R U a Pomo Bobo? - Page 3

Part of: On Postmodernism

As I grew older, much of my boho idealism was preserved. I never managed to bag a rich guy, so I continued to pay my own way. Though I had two long-term relationships which outlasted most marriages, I never had children. I majored in Psychology and Sociology with a minor in English. I went to college from 1975-79, where I was a "hippie" rather than a "disco duck," and pursued sex, drugs, rock and roll, and my studies with equal ardor. I then went on to NYU where I got my master's in British and American literature while working in the publications department under a graduate assistantship. I stayed at the (very liberal/PC) university where I did editing, production, and copywriting for 20-plus years until I became disabled. Now I'm free to pursue my bobo leisure activities with abandon.

Having always eschewed the 'burbs (though it's nice to visit, and I loved going to Montauk, the less bourgeois version of the Hamptons), I moved from tony Manhattan (where I'd lived on the Yupper East Side after college, and then the funky Lower East Side) to a decidedly boho section of the Bronx (read: mostly minority and poor). Here I live in a gated community of primarily middle class African American/Caribbean shareholders, and shop for bargains at the numerous stores on Fordham Road.

The trademark of the bobo is the politically correct tendency to buy "useful" things, no matter what their price. I have bought some expensive furniture from Crate and Barrel (couches, bedroom set), but for the most part I am thrifty but tasteful in furnishing my coop (Gothic Cabinet Craft, Target "put it together yourself or have your boyfriend do it" furnishings). I've acquired numerous houseplants (beautiful and also healthy, since they supply oxygen); I treasure the dirt cheap purchases I find at the ubiquitous 99 cent and up stores in the 'hood and at Rite Aid's dollar daze bins (anything from a three-dollar mini hair dryer to a three-piece paring knife/carrot peeler/pizza cutter to dollar nail polish to half price cosmetics and coffee to three-dollar dresses to half price designer polo team shirts and designer jeans to five dollar plants to yearly memberships at the nearby Botanical Gardens and the Zoo). In this way, on my modest but adequate pension income, I can live like a bobo queen in my ghetto 'hood where the cost of living is suitably modest.

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Article Author: Elvira Black

Elvira Black is a “retired” New York writer blogging for her own amusement here on BC. Her passions are politics, the arts, the weird things we do, and New York City.

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