WRITING CULTURE 2012: Film, Food & Beyond

My breasts started growing when I was about twelve years old. The small lumps that appeared out of nowhere started to hurt. They were still small– other girls in my class were already wearing bras, while I have never tried one on. I thought there was something wrong with me until when I was a summer camp. All of a sudden, while all of us went swimming to the river, Svetka’s boobs seemed to have diminished by two sizes. Later in the restroom I caught her putting cotton balls in her bra. She asked me not to tell anybody and promised to convince the most popular guy Alexey to date me. After this I started to avoid him even more, so that if I saw him approaching me, I would turn around and instead of taking a path would scratch my way through the dense bushes. And once, when we all got dressed up to go dancing and he came up to us with a cigarette in his mouth, I stumbled and fell from my 10-inch platform heels. At that moment I felt my face on fire, I have never felt more ashamed of myself. And he was cracking up and not even thinking of giving me a hand. Literally.

(.)(.)

My friend Masha started developing when she was nine, so by the age of thirteen her bra size was 32D. Her mother used to say that our bodies were forming faster than our brains. I guess she was right, because at the age of 18 Masha got pregnant. Before pregnancy her bra size was 34DD, and while being pregnant her boobs started growing even bigger, which already made her look like a cow. They were not popping out bringing curves to her shape anymore, but were resting on her enormous belly-watermelon.

(.)(.)

When I was fifteen I was always jealous of other girl’s already formed shapes. While they were wearing tight clothes and deep décolleté, I was hiding under long skirts and bulky shirts. Whenever they put heels on, they looked sexy; when if I did, I looked like a girl who sneaked them out of her mom’s closet.

To get ahead of nature, I started buying push-up bras. My boobs looked fantastic in those and I was happy until one day while making out with a much older guy I felt his hands wandering around my face, neck, shoulders and going lower towards my inch-and-a-half-newly-boosted pieces of treasure. When his hands reached my breasts, I stopped feeling them, and I bet he felt only polyurethane. That was the day I realized that sometimes you have to compromise between looks and actual tactile feelings, so if you are going out on a date with a guy who will only be allowed to look at you, it’s okay to wear a push-up bra, but if you really like the guy, you might go with something else. When I started buying push-up bras it became extremely hard to stop; since everyone around was used to my bigger boobs, I did not want to startle them by a sudden change.

(.)(.)

One day I realized that the smaller the boobs are, the bitchier the girl is. I remember sitting in the library overhearing a conversation of a bunch of girls: “a boob should be of a small size, so that a man’s hand could cup all of it.” When I saw Valeria for the first time, I thought that this girl does not need a bra at all, but she was still wearing one I guess just to create an essence of boobs. She was literally flat. I have never met anyone as flat as her in my life. I think if she played soccer for a shirtless team, one could be surprised that she was actually a girl and not a super skinny guy. “One day when she becomes a mother she will have some sort of boobs”- someone in class once said. I always felt that this was the biggest psychological complex of her life, which was and still is the main reason I never saw any guy around her.

(.) (.)

At the age of twenty I went to the USA for the first time in my life. I loved it, I was living together with seven other Russian girls in Fort Myers, Florida and we became local stars there. That summer I had been working in California Pizza Kitchen and all I ate was pizza. I have never eaten that much pizza before; I could eat the whole medium sized pizza at once. My girlfriends were working next to me at Cinnabon, Dunkin Donuts, Mc Donald’s, Taco Bell. We would have our breaks together and share all our junk food; we took this food home, we ate it everywhere. As a result, I gained 7 pounds, Svetlana and Nadya gained 14 and Lilya was the winner – she gained 33. “A hippopotamus is coming back to Russia”- she prepared her boyfriend over the phone. I’ve always been skinny, and those 7 pounds did only good to me and this was the only summer when I did not feel underweight, but normal and sexy. And my boobs grew much bigger too.

