I fell asleep with a Suze Orman book on my face last night.

I read this article a few weeks ago and was so inspired:

The New York Times: But Will It Make You Happy?

I made it its own paragraph is how much I'd recommend it. I'm very easily swayed by this type of argument against stuff: oh, I will throw out all my spoons (silver, get it, an allusion) and live a romantic bohemian lifestyle where all I need are my friends and my dog and my love and water when I go to bars and then I will kayak and hike mountains and pay off my bajillion dollar student loans in two years and live in New Zealand.

So, in those golden, hazy, few weeks ago when the world was new and I was young and New York was alive, I threw out a lot of stuff.

Then you start grad school (day two counts, okay). Then you just get all Curious George about the state of your affairs which is honestly a very stupid thing to do and go through your credit cards, your bank accounts, your student loans, and the money your wonderful parents loaned you for rent but has disappeared into groceries because you have to start a fridge all over, a metrocard, cab fares from places that look fine in the daytime but get Law and Order-y at night, laundry, a sweater, bus tickets, dog food for your beloved dog you would never regret for all the loan-debt forgiveness in the world, window blinds, notebooks, a haircut for the hair equivalent of a snaggle-tooth you keep on your head daily and textbooks, and you're like oh shit. This city has eaten all my money. There is no money.

SURPRISE!

Then you climb up to your mini-loft you use for storage for all that unnecessary stuff you threw away and have a little quiet anxiety attack.

I, and is everyone on the planet so at least we have something in common, am absolutely panic-stricken at the thought of being poor. Like beyond poor actually because you owe the Department of Education about a third of a large house. BUT. Butbutbut. I'm inviting you along on my attempt to not have hyperventilating freak outs in an empty bathtub or dusty loft (or the cold, hard, empty place of your choosing) when you have to face the fact that you have absolutely no money. And that you live in a city where "you can have anything all the time" and "it never sleeps" and "is the best city in the world" (thanks, I get it, rub it in).

This inevitably leads to the facing of other fears that subsequently are no longer scary because you are desperate, including:

-selling your beloved books you've amassed through a buyback service online for pennies on the dollar, and subsequently selling your main safety blanket for your intelligence (i.e. LOOK AT ALL MY BOOKS, I'VE READ THEM).
-not getting enough sleep in order to churn out those charming freelance articles which are your only source of income, which could logically lead to worse anxiety about everything and probably will (see the cycle there, I do).

Those are the main two. But still. At the same time, I'm not going to lie: my list-making and brain-storming has lead to a lot of -ing-ings, and generally, ing-ings (which could, I guess, be calling "being smart and doing valuable things with your life instead of mindlessly buying things and saying you owe it to yourself to not go more in debt") feel kind of satisfying.

Treadmill

I've been getting more and more paranoid every time I go the gym. Why does the girl next to me keep looking over at me puffing away on my treadmill? Is she clocking my mile? I'll go faster.
WHY IS SHE STILL LOOKING OVER is this a race? Is that what you want, a race? FINE LET'S DANCE.Five minutes later, I'm the better person cause it takes two to tango and I'm Buddha and I quit.

I was talking out my gym habits with my boyfriend, various insecurities, why people feel the need to be soooooo competitive on gym equipment when they already have firm, supple asses; how much I love the pop punk and TOP-40 channels on those little tvs in front of my treadmill and how the person who invented those tvs should be awarded a Nobel for making my life better; how sometimes I get so into those wacky Beyonce videos I want to start dancing and mumble-singing.

Matt put the pieces together quickly.
Matt: "Do you do those things?"

Me: "Yeah I guess sometimes I just get so into the musi-"

Matt: "That would explain why people stare at you then."


This only heightened my anxiety about others judging my treadmill activities. Until today.

Myself, I says, TODAY WE RUN. WE MAKE UP FOR SIX DAYS SPENT WATCHING WHEEL OF FORTUNE WHILE CRAFTING DREAMS OF $12,400 AND A NEW NISSAN. I hang my towel over the the front-part that tells me how far and fast I'm going, and I tuned into "modern contemporary" (I'm not kidding) for about five songs and just ran. Yes, okay, I put the treadmill speed like .2 slower than normal cause I was serious about not walking.

So 20 minutes later I get all cocky and am like soooo excited to see my 3.6 miles (I got fixated on that number for whatever reason, 3.6 would be acceptable and cause an easy and un-sweaty victory of the proposed 7 ).

1.6.

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR. 1.6 miles?!?! So then I'm all, YOU TRICKED ME. SCREW YOU GYM, SCREW YOU HOT CHICKS ON STAIRMASTERS FOR TWENTY MINUTES THAT IS SUPERHUMAN, SCREW YOU TREADMILL, SCREW YOU BEYONCE.

I pouted for another mile but then that Fall Out Boy song came on with the line from Closer (which makes me be all "ooooo I know where that line is from" and shiver with superiority whenever I hear it) and the monkey and Kimmy K in the music video...and I just snapped. From the humiliation inflicted upon me by my treadmill, to the judge-y chicks in really nice-looking spandex who rarely sweat which seems unfair, to the musical equivalent of black-tar heroin coursing through my veins, my brain just snapped.

From now on, Chad is me and I am Chad and no hot girl with a unnatural, and, I might add, frankly unnerving, ability to climb stairs can make me feel bad.