myself watching that Dick van Dyke doctor show--can't think of the name right now. It's like Murder She Wrote except starring Dick van Dyke. Not Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman, not Marcus Welby, MD. What the hell is it called?).

The city has changed for me since I moved, mostly because I've been taking the subway to work. Walking to catch public transportation is a completely different experience than driving every day. You feel like you're part of something--you're in the midst of it. I get to see all the row house windows decorated for Easter, I get to step over dog poop, I get to dodge pigeons, I get to pet random dogs being walked by disheveled owners, I get to stand in a subway car, looking at fellow passengers, judging them, I get to read my book, The Awakening. If anything, my subway ride is too short--I can barely read three pages before I find I've reached my destination. Still, it's not a true city experience because I have a car. In Chicago, I had to make choices based on what was walkalbe. I couldn't hop in a car and go to Ikea and buy a cheaply constructed coffee table. I had to shop at the White Elephant and I had to purchase things I could fathom carrying four blocks back home. But I have found that I prefer to be more intimate with the city--I prefer to be in it rather than watching it from the safety of my car. It's more interesting and possibly safer. I'm more likely to be hurt in a car crash than I am to be killed by a falling icicle on the street (right? Right? Please tell me that I'm right).

In other news, I am soon to be famous. Philadelphia Stories invited me to read at a library somewhere for the Philadelphia Book Festival in April. It's for this book they're publishing, something like The Best of Philadelphia Stories. Patti Smith, a 1970s musician known for her hairy armpits, will also be reading there--hopefully not before me, because I feel like she might break the podium. I was ambivalent about accepting because I kind of hate doing readings. You never know if you're going to be reading to a big crowd (less likely) or a crowd of one rowdy homeless woman (more likely). I had a bad dream about it last night. I was doing the reading and a bunch of my friends from work were in the audience and they all booed me. They were like, Untrue! Boring! It was horrible. During this inauguration run through today, I mentioned something about a sniper and then said something like, You should just know that my mind is like a Stephen King novel all the time. It's true. I constantly imagine the most horrible consequences of any event.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Diagnosis Murder.
Aimee said…
Thank you! I knew it was something like that...You're the best.
Anonymous said…
take the reading gig!!! put on your bar blue karoke smile, pink feather boa, and enjoy the fame. you are the best.
Liz said…
I'll come to the reading. And I'm not homeless. Okay, I might be by then but still...I won't boo. I promise.
Aimee said…
I may also use a british accent.

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