Were you in the women’s public washroom minutes before me last night, leaving behind the odor of burnt matter?
Do you have an STD?
Do you have a raging STD that causes burning when you urinate?
Do you have an STD that is so advanced that it is the equivalent of having a flamethrower between your legs?
If you answered “yes” to the above questions, please seek medical help. There is no reason you should suffer with a urethra that shoots flames whenever you use it. While I do appreciate that the economy might be tough and money might be tight, there are clinics and places you can turn when you cannot afford the treatment you need. Please contact your local hospital for a referral or your county government for more information about free and reduced-cost medical care. No one should have to extinguish her hoo-hoo after peeing. And unless you have a penis or some sort of directional tool to control and project your flame, it cannot, in my mind, serve much purpose.
Please, folks, don’t let your friends shoot flames from their hoo-hoos. Not only is this painful, but it leaves an unpleasant odor behind in every washroom they use, and it’s possible that they could set off the fire alarm and sprinkler system, which would effectively douse their crotch and ruin their hairdo in a very short period of time.
Flaming hoo-hoos: you don’t have to suffer with them anymore.
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Observances
Today a woman (and I use that term loosely) approached me while dancing a lemur-like dance, with her arms waving in the air as she seemed to leap and fling herself with her hips, all while singing. Others in the room were heard as if their speakers were on a two or three, and her voice was booming at nine, causing me to recoil. It took effort not to protect my ears, as my hand instinctively wanted to do. My eyes decided to make up for it by blinking so rapidly that it nearly caused me to have a seizure. She roared and laughed out this story about how her parents only ever played 50s music when she was growing up, some 25 years after the 50s I should add, and she still loved it to this day. In fact, things in life all somehow corresponded back to various songs in her memory bank, and often she is overcome with the need to sing the appropriate song for the occasion.
All I could think about was how I would really like to punch her right in the nose.
You do not behave this way in public, and you certainly don’t walk up to a group of complete strangers singing, dancing like a rhythmless white girl, and then telling everyone around about your childhood music experiences, and how they turned you into a raving lunatic.
She was way too goddamn happy. Drugs? Mental illness? In need of a good ass kicking? Some pampered princess who has never experienced life? What? What makes someone this freakishly happy? Whatever it is, we must seek the cause and kill it. People like her shouldn’t be allowed to walk around behaving this way. And if they are truly this happy, they should be forced to keep it to themselves.
Singing when there’s no music? Um, no. This is why people like me hate musicals. Only deranged, drugged or damaged people do this. Dancing, and very badly at that, when there’s no music? Even worse. In public, surrounded by strangers? Oh boy. Stand back. And then telling them half your life story? Euthanasia is the only option.
Happy, loud people who share too much: hate them.
On Monday, I had a series of appointments with multiple doctors scheduled back to back to back, and the first took far less time than anticipated, so I found myself driving around Bannockburn, Illinois, wasting time until my next appointment.
Bannockburn lies among the other North Shore suburbs like Highland Park and Lake Forest, notorious for their wealthy residents. I’m not a huge fan of the rich. I worked in Highland Park too long and was treated so poorly by much of the clientele that I have a bitter taste in my mouth each time I drive through the area, even 13 years later. However, I had time to kill and I decided to take a gander at how the rich and famous live.
Do you know what? Most of those houses were fugly! Big, square, obnoxious monstrosities! Some had these hideous metal sculptures in their front yard, as if to give passersby the impression that the owner had avant-guard flair, which translated to me as a wealthy version of pink-fucking-flamingos. Tacky. My eyes threatened to sprain from rolling so much. Who the hell takes themselves this seriously? There were some gorgeous homes, don’t get me wrong, because not everyone who has money is totally in love with himself and is trying to persuade others to feel the same. How insecure can you be? Why would you live in a home that has only three windows and is shaped like a psychotic architect tried to incorporate every conceivable shape into different rooms in the same house? I couldn’t help but laugh.
It made me realize that we aren’t so different from the rich. They’re just as moronic and garish as we are, trying hard to be noticed. The only difference is they have more money.
Yet I did notice a few more differences.
For one, they had hardly any for-sale signs. If you drive through my neighborhood, there are easily two or more houses for sale on every block, and these don’t include the ones that sit empty, nor do they include the ones recently foreclosed. Everywhere you look, homes are for sale by me, and they remain for sale for months on end, until the signs rot and fall over on the lawn. So, unless the rich sell their mansions in a way that doesn’t include public signage, it seemed to me that the folks in Bannockburn aren’t struggling with the same economic problems we are.
Another thing I noticed was the street names. Tennyson, Keats, Kipling, Malory, and Shelley. No matter how ugly your house is or what nasty metal atrocities you install on your front lawn, you are automatically filled with self-importance when you live on Bentley Drive. This is in direct contrast to my ‘hood, where we live on streets like Misdemeanor, Pimp and Smack. There is no Masters Lane in my town, no matter how you interpret that. And there is no Martin Luther King Drive in the wealthy areas. There is no irony there. It’s just kind of sad.
Something that gave me a little bit of comfort was the fact that gas is a full dollar per gallon higher in Bannockburn than it is an hour away by my house, which is still 20¢ per gallon more than our neighboring states. Go ahead and speculate on what drives gas prices and if we ever should’ve been paying more than we are now, which is still too much.
While visiting my favorite doctor, I had a little conversation with him about drugs, because the meds I’m on are causing so much trouble for me. The anti-malarial drug is a chemo med, so in addition to the digestive disruptions, nausea, hair loss, fatigue, bruises with no known cause all over the body, and muscle weakness, the medication somehow interferes with whatever it is that tells the bladder to hold the urine until it’s full, so I have to pee about every 2 hours, around the clock, day and night. Boyfriend Extraordinaire thinks I’m having hearing loss as well, though I’m not convinced of this yet. All this doesn’t even touch on what the steroids do, which I’ve actually become accustomed to suffering from at this point. My doctor shook his head and was grateful that my other doctor discontinued the Plaquenil and gave me a diuretic to help with the fluid retention in my neck, hands and feet. However, he warned me that the diuretic will make me pee even more, which I thought wasn’t possible, but he was right.
He looked so distraught about my side effects that I felt I had to comfort him a bit.
I said, “Meh, all drugs have side effects. What I don’t understand is why are they all negative? Why do medicines make you nauseated? Or make your hair fall out? Or make you have to pee every 90 minutes? Why don’t any of them have a single GOOD side effect… like… whitening your teeth… or… making your boobs perkier?”
He laughed and said, “Oh, wait! There’s Rogaine! That was designed for something else and someone started noticing that people were growing their hair back.”
I replied with surprise. I had no idea Rogaine had other intended purposes.
He continued, “And there’s Viagra!”
I piped up, “Oh yeah! That was a cardiac medication, wasn’t it?”