Later I met Diana. When we just got to New York City we wanted to party, but we knew no one. Somebody told us to go to meatpacking district. We heard the music and stopped by the closed doors of a nightclub. We did not know that in order to get into the club we had to be in someone’s party, or what a “promoter” meant. Our only ticket was Diana’s boobs, which worked perfectly fine. She says sometimes it is hard for her to live with boobs of this enormous size and she wants to go for a surgery one day.

(.) (.)

I met Sandra at a bar. She is a 39-year-old with breast implants. She got them at the age of 24. She has waited for her boobs to grow, but the miracle did not happen, so she had to pay the doctor to perform the miracle. And he did a good job. They are just the right size, they look very natural, though don’t feel so when you touch them. On my question about a future motherhood, she said breastfeeding with implants is nothing extraordinary. The surgery made her feel more confident and she is happy she went for it.

My aunt always says, “Why do women care about how they look when naked in front of men? Why are we never happy with ourselves? Why figuring out what will they think about our bellies too big or breasts so imperfect? Let them sweat over their own shapes! And worry about themselves being too fat or too old.” My aunt is 51 and she has a husband and a lover. So whenever my uncle is being an asshole to her, her lover is always there. And he asked her to divorce my uncle and marry him. She has always been satisfied with the way she was, so even if there is anything imperfect, nobody notices that. Isn’t it better and healthier than surgery?

Being home after six years abroad feels weird. Contrasts are met not only in NYC. Expensive cars jump on the roads-washboards of Saratov. This make you feel like they have just had a war, after what they fixed everything but the roads. And yet I love my people. Because they care. And because they have huge hearts.

On a train ride from Saratov to Moscow I shared a room with a girl. As soon as the girl spoke to me, I fell in love with her personality. Her simple joyful manner and her eagerness to help out bought me. “Please don’t be mad at me”-she smiled to someone on the phone-“I knew you did not want to speak to me thats why I did not even tell you I left. Masha, I want to be friends with you and stop all the fighting, so please lets forget it.” Then we shared our food with each other. She told me she was going to Moscow to work at a resort. She even gave me the figures: “$1000 for the whole summer. And I wont have to pay for the food or rent. Much better than Egypt. They pay 300 for half a year plus you have to buy a return ticket yourself if you dont like it there.”

On one of the train stations another passenger joined us. He was dressed in a t-shirt that had multiple stitches and patches, so old, it has become see-through; under his black sandals you could see somewhere grey and somewhere still white socks. He threw his stuff on a seat and asked us to watch it. A pair of dusty flip flops was sticking out of his tied plastic bag. Ten minutes later he came back smelling like cigarettes.  “Whew, almost missed the train”- he wiped the sweat off his forehead. The man was around 35 years old. His face reminded me of a face of my neighbor, Sergey from my childhood. Sergey did not have a landline phone , so he used to come to us to make some calls. Whenever he came by, he smelled of alcohol, sweat and cheap perfume which he thought was able to cover the first two. He would always bring a piece of fruit, which kept this strong sweet smell even after I cut it. Every time after he left, the phone would keep the smell, and when I used the phone after him, it felt like I was touching his unshaven unwashed cheek, and long after I put the phone down, I would still smell like an alcoholic. Later he stopped visiting us because he was killed by his girlfriend. AND THIS IS A FUCKING TRUE STORY. The guy who was sitting next to me on the train looked like Sergey: his face was too wrinkled and too grey, though by looking at his eyes you knew he was still young. He told us why he was traveling to Moscow without us even asking him: “I’m going to Moscow to work. I work as a security guy and get $800 a month. They keep you as long as you do not drink. If they see you drunk, be ready to go home next day-” the newcomer did not stop his monologue “-well, I am fine working there, because I can make my own schedule and I can drink as much as I can when I come back home to my village.” When the train conductor was passing by, she asked him if he was going to rent the sheets to sleep. The guy said he will be fine sleeping on a mattress. The train conductor,  big woman with bleach blond hair, was unhappily surprised: “No, young man, we just got the new mattresses, so I wont let you sleep on it.” Reluctantly,he paid $7 for the sheets. How many are there people like him in Russia? People of labor, with true souls of kindness, those who live off 800 a month with no way out?

