I’m happy to live in Berlin. Sure, I rant and rave about gentrification and rising rents on my various Blogs, but I am still proud to be living in a city in the midst of change. Yeah, the old hole-in-the-wall joint I used to eat/drink in has become a yuppie hellhole of yoga and whatnot. But there are other holes in other walls. Later they will become assimilated by the Yogaborg, but at least I WAS THERE. BEFORE.
Sadly, this is also the hipster mantra: ‘Um, like, I did
this stupid ironic thing that I’m doing, like, WAY before it was, like, cool.’
As much as I hate hipsters and yuppies, I do realize that
whenever an area in any given city is cheap enough, cool enough, and available
enough—it is doomed. So I might as well
enjoy it while it lasts. I am REALLY
surprised that I have lived here this long.
Every year I take inventory of my meager accomplishments. Every year I get
drunk and proclaim to all my (few) friends that This is the Last Year I Will
Live in This Yuppie Shithole. Then we
all have a laugh and we all have a drink.
I am STILL amazed and the breadth and depth of my hypocrisy.
Still I am here.
Still, like a beat-down, son-of-a-middle-class-bitch, I rise.