“Yep, a cardio-pulmonary drug that had this interesting side effect. Hehe, and then they just changed the dose by a few milligrams, and charged A TON more money for the specialized dose, and that’s what Viagra is today. A total marketing scam!”
“Ugh, of course,” I moaned.
“I get male patients who beg me to prescribe it and say it’s for their pulmonary problems so that they don’t have to pay the high price for it, but no, I can’t do that.”
I giggled and said, “Darn, you should, and stick it to them!”
Then I paused, thinking of the great pun I unintentionally made and we both started laughing again.
I have faith that this doctor does not live in one of those geometric homes with sharp protrusions of oddly shaped rooms, tiny windows, and unsightly sculptures on his lawn. He’s way too cool for that.
Tonight, the premiere of “Celebrity Rehab” aired and I am already emotionally invested in some of the addicts. I desperately want Rodney King to do well, make friends, and have a good life. Steven Adler, I’m afraid to see where things lead him because he looks like he’s too far gone to save. I want the rest to do well, of course, particularly Jeff Conaway because I can’t stand the idea of him being back over and over. However, there are two characters (and I use that term accurately) who are going to make me have violent outbursts just watching them. Jeff’s girlfriend is one of them, and I actually hate her so much that I wish she’d just overdoes already and be out of the picture. The other is Gary Busey, but I think that if he hangs out for a few more days, the rest of the people are going to kill him. THAT will be a good episode to watch! Dr. Drew might even join in, and my crush on him will only intensify. Damn this show for hooking me all over again!
All I could think about was how I would really like to punch her right in the nose.
You do not behave this way in public, and you certainly don’t walk up to a group of complete strangers singing, dancing like a rhythmless white girl, and then telling everyone around about your childhood music experiences, and how they turned you into a raving lunatic.
She was way too goddamn happy. Drugs? Mental illness? In need of a good ass kicking? Some pampered princess who has never experienced life? What? What makes someone this freakishly happy? Whatever it is, we must seek the cause and kill it. People like her shouldn’t be allowed to walk around behaving this way. And if they are truly this happy, they should be forced to keep it to themselves.
Singing when there’s no music? Um, no. This is why people like me hate musicals. Only deranged, drugged or damaged people do this. Dancing, and very badly at that, when there’s no music? Even worse. In public, surrounded by strangers? Oh boy. Stand back. And then telling them half your life story? Euthanasia is the only option.
Happy, loud people who share too much: hate them.
* * *
On Monday, I had a series of appointments with multiple doctors scheduled back to back to back, and the first took far less time than anticipated, so I found myself driving around Bannockburn, Illinois, wasting time until my next appointment.
Bannockburn lies among the other North Shore suburbs like Highland Park and Lake Forest, notorious for their wealthy residents. I’m not a huge fan of the rich. I worked in Highland Park too long and was treated so poorly by much of the clientele that I have a bitter taste in my mouth each time I drive through the area, even 13 years later. However, I had time to kill and I decided to take a gander at how the rich and famous live.
Do you know what? Most of those houses were fugly! Big, square, obnoxious monstrosities! Some had these hideous metal sculptures in their front yard, as if to give passersby the impression that the owner had avant-guard flair, which translated to me as a wealthy version of pink-fucking-flamingos. Tacky. My eyes threatened to sprain from rolling so much. Who the hell takes themselves this seriously? There were some gorgeous homes, don’t get me wrong, because not everyone who has money is totally in love with himself and is trying to persuade others to feel the same. How insecure can you be? Why would you live in a home that has only three windows and is shaped like a psychotic architect tried to incorporate every conceivable shape into different rooms in the same house? I couldn’t help but laugh.
It made me realize that we aren’t so different from the rich. They’re just as moronic and garish as we are, trying hard to be noticed. The only difference is they have more money.
Yet I did notice a few more differences.
For one, they had hardly any for-sale signs. If you drive through my neighborhood, there are easily two or more houses for sale on every block, and these don’t include the ones that sit empty, nor do they include the ones recently foreclosed. Everywhere you look, homes are for sale by me, and they remain for sale for months on end, until the signs rot and fall over on the lawn. So, unless the rich sell their mansions in a way that doesn’t include public signage, it seemed to me that the folks in Bannockburn aren’t struggling with the same economic problems we are.
Another thing I noticed was the street names. Tennyson, Keats, Kipling, Malory, and Shelley. No matter how ugly your house is or what nasty metal atrocities you install on your front lawn, you are automatically filled with self-importance when you live on Bentley Drive. This is in direct contrast to my ‘hood, where we live on streets like Misdemeanor, Pimp and Smack. There is no Masters Lane in my town, no matter how you interpret that. And there is no Martin Luther King Drive in the wealthy areas. There is no irony there. It’s just kind of sad.
Something that gave me a little bit of comfort was the fact that gas is a full dollar per gallon higher in Bannockburn than it is an hour away by my house, which is still 20¢ per gallon more than our neighboring states. Go ahead and speculate on what drives gas prices and if we ever should’ve been paying more than we are now, which is still too much.
* * *
While visiting my favorite doctor, I had a little conversation with him about drugs, because the meds I’m on are causing so much trouble for me. The anti-malarial drug is a chemo med, so in addition to the digestive disruptions, nausea, hair loss, fatigue, bruises with no known cause all over the body, and muscle weakness, the medication somehow interferes with whatever it is that tells the bladder to hold the urine until it’s full, so I have to pee about every 2 hours, around the clock, day and night. Boyfriend Extraordinaire thinks I’m having hearing loss as well, though I’m not convinced of this yet. All this doesn’t even touch on what the steroids do, which I’ve actually become accustomed to suffering from at this point. My doctor shook his head and was grateful that my other doctor discontinued the Plaquenil and gave me a diuretic to help with the fluid retention in my neck, hands and feet. However, he warned me that the diuretic will make me pee even more, which I thought wasn’t possible, but he was right.
He looked so distraught about my side effects that I felt I had to comfort him a bit.
I said, “Meh, all drugs have side effects. What I don’t understand is why are they all negative? Why do medicines make you nauseated? Or make your hair fall out? Or make you have to pee every 90 minutes? Why don’t any of them have a single GOOD side effect… like… whitening your teeth… or… making your boobs perkier?”
He laughed and said, “Oh, wait! There’s Rogaine! That was designed for something else and someone started noticing that people were growing their hair back.”
I replied with surprise. I had no idea Rogaine had other intended purposes.
He continued, “And there’s Viagra!”
I piped up, “Oh yeah! That was a cardiac medication, wasn’t it?”
“Yep, a cardio-pulmonary drug that had this interesting side effect. Hehe, and then they just changed the dose by a few milligrams, and charged A TON more money for the specialized dose, and that’s what Viagra is today. A total marketing scam!”
“Ugh, of course,” I moaned.