Two policeman showed up soon. Right before them a man in a white shirt passed by with a basket full of beers and goodies.  One of the passengers bought a beer from him. Five minutes later the Russian cops took this guy somewhere. You are not allowed to drink alcohol on the train. The question is: why are the conductors allowed to sell it then?

Being home after six years abroad feels weird. Contrasts are met not only in NYC. Expensive cars jump on the roads-washboards of Saratov. This make you feel like they have just had a war, after what they fixed everything but the roads. And yet I love my people. Because they care. And because they have huge hearts.

On a train ride from Saratov to Moscow I shared a room with a girl. As soon as the girl spoke to me, I fell in love with her personality. Her simple joyful manner and her eagerness to help out bought me. “Please don’t be mad at me”-she smiled to someone on the phone-“I knew you did not want to speak to me thats why I did not even tell you I left. Masha, I want to be friends with you and stop all the fighting, so please lets forget it.” Then we shared our food with each other. She told me she was going to Moscow to work at a resort. She even gave me the figures: “$1000 for the whole summer. And I wont have to pay for the food or rent. Much better than Egypt. They pay 300 for half a year plus you have to buy a return ticket yourself if you dont like it there.”

On one of the train stations another passenger joined us. He was dressed in a t-shirt that had multiple stitches and patches, so old, it has become see-through; under his black sandals you could see somewhere grey and somewhere still white socks. He threw his stuff on a seat and asked us to watch it. A pair of dusty flip flops was sticking out of his tied plastic bag. Ten minutes later he came back smelling like cigarettes.  “Whew, almost missed the train”- he wiped the sweat off his forehead. The man was around 35 years old. His face reminded me of a face of my neighbor, Sergey from my childhood. Sergey did not have a landline phone , so he used to come to us to make some calls. Whenever he came by, he smelled of alcohol, sweat and cheap perfume which he thought was able to cover the first two. He would always bring a piece of fruit, which kept this strong sweet smell even after I cut it. Every time after he left, the phone would keep the smell, and when I used the phone after him, it felt like I was touching his unshaven unwashed cheek, and long after I put the phone down, I would still smell like an alcoholic. Later he stopped visiting us because he was killed by his girlfriend. AND THIS IS A FUCKING TRUE STORY. The guy who was sitting next to me on the train looked like Sergey: his face was too wrinkled and too grey, though by looking at his eyes you knew he was still young. He told us why he was traveling to Moscow without us even asking him: “I’m going to Moscow to work. I work as a security guy and get $800 a month. They keep you as long as you do not drink. If they see you drunk, be ready to go home next day-” the newcomer did not stop his monologue “-well, I am fine working there, because I can make my own schedule and I can drink as much as I can when I come back home to my village.” When the train conductor was passing by, she asked him if he was going to rent the sheets to sleep. The guy said he will be fine sleeping on a mattress. The train conductor,  big woman with bleach blond hair, was unhappily surprised: “No, young man, we just got the new mattresses, so I wont let you sleep on it.” Reluctantly,he paid $7 for the sheets. How many are there people like him in Russia? People of labor, with true souls of kindness, those who live off 800 a month with no way out?

Two policeman showed up soon. Right before them a man in a white shirt passed by with a basket full of beers and goodies.  One of the passengers bought a beer from him. Five minutes later the Russian cops took this guy somewhere. You are not allowed to drink alcohol on the train. The question is: why are the conductors allowed to sell it then?

