a hard rain, falling.

the name of this blog is american circumstance, and to be honest, the american circumstance is hitting me pretty hard right now. new york is a hard town to be broke as fuck in; that circumstance either motivates you to kick some major ass and make everyone in your way stand down in your furious pursuit of your own success, or it intimidates the fuck out of you and calls into question everything you think you are capable of, and all the things you think you certainly aren't. and on top of it all, you are framed in the most marvelous city on earth, which makes the former that much sweeter, and the latter that much more devestating.

me, i've never had any sort of relationship with money. henry miller described his life and my own in one brilliant paragraph: "When i study it soberly, my destiny, i realize that it is a good one. It decrees, in effect, that i shall always have what i need and no more. where money is concerned, i am to dance for it."

and this is only comforting in the fact that henry miller said it. right now, as i live it, it is one of the most difficult things i have ever experienced. and i know it is true. i look at myself and i know i will never be someone who doesn't have to dance for it. and, honestly, at this juncture i don't know what the fuck to do with that.

especially here.

when i get up in the morning, i look into my wallet and ask myself if i have enough for a metrocard. if i don't, i mill around and find two dollars in change to put myself on the subway to work, knowing that i will at least leave work with enough to put two more dollars into the metrocard machine to get home. and then, for the rest of the day, as i work, i add up every tip that i get to try and determine what else i will be able to do as a result. eat dinner? pick up the laundry? when it comes down to the last two weeks of the month, pay rent? how far will i have to push the rent deadline to get the nine hundred plus dollars i need to do it? and what is this hedge fund managing motherfucker with five hundred thousand dollars in his checking account and a black amex card(not the plastic, the metal one) going to give me toward that end? ten dollars? twelve? twelve-fifty? what the fuck am i doing with my life? honestly now, what the fuck?

and then i go home and get the laundry and eat dinner and look at the stack of four year old bills on my table and get up and do it all over again.

dance for it, henry miller says. i'm dancing, henry. i'm dancing my ass of. and i feel like shit about it. and i know i'm wrong for that. i knew that before i even read it, but i'm lost sometimes. really quite lost.