“I get male patients who beg me to prescribe it and say it’s for their pulmonary problems so that they don’t have to pay the high price for it, but no, I can’t do that.”
I giggled and said, “Darn, you should, and stick it to them!”
Then I paused, thinking of the great pun I unintentionally made and we both started laughing again.
I have faith that this doctor does not live in one of those geometric homes with sharp protrusions of oddly shaped rooms, tiny windows, and unsightly sculptures on his lawn. He’s way too cool for that.
* * *
Tonight, the premiere of “Celebrity Rehab” aired and I am already emotionally invested in some of the addicts. I desperately want Rodney King to do well, make friends, and have a good life. Steven Adler, I’m afraid to see where things lead him because he looks like he’s too far gone to save. I want the rest to do well, of course, particularly Jeff Conaway because I can’t stand the idea of him being back over and over. However, there are two characters (and I use that term accurately) who are going to make me have violent outbursts just watching them. Jeff’s girlfriend is one of them, and I actually hate her so much that I wish she’d just overdoes already and be out of the picture. The other is Gary Busey, but I think that if he hangs out for a few more days, the rest of the people are going to kill him. THAT will be a good episode to watch! Dr. Drew might even join in, and my crush on him will only intensify. Damn this show for hooking me all over again!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Pre Vacation Freakishness
My vacation is just 3½ days away and I’m panicking. Part of it is because I only have enough money to cover the motel room for the week we’re there, and the gas to get us there and back. That’s it. We’re going to have to raid my refrigerator and pantry for food we can bring and microwave in the room, because we can’t even buy Subway’s $5 foot-longs for sustenance while we’re there. There will be no souvenirs, no rides on boats, no romantic dinners, no paid parking spots, no smooshed penny machines, and absolutely no driving around town more than necessary. There is no wiggle room. There is simply no money.
Another part of the panic is that I’m still not feeling well, and while many of my medication side effects have waned, I’m experiencing new ones that are pissing me off something awful. My muscles are getting weaker and weaker, to the point where my arms tremble and threaten to give up when I brush my teeth. It takes an hour to blow dry my hair because I can’t turn my brush through my hair more than three times before my wrist feels as if I’ve been kneading dense dough all morning. Walking up the 13 stairs of my house makes my thighs shake with frailty, and recently I’ve started having lower back pain, which I’ve never had in my life. I can’t do dishes, I can’t stand for any length of time, and sleeping is not something that comes easily anymore. Today the pain in the backs of my shoulder blades started, and no matter how much I massaged the muscles, it would not go away.
So, what exactly can I do on vacation without money, and with muscles that are burning and so weak that I can’t even walk up a flight of stairs anymore?
It’s freaking me out!
But, I will not let this stop me! Foliage color reports are predicting peak color in the Hiawatha National Forest to be this upcoming weekend and next week. I gambled and picked the perfect week to go! And since the we’re entering into a depression, the likes of which we haven’t seen in almost a century, I don’t know if I’ll ever get up there again. Plus, I just went to the store to buy something utterly essential, knowing I had very little money in the bank, and the total came to $3.01, but my debit card was denied for insufficient funds. THAT’S humiliating. Then I opened my wallet and thought I only had two singles, one for a Coke for each day at work for lunch until we get paid on Thursday, but there was an extra dollar and I was able to pay for my purchase with cash. THAT’S a sign! A sign from where or whom, I don’t know, but if a magical dollar can appear in my wallet when I need it, I can conclude with confidence that magical dollars can appear in my wallet in the future as well. I believe in magical dollars. You know? Like the kind they print up that have absolutely no basis whatsoever on anything but faith in the monetary system. Like magical dollars that will bail out our banks, who have been cheating and conniving and lying for so long that it’s finally catching up to them, and suddenly there’s squillions of dollars to help them out of this crisis. Magical dollars are everywhere. Let’s just hope that the American people keep believing in them too, or pretty soon we’ll have our own tulip mania, only ours will be called dollar mania.
And what this all boils down to is that I shun the signs telling me to stay home and save my money, which is scarce enough, and choose to go far away, draining all my savings and remaining open credit, all for some colorful leaves.
Sometimes, when I think about it that way, it freaks me out. So I try not to.
But the day wasn’t a total downer.
I’m working on improving our dog book collection, and Marina suggested I find books on the unofficial poodle mixed breeds that are popular, like goldendoodles and schnoodles.
Let me first say that I cannot say shih tzu without giggling. Then I started reading some of the other poodle combinations and I was in hysterics.
Go ahead and look them up. They’re real.
And people think having a dog named River because he pees a lot is nasty. At least he’s a pee-vert and not a poo-vert.
Another part of the panic is that I’m still not feeling well, and while many of my medication side effects have waned, I’m experiencing new ones that are pissing me off something awful. My muscles are getting weaker and weaker, to the point where my arms tremble and threaten to give up when I brush my teeth. It takes an hour to blow dry my hair because I can’t turn my brush through my hair more than three times before my wrist feels as if I’ve been kneading dense dough all morning. Walking up the 13 stairs of my house makes my thighs shake with frailty, and recently I’ve started having lower back pain, which I’ve never had in my life. I can’t do dishes, I can’t stand for any length of time, and sleeping is not something that comes easily anymore. Today the pain in the backs of my shoulder blades started, and no matter how much I massaged the muscles, it would not go away.
So, what exactly can I do on vacation without money, and with muscles that are burning and so weak that I can’t even walk up a flight of stairs anymore?
It’s freaking me out!
But, I will not let this stop me! Foliage color reports are predicting peak color in the Hiawatha National Forest to be this upcoming weekend and next week. I gambled and picked the perfect week to go! And since the we’re entering into a depression, the likes of which we haven’t seen in almost a century, I don’t know if I’ll ever get up there again. Plus, I just went to the store to buy something utterly essential, knowing I had very little money in the bank, and the total came to $3.01, but my debit card was denied for insufficient funds. THAT’S humiliating. Then I opened my wallet and thought I only had two singles, one for a Coke for each day at work for lunch until we get paid on Thursday, but there was an extra dollar and I was able to pay for my purchase with cash. THAT’S a sign! A sign from where or whom, I don’t know, but if a magical dollar can appear in my wallet when I need it, I can conclude with confidence that magical dollars can appear in my wallet in the future as well. I believe in magical dollars. You know? Like the kind they print up that have absolutely no basis whatsoever on anything but faith in the monetary system. Like magical dollars that will bail out our banks, who have been cheating and conniving and lying for so long that it’s finally catching up to them, and suddenly there’s squillions of dollars to help them out of this crisis. Magical dollars are everywhere. Let’s just hope that the American people keep believing in them too, or pretty soon we’ll have our own tulip mania, only ours will be called dollar mania.