Facing Go-Go Dancing.
Loud music, bright lights, drunken customers – that is the atmosphere of a go-go club. The ladies’ room is littered with piles of cosmetics, brushes, blow -dryers, and random stuff near the mirror, and half-naked girls are changing right in the middle of the room. I am in the “FlashDancers” gentlemens club in Manhattan.
To save space, the owner decided to combine the lady’s restroom and dancers changing room, which may seem reasonable, since the majority of the clientele are men.
A girl, who can barely stand, is leaning against the bathroom door, speaking in a slurred unclear voice. She seems to be drunk or on some type of drugs, but aware of whats going on around her, as opposed to her friend behind the other side of the door. Her speech is incoherent, but obviously Russian. Visible under the door are woman’s feet, dressed in 10-inch pumps. The door opens to reveal the woman lying on the floor near the toilet. Her friend is repeatedly saying her name, shaking her head and shoulders, sitting next to her on the floor, but the girl is apparently unconscious.

“The honey traps are everywhere. You may get into one of them, literally as soon as you get off the plane- they meet you right there, offering you a free or very cheap living and “the best work you can have”- dancing in a go-go club.”

Larisa, a 22 year-old go-go dancer,

Many girls, having nowhere to go and having no source of income, are happy to get it all right away. But they dont know the price they will have to pay for it.
Go to the most popular web-site for Russian immigrants in NY, open the page with job vacancies of bartending/waitressing section, the first add youll find is going to be the go-go dancing job. They know what kind of position the young Russian girls look for (mostly waitress), and where they will look for it, thats why they post all these adds there. The majority of these posts use the same phrases as “#1 gentlemens club,” or “nobody can touch our girls” or “get rich quick.” One add even said that they provided the girls with “the free luxurious furnished new 15-room house with new TV and Internet” and they could “save at least 600-1200 a month on a free housing.”
It is next to impossible to go to a go-go bar in mega polices such as the New York City without meeting a Russian-speaking (I am using here “Russian-speaking” because Russian was the official language in the USSR, which is a common trait for all these countries inasmuch as such a trait as poverty now. I presume the reader knows it. Let me know if I am wrong) girl who is working as a dancer. This is because of the poor economic situation in post-soviet countries and the fact that this job seems to bring money easily. In reality, go-go dancing is a shady profession that can easily lead to prostitution.
Summer time is the peak time for students from different countries to come to the United States and work. Students get an opportunity to travel and make money during the three months of their summer vacation. Most of them go to different states to work at the least- paid jobs. But nowadays, a huge number of them come to Brighton Beach, one of the best places in the U.S. to live for Russians who barely speak English to live. They want to come back home with loads of money, no matter what. Still, the reality is bitter.

It is hard to find a decent job for those who are here only for three months and whose English is bad. Summer is the time when Russian newspapers and web-sites are jam-packed with bright posts with beautiful girls, inviting newcomers to work as go-go dancers. Every post says that any kind of illegal activity is unacceptable, some of them try to bait young girls with free transportation and the absence of any fees, and others post nice pictures of the clubs and limousines.
Sadly, most of these girls know what they will be doing during the only three months they have to spend here, and they already know the difference between go-go dancing in Russia and the U.S. America is far from their home, where they went for adventures and money. It is always easier to overcome difficulties at home, but here is different. If you say you work as a go-go dancer in Russia, it would mean you dance in a night club in front of the crowd, creating the right atmosphere. Go-go dancing in the States basically means the same, but sometimes it means dancing topless, and lately it has acquired a negative connotation. There is topless dancing in Russia (strip-tease, etc.), but these two concepts do not blend that much as in New York City. Young, beautiful, inexperienced girls come to big cities like New York hoping to earn money, and very often choosing the easiest ways by going to a night club after they read a teasing and moon-promising advertisement in a newspaper. The job that hides behind the online posts named “go-go dancers needed” might be drastically different from what the job-seeker expects. Some girls cannot quit simply because they need money, some do not speak enough English to work at least as a cashier and some are just fine with such a filthy job.
Go-go dancers were initially meant to be dancers to entertain the crowd. It was never connected to lap dancing and it always differed from stripping. But, lately, poles have shifted. Now go-go dancing as a rule means doing something dirty, because of inability to get a better job and because of poverty. Those who work in this field here in NYC, the ones who organize the whole business know the specifics of it, inasmuch as the fact that covering prostitution with go-go dancing will bring them more profit, they fool the girls that come to the foreign prosperous country seeking for success and new impressions. With the opening of the programs mentioned above (which let students work in the USA), the curtain between the USA and the former USSR countries was risen, letting a flow of students in the US, what created perfect conditions for the club-owners to make money on their business, and even changing it.
Most of the girls are ashamed to say what they are doing. The majority have their families back in Russia, so they lie to their parents by telling them they work in a restaurant.
Veiling prostitution behind go-go dancing is also becoming a trend. Once a girl breaks herself and goes into this business, she is different; the longer she dances, the harder it is for her to quit, since that becomes something she is good at, and all the morals tend to be forgotten.

