Why I can't live here.

Here’s a reason, just one, about why I can’t live here.

NPR just played a story written by a person, a critic and translator of whatever talking about living on the Lower East Side during Sandy.

It wasn’t a story about tragedy or triumph against adversity. She talked about how she knew this was going to be a powerful storm because of her Midwestern roots and her vast knowledge of tornados. Then about how the storm came and finally knocked out her power.

All her neighbors had left, but she stayed and could see her apartment as she imagined it 100 years ago, quiet, dark, candle light flickering across her books and her Turkish rugs.

Her computer had died an she needed to recharge it to complete some work, so she headed out into the city looking for power. She walked 40 blocks in a hunt for electricity… Finally, she headed to the Yale Club, where although her membership had lapsed, they let her in to recharge. She sent out a message on Facebook about her plight and a friend of hers called the club and got them to grant her a guest pass.

Then more friends met her there and they sat in the bar and had a splendid old time.

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Lets let that little story of plight and struggle sink in.

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What’s the takeaway from this?

1) Everything about her story was dripping with $5 thesaurus words and Yale fiction writing class structure and conventions.

2) it was a story about the “beautiful” silence and darkness that only a natural disaster can instill.

3) an epic journey to recharge a laptop through the 40 long blocks to the Yale Club

4) the Yale Club

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Really, I can appreciate it, in a way. The silence and transformation of such a noisy and busy place into a shadowy, mysterious, and contemplative world of tranquility amid chaos.

But when the conflict in the story is that you have to WALK for a while to charge your computer? And what’s more, you have to walk and struggle in your un-sensible shoes to the fucking YALE CLUB? Your literal port in a storm? And you are compelled to state that your membership had lapsed, implying that you are a YALE GRADUATE, and furthermore, like that wasn’t enough, someone, who also went to Yale, called in on your behalf to grant you GUEST OF A MEMBER OF THE YALE CLUB status to you could go sit in the fucking bar and drink with other Yalies.

In summary, the story went as follows.

1. I’m from the midwest which makes me more in tune with nature.

2. I’m introspective and wise

3. I’m important

4. I went to Yale

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The thing that really irks me is that this is a place where this kind of story makes it to air. That there are enough of these douchebags nodding along in their apartments or Audis going “yeah, sister, I hear you. Preach it. Guest status at the Yale Club? Oh honey, that is a burden.”

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