And what this all boils down to is that I shun the signs telling me to stay home and save my money, which is scarce enough, and choose to go far away, draining all my savings and remaining open credit, all for some colorful leaves.
Sometimes, when I think about it that way, it freaks me out. So I try not to.
But the day wasn’t a total downer.
I’m working on improving our dog book collection, and Marina suggested I find books on the unofficial poodle mixed breeds that are popular, like goldendoodles and schnoodles.
Let me first say that I cannot say shih tzu without giggling. Then I started reading some of the other poodle combinations and I was in hysterics.
- Do you havapoo?
Do you affenpoo?
Is it a serious case of lhassapoo?
Can you only afford chi-poo?
Have you ever had to jackapoo, perhaps with your cocka-poo?
When you try too hard, is it a shar-poo?
Or do you have delicate pinni-poos?
Does you mommy criticize your papipoo?
Do you have bossi-poos?
Are you the kind of coworker who has a poo-chin?
Are you shy and prefer to pekepoo?
Do you sometimes try to hold it too long and find that laughing causes an eskapoo?
Or are you a proud person who embraces their poo-ton?
Go ahead and look them up. They’re real.
And people think having a dog named River because he pees a lot is nasty. At least he’s a pee-vert and not a poo-vert.
Friday, August 29, 2008
You Matter
My father was one of the world’s greatest hypocrites. He brought me up to believe that every purchase we make is a decision to support one supplier versus another, giving our business to a particular store, a particular manufacturer, and a particular product. We would get in the car on the weekends and drive from our Albany Park neighborhood in Chicago, all the way to Lincolnwood to fill his gas tank up because gas was a few pennies cheaper there. Without regret, he admitted it probably didn’t save him any money when he considered how far the drive in weekend traffic was, but his belief was that it was more important to give his business to that gas station because their prices were the best, if only by 2¢. My parents did the same thing when grocery shopping. We would often go to two or three grocery stores to get all of our food for the week, chasing sale prices around the city, not to save the money, but to reward the stores with the best sales with our business. Perhaps it’s naïve to assume that a can of Del Monte corn bought for 5¢ less at Jewel could actually give Jewel the motivation to keep their sales kicking everyone else’s ass because they sold so many cans of corn at this price. Perhaps. My father believed that if he made conscientious purchases, he could actually impact the economy.
There are times when I think this is incredibly foolish, given the very contradictory way our economy runs and how faith-based everything is, but there was something hopeful in the way he shopped and the value he put on his spending habits. No matter how hard I try to be efficient and not let myself get carried away with buying into my dad’s philosophies, I find myself doing the exact same things he did, driving to the Wisconsin border to buy gas, shopping at four different grocery stores, and “rewarding” worthy businesses with my purchases.
Yet, despite how passionately my father felt about his power over the economy, he refused to register to vote. This was a point of contention between us for most of my life, and I never did get him to understand that he’d always been voting for things with each calculated purchase he made, but he wouldn’t vote for people who could actually make a bigger difference in our world. He refused to believe that voting mattered, and we would argue about it on the long drives we took to places he felt worthy of giving his business to. It drove me completely nuts. How could someone be so blind to all the voting we do every day, yet refuse to vote for people and issues that govern our lives?
Given that I’m a voter registrar through my job, it’s something I feel very strongly about, and I’m adding something very important to my sidebar for anyone who visits this blog. Rock the Vote offers an online voter registration process, where you can register for the first time, or reregister a change of address or a change of name, and you never even have to leave your house. (Except to mail the form.) It’s awesome! I give you the widget of your future!
I know that many of my readers vote, and perhaps one or two of you may register to vote this year because of the national election, and maybe this will be the first time for someone, too. If so, fabulous! I just hope as many people as possible get out and make their opinions count.
Once I accomplish that, perhaps we can work out carpools for people who do what I do, which is to buy my usual stuff at a co-op, my pasture-fed meats at Sunset Foods, my organic foods at Trader Joe’s, my produce and other locally grown items from farmers’ markets, and sale items at any grocery store kind enough to reduce their costs. My motivation is not always sales and best prices, clearly. It’s about quality goods, keeping my money fueling the local economy instead of sending the profits across the country or across the world, and trying to provide a steady stream of business to people and businesses that believe in higher standards. My free-range, omega-3 eggs are expensive, but I prefer knowing the chickens live better lives, eat a more natural diet, and provide me with a better product. That’s how I vote. It’s what my father taught me. It’s how I convince myself that I matter in this world.
I hope you feel like you matter too. Even if you don’t make an effort to vote with your dollars, vote with your head and make your opinion matter in the upcoming election.
< /soapbox speech >
There are times when I think this is incredibly foolish, given the very contradictory way our economy runs and how faith-based everything is, but there was something hopeful in the way he shopped and the value he put on his spending habits. No matter how hard I try to be efficient and not let myself get carried away with buying into my dad’s philosophies, I find myself doing the exact same things he did, driving to the Wisconsin border to buy gas, shopping at four different grocery stores, and “rewarding” worthy businesses with my purchases.
Yet, despite how passionately my father felt about his power over the economy, he refused to register to vote. This was a point of contention between us for most of my life, and I never did get him to understand that he’d always been voting for things with each calculated purchase he made, but he wouldn’t vote for people who could actually make a bigger difference in our world. He refused to believe that voting mattered, and we would argue about it on the long drives we took to places he felt worthy of giving his business to. It drove me completely nuts. How could someone be so blind to all the voting we do every day, yet refuse to vote for people and issues that govern our lives?
Given that I’m a voter registrar through my job, it’s something I feel very strongly about, and I’m adding something very important to my sidebar for anyone who visits this blog. Rock the Vote offers an online voter registration process, where you can register for the first time, or reregister a change of address or a change of name, and you never even have to leave your house. (Except to mail the form.) It’s awesome! I give you the widget of your future!
 |
I know that many of my readers vote, and perhaps one or two of you may register to vote this year because of the national election, and maybe this will be the first time for someone, too. If so, fabulous! I just hope as many people as possible get out and make their opinions count.
Once I accomplish that, perhaps we can work out carpools for people who do what I do, which is to buy my usual stuff at a co-op, my pasture-fed meats at Sunset Foods, my organic foods at Trader Joe’s, my produce and other locally grown items from farmers’ markets, and sale items at any grocery store kind enough to reduce their costs. My motivation is not always sales and best prices, clearly. It’s about quality goods, keeping my money fueling the local economy instead of sending the profits across the country or across the world, and trying to provide a steady stream of business to people and businesses that believe in higher standards. My free-range, omega-3 eggs are expensive, but I prefer knowing the chickens live better lives, eat a more natural diet, and provide me with a better product. That’s how I vote. It’s what my father taught me. It’s how I convince myself that I matter in this world.
I hope you feel like you matter too. Even if you don’t make an effort to vote with your dollars, vote with your head and make your opinion matter in the upcoming election.