Heart race- muscle pain- elevator- my room. It looks just as it was left. An hour ago my roommate called me saying that somebody broke into our apartment.

I think pretty much everyone faced robbery or burglary. I got my phone and wallet stolen right from my pocket in a crowded subway in Moscow, but no one had actually broken into MY house and taken MY possessions (and memories) away.

9:30 pm my roommate called 911.

10:30 pm no one came

11:30 pm still no one came.

We called them every hour to find out how they were doing and finally, decided to ask them to get us donuts with chocolate as well.

12:30 am still no door bell

My roommate says Ukrainian cops are cooler than that- it takes them only 1-2 hours to get to the crime scene

1:30 am loud banging on the door.

Two cops have arrived. They are both young (looks like younger than me) and they speak some language from the Caribbean. They are probably idols for their villagers: they are American cops, just like in the movies. And they have guns too. Yeah.

It took them and us an hour to fill all the required papers.

He tells me they could have looked for my missing money if I knew the unique number on each of the bills.

He brings 3 more people with him. They just walk around stumping the dust and dirt they brought into our apartment.

3:00 am everybody finally leaves.

4:00 am I get a phone call from the one of the cops. The young ones did not fill out the papers correctly, so they have to come back.

4:30 am they come back, wake my roommate up and make us fill out the same papers again.

4:50 am they leave.

8:30 am 2 women come.

They are here to take fingerprints, but they tell me that since everybody touched everything last night, they can do nothing. So off they go.

I did not quite get why they came if they knew there was another layer(s) of fingerprints on top of the one they needed. Even after I asked them to take fingerprints from the drawer where the criminal took the knife to open the doors, they refused, because it was made of wood.

11:30 am Ta-Da!! comes the detective. Tall, in a suit with a touch of gray in his hair. His speech is content, his voice is velvet, he wont waste a single gesture. THIS is the man from the movies, and not the cops with guns.

“We will be looking in pawn shops. They have to have some type of id to get cash for gold.”

And if the owner just takes the gold without ID, they can get closed down, because police sends a lot of undercover agents there.

Yeah, good luck with that.

The next day I found the knife that the unwanted guest used as a door opening tool and called up the detective. He sent someone to take the fingerprints.

Two Hispanic women, one with butterfly on her back above her hips, another with nails so long, they gave her hard time dialing her supervisors number to tell him how they did not find taking the fingerprints useful in this case simply because I assumed that the knife was used here. I know it was, because it was misplaced and there was nothing else big enough to open both doors.They finally took a DNA test, because the detective is new and he told them to do so.

As a conclusion…

Being robbed is a hard work…

Sleepless nights and pointless visits of numerous people with guns.

My first essay.

Enjoy.

Will you marry me for twenty thousand dollars?

