When I was a younger man, I was quite the spendthrift blowing through tons of money that I didn't actually have. Like many others of my generation, I lived way beyond my means on a series of credit cards that I would repeatedly max out the credit limits on and end up slaving away, some times for years, in an effort to pay off. When I first moved to New York in the late 80s to attend the NYU publishing program, I did so with visions of Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City dancing in my head. I eventually landed a job at Random House and wasn't daunted by the fact that it only paid $13,000 a year because in my mind I was on my way to living the life I had always dreamed about.
Sharing a tiny three bedroom apartment in Soho with four friends from school, my portion of the rent was a whopping $700 a month. Despite the expense, we lived happily on ramen noodles and a shared jar of peanut butter, and gorged on occasional freebies we would scam via work or friends who tended bars and waited tables. President Reagan was in office and it was a time of conspicuous consumption, and though my friends and I lived virtually below the poverty line, we still managed to make every night seem like New Year's Eve. We made friends with the doormen at our favorite clubs and scored a permanent place on their guest lists with tons of free drink tickets to boot. It was a time to "see and be seen" and looking the part was very important. Thankfully the gaunt look was in because no one I knew could afford to eat. And when we weren't drinking our dinner, the Grand Union Supermarket on University Place took credit cards (practically unheard of at the time) keeping us in noodles and PB&J sandwiches in an attempt to add nourishment to our skeletal frames.
Clothes were an important part of cultivating that razor thin look of calculated nonchalance, and I was obsessed by them. Given a ten minute stint in Bloomingdales, Saks or Bergdorf's, I could blow through the gross national product of a small third world country and not think twice about it. I learned to justify any expensive clothing purchase based on the need to look the best I possibly could at my job in order to get ahead. I remember at the time buying a Giorgio Armani overcoat for $1,200 and thinking it was an absolute necessity. I also remember coveting a particularly hideous green Jean Paul Gaultier blazer that I eventually bought on sale for $800 dollars at the Barney's warehouse sale and feeling I had scored a real bargain. Now, I wince at the memory of it all and wonder what the hell was I thinking?!?
Eventually the clock turned, the party stopped and twenty years passed by in the blink of an eye. One day I woke up and realized I was no longer interested in clothes. I learned to tighten my belt and think twice before spending carelessly. Some people would say I even became the proverbial cheap bastard. I now only buy clothes that are on sale and have been known to wear a pair of shoes until they are literally falling off my feet. At the same time I realized something even more important... I had been starving!
While I have mastered the art of fiscal responsibility and practiced it for years now, I do allow myself some extravagance from time to time by eating well. I won't hesitate dropping a couple of hundred dollars for a nice meal ("Per Se, you say, no problem..."), but I can also turn into a food banshee when something doesn't live up to my expectations leaving me angry and feeling ripped off. The scenario could be going to an expensive restaurant and being disappointed or something as simple as buying cold French fries at McDonalds's, but the result is always the same... I feel slighted by the experience and become indignant and self-righteous thinking I have been taken advantage of. Because of this indulgence my waist line has grown over time, but so fortunately have my culinary skills. I'm still guilty of over spending in search of the perfect ingredients when preparing a home cooked meal; and when I travel; more often than not it's with particular foods and recipes in mind rather than specific destinations. I might head to Italy and stay at Ischia's equivalent of a Motel 6, but you can guarantee I am going to the best restaurant on the island and the sky's the limit when it comes to ordering.
As I attempt to settle into middle age, and embrace the fact that I now weigh a good 40-50 pounds more than I did twenty years ago, I still love New York but from a very different perspective. Instead of dreaming of hitting the newest clubs and tripping the light fantastic in the latest fashions, I dream of checking out the latest restaurants and dishes yet to be explored. I have also resigned myself to the fact that I will never again have a 28 inch waist; and realize, in fact, that I am happier now with a 32 inch waistline and eating what the hell I want to than I ever was as a skinny neurotic twenty-something.
Seale "Brother" Ballenger is a twenty-two year veteran of the book publishing industry and currently works as Vice President and Group Publicity Director for the William Morrow Division at Harper Collins Publishers. He is the author of HELL'S BELLES: A Tribute to the Spitfires, Bad Seeds, and Steel Magnolias of the New & Old South.