< /soapbox speech >
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Eye-Opener
Today I had a conversation with a woman from Peru, who was quite intelligent and interesting to talk to. Something that she said struck me hard and really made me think.
For a long time, I’ve blamed the horrible economy and the extreme disparity between the rich and poor on three super-powerful entities: pharmaceutical companies, health insurance companies, and oil companies. Health insurance companies don’t go under very often when compared with other industries. They pay out fractions of what they’re billed, they force the insured to pay unreasonable percentages of the bills and force them to jump through sometimes fatal hoops to get the coverage they’re entitled to, and they charge us obscene amounts in premiums. This drives up the cost of benefits for employers, and they pay the employees less as well as forcing them to contribute to the premiums, which is in addition to the medical bills employees end up having to pay. In turn, people are not getting the preventive care they should because they cannot afford it, and when they do get a diagnosis, they can’t afford the treatment. These days, we also have to worry that a diagnosis can actually effect our ability to have future coverage, too. I don’t have to touch on the astronomical costs of medications in the U.S., which are unjustly inflated for Americans. And I know I don’t have to launch into any kind of sermon about how much money the oil companies make for no reason other than because they can charge anything they want, and we’ll pay it. We experience and see this everyday.
So, as I was sitting there, chatting with this Peruvian woman who has recently immigrated to the U.S., she seemed to be trying to figure out the American psyche with the questions she asked me, and with each answer I gave, I was cognizant of the representative role I played the opinion she was forming of whatever group I represented to her. We discussed racism in the country, as well as in our modest little suburb, compared and contrasted it with what we both had experienced living in Chicago, and how difficult it is for immigrants these days to be treated by strangers with any decorum or respect. This led me to ask her a question about an article I read in a forgotten newspaper recently.
What I remembered reading was an article that cited that there is an exodus of native Mexicans returning to Mexico after coming to America for a “better life”. The article subjectively listed first that the economy here has prompted many people to return to the countries they left for similar reasons just a few years or decades earlier, like jobs are no longer abundant and the cost of living is so high. As secondary and tertiary reasons for the unprecedented return to Mexico, were the fears of deportation and the dubious future they have of ever being granted citizenship. We’re not necessarily talking about illegal immigrants here, either. Many legal citizens are going BACK to Mexico for a “better life”, and what reasons they give may or may not be what is being reported. I have my doubts. I’d venture a guess that yes, jobs are scarcer, money doesn’t go as far, and becoming a citizen is a process few will accomplish after paying heaps of money for many years, all the while paying taxes and supporting the U.S. economy. But I would put a lot of emphasis on the overall hatred and hostility that is aimed directly at the Mexican border, and anyone with an Hispanic-sounding name, or tan or olive skin is being accused of being an illegal alien at every turn in this country. Our country is downright despicable in the way we treat anyone we suspect might be Hispanic. Could it be that maybe they’re leaving because we’ve threatened them, treated them horribly, and made them feel unwelcome in every way, in every area, including dragging out the citizenship process for Spanish-speakers that greatly exceeds the length of time it takes for someone to become naturalized from Europe or Asia? My money is on blatant hatred they see on a regular basis, which only exacerbates the economic woes.
I’ve learned very quickly that the American public believes some very different things than the rest of the world. You get together a room full of immigrants from a variety of countries around the world and you ask them who was behind the attacks on 9/11. You’ll be very surprised who everyone blames. I won’t name names because I’ll likely be accused of being a conspiracy theorist or un-American for spreading this hearsay, but let’s just say that after November, the lame duck they blame won’t be as powerful anymore. So, when I brought up this article I read to this very bright Peruvian woman, she started talking about all the different news channels she watches regularly, including all the local ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates, the national news channels, and the international news channels, which was the groundwork she laid before she answered my question about what she thought of how much truth there was to this article.
That’s when she hit me with something I hadn’t thought about.
She mentioned the hundreds of raids taking place at companies, factories, and various places of business, where everyone on staff is checked for citizenship, and truckloads of illegals are carted off, taken to jail, and after two – three months of jail time, they are released and immediately deported. These raids go on constantly, she assured me. The American news does not report this. However, if she watches the news on Univision or Telemundo, she can see just how many people are being deported all around the country, everyday. It’s sad and frightening, even to people who are citizens or who are going through the process. These are their family members, friends, and neighbors. You never know who is just going to disappear on any given day.
Now, after these raids started becoming common, something else happened at the companies that employed illegals. Um, well, duh – they couldn’t employ illegals anymore. Which meant that they had to hire people legally and pay higher salaries, as well as the appropriate employment taxes. Many businesses have gone under because of this, and the rest have raised what they charge to consumers for their various services or products, and this contributes to the outrageous inflation. So, essentially, what the stupid racists in the U.S. have long thought, that illegals come here and go on Welfare or other government subsidies, draining money out of our pockets via our taxes, well, they’re still stupid racists because they’re absolutely backwards. Our economy thrives with illegals working illegally at places we do business with because employing them keeps prices down. Let’s not even discuss the costs we’re investing in these raids, in the court costs, incarceration, and then shipping people back to their homelands. At some point, you’ve got to step back and take a good, hard look at the costs and the benefits.
I’m not promoting breaking the law, ignoring the proper immigration process, and allowing employers to get away with not paying employment taxes on people who they aren’t supposed to hire. This isn’t even to even mention the moral issues of hiring people for pay lower than minimum wage and denying them benefits and tax rights like Unemployment, Workers Compensation, and everything else that labor laws are set up to ensure. C’mon now, you all should know me better than to think I’d encourage the breaking of numerous laws set up to protect EVERYONE involved. Not happening here, folks. But what this woman brought to my attention was how much of an enormous impact the aggressive deportation of illegals is having on our economy, and for the first time ever, I’m starting to see that maybe I cannot blame all my woes on the three aforementioned super-powers.
Just when I thought she was done making my brain expand, she started talking about China, and the economic powerhouse they are quickly becoming. She asked me how their economy was able to grow so much. I saw where she was going, nodded and conceded that cheap labor does wonders for the economy. She pointed out the pattern in other countries, which are growing and also notorious for their cheap labor. She paused and then continued to add that when people immigrate to the U.S. illegally, they’re not competing with Americans for jobs. Americans won’t do the jobs illegals do, particularly for the money these employers are offering. Illegals do factory work, agricultural work, garbage work, clean-up work, and all the other tasks that we think we’re above. They work their asses off, they don’t complain, and often they have two or three jobs to make ends meet, all hard labor work. But if the government forcefully removes them from these jobs, we have fewer people in the U.S. willing to do this work for such meager earnings, and that’s when many of these companies raise their prices enormously. When that doesn’t solve problems, they take their business and their jobs, uproot, and go to other countries for cheaper labor. And we all hate the fact that so many companies are moving their entire operation or portions of their operation to other countries. This trickling effect is slamming our country right now, and average citizens aren’t even talking about it.