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
(Proverb)

          “No, God, no! Why??” I opened my eyes and saw a silhouette of Anna on the floor in the middle of my room. I jumped off the bed, went on my knees, stretched my hands towards her, afraid to touch her. “What happened?” I could hear my heart beat now. “Aaa hen djin geen” Anna’s red eyes were full of tears, her face was all wet and her mouth was stretched in a grim of sorrow. “What is going on?” Rape? Robbery? Violence?- flashed in my head. “He did it again! We just had sex in the car on the parking lot, and then told me he has a new girlfriend who lives with him and sleeps in our bed!” I went to the kitchen to get some Valerian root pills. I gave her three.
Anna came to the US from Russia 6 years ago for the summer to work as a nanny. She realized that she wants to stay in this country and the easiest way for her was to get married. “By the time you find a real husband, you may turn forty and I want my green card now”, she told me, that’s why she went for a “paper marriage” and her husband charged her 20 k, frequent sex and took her heart as an add-on. In order for the officer to believe them, they had to live together, which made them both happy for about a year, when after, as it always happens, their happiness was shattered by an everyday life. He started staying at work a little longer, she forgot when was the last time they went out together. Anna became paranoid: looking through their mutual bank account to see what he was doing, where he was spending time, read his e-mails and texts. Eventually she got her green card and soon is getting her passport. But was it worth it?

          “What do you mean, he died?” screamed Svetlana in her phone. “-When did he die? Why nobody told me? What am I gonna do now?” She did not even ask why or how he died, she knew it was an overdose or death in prison- people of this kind do not have much of a choice, they all end up the same way.
Lack of work and her sick mother made her leave Russia and search for any job, so Svetlana became a go-go dancer in New York City. She was dreaming about a green card now, life in Russia did not seem to be a future for her, so she started looking for a husband. She realized soon that not only good husbands, but husbands in general are hard to find, and in her situation she was ready to marry whoever, even a bad guy, even to pay him to do that, and that was exactly what happened.
Igor was introduced to her by a mutual friend. She bought his black suit and a nice car. Later she bought their marriage. They started living together. A flow of shady people went through her apartment. Skinny, poorly dressed “friends” sneaked into his room and left with their eyes wild. “I dont know what drugs he was doing, but he was bad” she told me. “He was very aggressive, did not want to speak, did not show up on the interview for their green card and was stealing money from me. And then my hubby died.” She said she only got her papers because the officer saw everything she went through in her eyes and felt bad for her.

“What? You dont have a passport?” Victorias eyes rounded as red spots came out all over her face and neck. She felt like he was ruining her future she has been building all these years. “You went for a marriage to make me an American citizen and you have no passport?”
” I dont have money to get it, I dont work, you know.”
Victoria was so tired of working in restaurants that one day after she saved the required sum she married a guy she barely knew anything about. She saw him once before, he looked OK to her. Later she found out he never worked, does not have money to pay the rent, lives with his parents and multiple sisters, never got any degree, and those several thousand dollars she paid him was the biggest amount he ever had. And only for a couple of days.
“I hope he does not withdraw all the money from our mutual account” she told me once. “Ha ha ha, thats so fucking hilarious!” Tyrone was snorting and squealing on a couch with a huge pack of Cheetos and bright red Kool-Aid while watching Harlem Shake videos. “Does this kid even know what a bank account is?” went in my head.
This couple has not had their interview yet, but Victoria is doing everything possible for her dream to come true while Tyrone is playing video games and probably does not even remember her last name.

          We always think its always better somewhere else, not where you are now. We think life is easier in a different country, but most of the times we are mistaken. The failure does not live in a particular country, it lives in you and it will follow you anywhere you run from it. Some choose to do anything to stay in America, obeying all religious and moral canons. And what are we left with? A green card and a future or a lie and a solitude? Is it better to marry a real man and start a family or a country where no one needs you? Its up to you.

Have been trying to create a blog as a means of outsource for my writing/journalistic/investigative energy and here I am!

Will post stories happened to me, or to other non-native English speakers/immigrants.

The stories are interesting, I promise. Most of the people who come to NY are struggling. They know what they put themselves into, they leave their nice and cozy nests in their countries, hoping for the best future just to get sucked into a deeper hole full of rats and roaches and sometimes, flying roaches.  They run away from their relatives, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends just to see “whats out there” and you know whats out there?? Nothing, unless you work as a horse six days a week washing/cleaning/serving, because since you dont have an American diploma, you are no one here. Still, some manage to find happiness. These people inspire others to come to the U.S. and to dig their way through rocks of nonacceptance, loneliness and poverty.