Not on the NBC, CBS, ABC or any of the national news channels do they mention any of this, but my Peruvian acquaintance pointed out that this is what’s being talked about in other countries, being reported on international news networks, and some of the attitude is that we’re getting what we deserve.
Not me, I yell! I’m not one of them!
It’s hard for me to swallow because so often I feel like this entire country has gone mad and I’m alone, standing there with my arms outstretched, demanding to know what the fuck is wrong with my countrymen and am I the only one who is currently ashamed to be part of the human race. I don’t support the war, the current president, conventional wisdom, or the people in this country trying to deny global warming, like the holocaust deniers who refuse to see the facts. I’m not one of them! I don’t support massive deportation and raids on businesses. I also don’t support just turning a blind eye to broken laws. What I do support is the concept of developing a new plan that isn’t so goddamn inhumane, which I have not run across yet. Someone somewhere is smart enough to come up with an idea that actually sounds civilized, right? RIGHT? WHERE ARE YOU? SPEAK UP! Where is our humanity?! Beyond the immigration problems, there can’t be a quick fix for our economy, either. Theorists are foretelling that the economy will miraculously right itself, and many prognosticators even name a specific month when this upturn will occur, while others are doomsday believers who have started building a hut and caching non-perishables. Much faith is being placed in people’s presidential candidate of choice, but I think that’s largely naïve. I’m even starting to believe that the next elected president can’t even hope to turn things around in his term, and we haven’t begun to bottom out yet. That’s the pessimist in me talking. But I haven’t built a hut or started storing my canned foods, so don’t lock me up in that padded room just yet.
It’s always eye-opening and thought-provoking to have conversations with people who do not derive all of their opinions about world and national affairs by what the biased American news reports. We are most often sheep, and sometimes we fail to recognize how sheep-like we have become until we run into someone with a view from a different angle. Even if you don’t agree with anything you read in any paragraph of this post, you have to admit that it’s quite interesting to know that people are thinking this about us, and maybe, just maybe, we’re a little too wrapped up in the drama of being Americans to see what being an American means to people who aren’t.
And there are far more people who are not Americans in this world.
For a long time, I’ve blamed the horrible economy and the extreme disparity between the rich and poor on three super-powerful entities: pharmaceutical companies, health insurance companies, and oil companies. Health insurance companies don’t go under very often when compared with other industries. They pay out fractions of what they’re billed, they force the insured to pay unreasonable percentages of the bills and force them to jump through sometimes fatal hoops to get the coverage they’re entitled to, and they charge us obscene amounts in premiums. This drives up the cost of benefits for employers, and they pay the employees less as well as forcing them to contribute to the premiums, which is in addition to the medical bills employees end up having to pay. In turn, people are not getting the preventive care they should because they cannot afford it, and when they do get a diagnosis, they can’t afford the treatment. These days, we also have to worry that a diagnosis can actually effect our ability to have future coverage, too. I don’t have to touch on the astronomical costs of medications in the U.S., which are unjustly inflated for Americans. And I know I don’t have to launch into any kind of sermon about how much money the oil companies make for no reason other than because they can charge anything they want, and we’ll pay it. We experience and see this everyday.
So, as I was sitting there, chatting with this Peruvian woman who has recently immigrated to the U.S., she seemed to be trying to figure out the American psyche with the questions she asked me, and with each answer I gave, I was cognizant of the representative role I played the opinion she was forming of whatever group I represented to her. We discussed racism in the country, as well as in our modest little suburb, compared and contrasted it with what we both had experienced living in Chicago, and how difficult it is for immigrants these days to be treated by strangers with any decorum or respect. This led me to ask her a question about an article I read in a forgotten newspaper recently.
What I remembered reading was an article that cited that there is an exodus of native Mexicans returning to Mexico after coming to America for a “better life”. The article subjectively listed first that the economy here has prompted many people to return to the countries they left for similar reasons just a few years or decades earlier, like jobs are no longer abundant and the cost of living is so high. As secondary and tertiary reasons for the unprecedented return to Mexico, were the fears of deportation and the dubious future they have of ever being granted citizenship. We’re not necessarily talking about illegal immigrants here, either. Many legal citizens are going BACK to Mexico for a “better life”, and what reasons they give may or may not be what is being reported. I have my doubts. I’d venture a guess that yes, jobs are scarcer, money doesn’t go as far, and becoming a citizen is a process few will accomplish after paying heaps of money for many years, all the while paying taxes and supporting the U.S. economy. But I would put a lot of emphasis on the overall hatred and hostility that is aimed directly at the Mexican border, and anyone with an Hispanic-sounding name, or tan or olive skin is being accused of being an illegal alien at every turn in this country. Our country is downright despicable in the way we treat anyone we suspect might be Hispanic. Could it be that maybe they’re leaving because we’ve threatened them, treated them horribly, and made them feel unwelcome in every way, in every area, including dragging out the citizenship process for Spanish-speakers that greatly exceeds the length of time it takes for someone to become naturalized from Europe or Asia? My money is on blatant hatred they see on a regular basis, which only exacerbates the economic woes.
I’ve learned very quickly that the American public believes some very different things than the rest of the world. You get together a room full of immigrants from a variety of countries around the world and you ask them who was behind the attacks on 9/11. You’ll be very surprised who everyone blames. I won’t name names because I’ll likely be accused of being a conspiracy theorist or un-American for spreading this hearsay, but let’s just say that after November, the lame duck they blame won’t be as powerful anymore. So, when I brought up this article I read to this very bright Peruvian woman, she started talking about all the different news channels she watches regularly, including all the local ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates, the national news channels, and the international news channels, which was the groundwork she laid before she answered my question about what she thought of how much truth there was to this article.
That’s when she hit me with something I hadn’t thought about.
She mentioned the hundreds of raids taking place at companies, factories, and various places of business, where everyone on staff is checked for citizenship, and truckloads of illegals are carted off, taken to jail, and after two – three months of jail time, they are released and immediately deported. These raids go on constantly, she assured me. The American news does not report this. However, if she watches the news on Univision or Telemundo, she can see just how many people are being deported all around the country, everyday. It’s sad and frightening, even to people who are citizens or who are going through the process. These are their family members, friends, and neighbors. You never know who is just going to disappear on any given day.
Now, after these raids started becoming common, something else happened at the companies that employed illegals. Um, well, duh – they couldn’t employ illegals anymore. Which meant that they had to hire people legally and pay higher salaries, as well as the appropriate employment taxes. Many businesses have gone under because of this, and the rest have raised what they charge to consumers for their various services or products, and this contributes to the outrageous inflation. So, essentially, what the stupid racists in the U.S. have long thought, that illegals come here and go on Welfare or other government subsidies, draining money out of our pockets via our taxes, well, they’re still stupid racists because they’re absolutely backwards. Our economy thrives with illegals working illegally at places we do business with because employing them keeps prices down. Let’s not even discuss the costs we’re investing in these raids, in the court costs, incarceration, and then shipping people back to their homelands. At some point, you’ve got to step back and take a good, hard look at the costs and the benefits.
I’m not promoting breaking the law, ignoring the proper immigration process, and allowing employers to get away with not paying employment taxes on people who they aren’t supposed to hire. This isn’t even to even mention the moral issues of hiring people for pay lower than minimum wage and denying them benefits and tax rights like Unemployment, Workers Compensation, and everything else that labor laws are set up to ensure. C’mon now, you all should know me better than to think I’d encourage the breaking of numerous laws set up to protect EVERYONE involved. Not happening here, folks. But what this woman brought to my attention was how much of an enormous impact the aggressive deportation of illegals is having on our economy, and for the first time ever, I’m starting to see that maybe I cannot blame all my woes on the three aforementioned super-powers.
Just when I thought she was done making my brain expand, she started talking about China, and the economic powerhouse they are quickly becoming. She asked me how their economy was able to grow so much. I saw where she was going, nodded and conceded that cheap labor does wonders for the economy. She pointed out the pattern in other countries, which are growing and also notorious for their cheap labor. She paused and then continued to add that when people immigrate to the U.S. illegally, they’re not competing with Americans for jobs. Americans won’t do the jobs illegals do, particularly for the money these employers are offering. Illegals do factory work, agricultural work, garbage work, clean-up work, and all the other tasks that we think we’re above. They work their asses off, they don’t complain, and often they have two or three jobs to make ends meet, all hard labor work. But if the government forcefully removes them from these jobs, we have fewer people in the U.S. willing to do this work for such meager earnings, and that’s when many of these companies raise their prices enormously. When that doesn’t solve problems, they take their business and their jobs, uproot, and go to other countries for cheaper labor. And we all hate the fact that so many companies are moving their entire operation or portions of their operation to other countries. This trickling effect is slamming our country right now, and average citizens aren’t even talking about it.
Not on the NBC, CBS, ABC or any of the national news channels do they mention any of this, but my Peruvian acquaintance pointed out that this is what’s being talked about in other countries, being reported on international news networks, and some of the attitude is that we’re getting what we deserve.
Not me, I yell! I’m not one of them!
It’s hard for me to swallow because so often I feel like this entire country has gone mad and I’m alone, standing there with my arms outstretched, demanding to know what the fuck is wrong with my countrymen and am I the only one who is currently ashamed to be part of the human race. I don’t support the war, the current president, conventional wisdom, or the people in this country trying to deny global warming, like the holocaust deniers who refuse to see the facts. I’m not one of them! I don’t support massive deportation and raids on businesses. I also don’t support just turning a blind eye to broken laws. What I do support is the concept of developing a new plan that isn’t so goddamn inhumane, which I have not run across yet. Someone somewhere is smart enough to come up with an idea that actually sounds civilized, right? RIGHT? WHERE ARE YOU? SPEAK UP! Where is our humanity?! Beyond the immigration problems, there can’t be a quick fix for our economy, either. Theorists are foretelling that the economy will miraculously right itself, and many prognosticators even name a specific month when this upturn will occur, while others are doomsday believers who have started building a hut and caching non-perishables. Much faith is being placed in people’s presidential candidate of choice, but I think that’s largely naïve. I’m even starting to believe that the next elected president can’t even hope to turn things around in his term, and we haven’t begun to bottom out yet. That’s the pessimist in me talking. But I haven’t built a hut or started storing my canned foods, so don’t lock me up in that padded room just yet.
It’s always eye-opening and thought-provoking to have conversations with people who do not derive all of their opinions about world and national affairs by what the biased American news reports. We are most often sheep, and sometimes we fail to recognize how sheep-like we have become until we run into someone with a view from a different angle. Even if you don’t agree with anything you read in any paragraph of this post, you have to admit that it’s quite interesting to know that people are thinking this about us, and maybe, just maybe, we’re a little too wrapped up in the drama of being Americans to see what being an American means to people who aren’t.
And there are far more people who are not Americans in this world.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
It's All Relative
We’re number one! We’re number one!
But not in a good way.
I was speaking with a couple I know about the price of gas recently and we were laughing (mostly to keep from crying) about the marketing and ploys used by the evil, greedy oil companies. Last week gas near my house shot up to $4.07/gallon and I actually screamed when I drove past the gas station that morning. This couple pointed out that we all wigged-out when we saw $4.07 because it went up 40¢ per gallon overnight. OVER! NIGHT! And then two days later it was down to $3.98/gallon. What did we all do? We felt relief and filled up our tanks. We were HAPPY that gas went down to $3.98, which was still 30¢ over the cost of just a few days earlier, but because it was under $4 again, we were actually okay with paying $3.98. What a brilliant game of manipulation, making us happy to pay $3.98 per gallon by just charging a little more for one day before settling on this still exorbitant price. Fuckers.
Briana and I were chatting about it and I said that if we’re going to pay Canadian prices for gas, I want to see some of the benefits Canadian citizens have. How about we get some decent health care down here, which I blame for the economic crisis we’re in? Maybe we could borrow their conscience about how to treat the planet. Would THEY have a governor FIGHTING the declaration of polar bears as a threatened species? How exactly are they going to respond to the American refugees seeking asylum across the border in a few years when endemic warfare becomes our system of government? Will they build a fence along their southern border and put up signs for Canadian drivers to watch out for Americans trying to illegally enter their country, dashing dangerously across streets and hiding out in the backs of trucks? Makes me wonder. Will they one day soon be developing specific laws on how to deal with all the illegal Americans living in their country, sending them back to the U.S., where the druglords rule, clean drinking water is unaffordable, and where you can die from a sinus infection because medical care and medications are so overpriced that the black market meds, which are mostly placebos, are actually killing people due to a lack of treatment? I wonder.
Today I was at that place I’m not going to talk about anymore, and it was so quiet that I was reading the online news. I came across an article that actually had me in tears.
Homeless Mom.
Now, it’s sad enough that in California, the Unemployment Rate for April was 6.2% (only Alaska and Michigan had higher rates in the U.S.), and the cost of living is obscene, but to know that there are so many middle-class employees now out-of-work and homeless, that there are entire parking lots that are devoted to providing safe places for people to park when they live in their car. It breaks my heart.