Enjoy.

Social Media on Election night was abuzz with everyone who’s anyone’s opinionated stance on what should happen, what is happening, and who should be the next President of the United States.  Some of the commentary a little more entertaining than others, with entertainers such as Kathy Griffin cracking jokes on her twitter feed, and Presidential mocker Donald Trump spewing words of disdain for the Democrats; it makes for an entertaining, as well as informative means of knowing what is going on in the election.
All the news outlets have twitter feeds now; some of them, numerous accounts: CNN News, CNN Election Coverage, and you could replace CNN with Fox or NBC or ABC, or NYtimes, or NYPost – any news outlet imaginable at this point; you can tweet with them.

They each claim to be unbiased; we all know this is really not true, but the NY Times does do a semi-good job at appearing fair, with enough media content for both sides of the parties.

I have to wonder what the election looked like pre-twitter/facebook/television…

As he acknowledged to the country that he had won his second term as President of the United States.  With a tear in his eye, and amounts of happiness and appearing gratitude that overflowed, he took his place as a two-termer.  It surely was late enough into the evening, after his opponent Mitt Romney all but refused to concede – his hopes of winning getting smaller by the second as each state came in with who their votes were going to… almost every one adding to Obama’s already significantly higher number of electoral votes.

It was semi-brilliant watching FOX News’s anchors look pained as they announced Obama as the winner; the clearly biased news source would have loved to have announced Romney as our new president, but were denied the pleasure of their Republican candidate winning.  They held on until late in the evening as well, while other news outlets had announced much earlier that Obama was clearly getting the Presidential nod.

The fun really to be had on election night though was on social media – everyone with their “I am going to de-friend you’s” being threatened to their Facebook counterparts publicly endorsing their particular candidate.  I, personally, (while happy with the current president), would love to see Hillary Clinton in office; she would rock it.  http://hillaryclinton.com/

Philly AIDS Thrift is arguably one of the most fun thrift stores ever. The window displays and mannequins are always provocative and stylish. The walls are covered with art and eye-popping displays. Everyone is sincerely friendly and there are always interesting people to shop or chat with at PAT.

Philly AIDS Thrift

I especially love spending money at PAT since they contribute to 29 different AIDS/LBGT related charities in the Philadelphia area.

Wander around all the different rooms packed with lamps, TVs, furniture, paintings, clothes, jewelry, and records. Nearly all clothing items are under $10, and most are half of that. Pick up one of their neat PAD logo tote bags or t-shirts made from recycled items.  Besides all that, my favorite thing about PAT is that they have A LOT of books.

PAT has more books than a small bookstore. Boxes are piled on the floor because the shelves are often overflowing.  Philadelphia is a well read city and the book selection reflects that. If you’re looking for mass-market bestsellers, try the $1 room. 

The books are neatly organized by genre, Art, LBGT, Politics, Poetry, History….. One afternoon, I spent at least an hour  just looking at art books.

Even if you leave empty handed, you will leave smiling. It’s just a fun place to go. But I usually find something, and often leave with a bag full of clothes for around $20. You can find anything here. They have lots of vintage as well as gently used designer items.

 On this visit, I noticed lots of nice jeans, a few shirts and a French Connection pencil skirt for just $1, but I didn’t buy anything.  I just didn’t see anything I really needed.

Sometimes it’s hard to pass on things that are nice and a great deal, but if you don’t need it, it’s really just a waste. I’ve been thrifting for years, but sometimes I still have to remember to be mindful, and not buy stuff I don’t need. At these prices, it’s easy to do.

Buying stuff you don’t need defeats the purpose of thrifting. You don’t save money or the environment by buying and hoarding stuff you don’t need, even if it is a great deal, and for a good cause like Philly Aids Thrift.

Next post, this “thrift store” has mostly NEW clothes.