I think about Boyfriend Extraordinaire, who rents an average three-bedroom townhouse and has two roommates who stay in the other two bedrooms because rent in this average suburban neighborhood of townhouses almost two hours outside of L.A., runs about $1,700/month. It makes me sick. And B.E. handles all the repairs in the house because he’s afraid that if he complains about anything to the landlord, the rent will shoot up. What he’s doing is fairly common because there is NO PARKING at all in his neighborhood. The area was designed to provide appropriate parking to one working pair of adults in each house, but that situation just isn’t realistic, and even the families rent out their extra rooms, throwing extra cars into the streets for parking. As well as landslides, earthquakes, wildfires, traffic issues and smog, I guess California is also known for having insufficient parking, which I didn’t know. B.E. has already lost one roommate because the parking situation is such a nightmare. On top of all the other things he worries about, both of his roommates have recently lost their jobs due to downsizing and lay-offs. One recently started selling his stuff (of which he has little) to have gas money for job-hunting. These are people about $1 away from living in their cars, too. When I say “these…people”, I include B.E. in that mix as well, because if the roommates have to leave, what are the odds that he’ll find a new roommate immediately? Not good. He could just as easily be out of a home because his roommates are out of work.
By me, the Unemployment Rate is better at 5.4%, but I know many people who are unemployed, underemployed, or unhappily employed and “looking”, none with any success. A more frightening thought is what I found in the public records database. In the area my library serves, just for 2008 so far, there are 461 foreclosures on private residences. In 2006, the Census folks estimated the population to be right around 53,000, and according to Epodunk.com, the average home houses 3.53 people. That means of 15,000 homes, 3.1% are in foreclosure. I know I see 100 people each day, and statistically, three out of those 100 are losing or just lost their home. Yikes!
Many people have it much worse than I do, and I don’t pretend for one second that my life sucks because it could always be so much worse. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I live with my disabled mother and my deeply depressed and unemployed adult brother. They both had breakdowns when my dad died, and I’ve kind of taken over the lead of my very fucked up little family because otherwise they’d be living on the street. Mom declared bankruptcy last year because of all the bills from my dad’s business, which became hers when he died, and the house is still in his name because my mom can’t prove a sufficient income to have it put in her name. I never know when the roof might be yanked out from above us. Between my mom’s Disability check, the assistance she gets for the utilities, the food she receives from the food pantry, and my income, we’re able to survive, but each month something doesn’t get paid. I’m the only driver and I have to do all the chauffeuring, so even though I really need an additional job to make ends meet, I can’t do it because I need to be around to take them to doctor appointments or for whatever the household needs. One day I’ll have my own life. However, I’m afraid that it wouldn’t be a windfall that would make that happen, but another tragic loss. I can honestly recognize myself in the faces of the people living in their cars, losing their homes.
And it scares the shit out of me. I honestly think about defecting on a daily basis.
Yet, today I was having a conversation with someone about a citizenship assistance program, and how each meeting sees at least one person who previously attended and that person has become a citizen. They return to the class with their good news and treats, so there is a party going on at each meeting, with food, drinks and the kind of high spirits I’ve never known in my life. It’s contagious and inspiring and I want to be a part of this. I want to help people become citizens. I already register voters, and that thrill is enormous for me, but to help someone become a citizen would just be awesome. One of the people who became a citizen said that 27 different countries were represented at this person’s citizenship ceremony, and each and every one of those people coming from those other countries was thrilled to tears to now be American citizens. This represents so much to them, so much hope and promise that they didn’t have from wherever they came from, and it’s hard to believe that as bad as I feel things are here, it’s a lot worse in other countries.
This leaves me emotionally confused, because while I’m saddened that a 67-year-old professional woman is living with her two dogs in her car, making $8/hour at a part-time job, at least she has the safety of her car on a protected lot, with the companionship of her beloved dogs. Maybe that’s something.
It’s amazing to me where people find hope.
But not in a good way.
I was speaking with a couple I know about the price of gas recently and we were laughing (mostly to keep from crying) about the marketing and ploys used by the evil, greedy oil companies. Last week gas near my house shot up to $4.07/gallon and I actually screamed when I drove past the gas station that morning. This couple pointed out that we all wigged-out when we saw $4.07 because it went up 40¢ per gallon overnight. OVER! NIGHT! And then two days later it was down to $3.98/gallon. What did we all do? We felt relief and filled up our tanks. We were HAPPY that gas went down to $3.98, which was still 30¢ over the cost of just a few days earlier, but because it was under $4 again, we were actually okay with paying $3.98. What a brilliant game of manipulation, making us happy to pay $3.98 per gallon by just charging a little more for one day before settling on this still exorbitant price. Fuckers.
Briana and I were chatting about it and I said that if we’re going to pay Canadian prices for gas, I want to see some of the benefits Canadian citizens have. How about we get some decent health care down here, which I blame for the economic crisis we’re in? Maybe we could borrow their conscience about how to treat the planet. Would THEY have a governor FIGHTING the declaration of polar bears as a threatened species? How exactly are they going to respond to the American refugees seeking asylum across the border in a few years when endemic warfare becomes our system of government? Will they build a fence along their southern border and put up signs for Canadian drivers to watch out for Americans trying to illegally enter their country, dashing dangerously across streets and hiding out in the backs of trucks? Makes me wonder. Will they one day soon be developing specific laws on how to deal with all the illegal Americans living in their country, sending them back to the U.S., where the druglords rule, clean drinking water is unaffordable, and where you can die from a sinus infection because medical care and medications are so overpriced that the black market meds, which are mostly placebos, are actually killing people due to a lack of treatment? I wonder.
Today I was at that place I’m not going to talk about anymore, and it was so quiet that I was reading the online news. I came across an article that actually had me in tears.
Homeless Mom.
Now, it’s sad enough that in California, the Unemployment Rate for April was 6.2% (only Alaska and Michigan had higher rates in the U.S.), and the cost of living is obscene, but to know that there are so many middle-class employees now out-of-work and homeless, that there are entire parking lots that are devoted to providing safe places for people to park when they live in their car. It breaks my heart.
I think about Boyfriend Extraordinaire, who rents an average three-bedroom townhouse and has two roommates who stay in the other two bedrooms because rent in this average suburban neighborhood of townhouses almost two hours outside of L.A., runs about $1,700/month. It makes me sick. And B.E. handles all the repairs in the house because he’s afraid that if he complains about anything to the landlord, the rent will shoot up. What he’s doing is fairly common because there is NO PARKING at all in his neighborhood. The area was designed to provide appropriate parking to one working pair of adults in each house, but that situation just isn’t realistic, and even the families rent out their extra rooms, throwing extra cars into the streets for parking. As well as landslides, earthquakes, wildfires, traffic issues and smog, I guess California is also known for having insufficient parking, which I didn’t know. B.E. has already lost one roommate because the parking situation is such a nightmare. On top of all the other things he worries about, both of his roommates have recently lost their jobs due to downsizing and lay-offs. One recently started selling his stuff (of which he has little) to have gas money for job-hunting. These are people about $1 away from living in their cars, too. When I say “these…people”, I include B.E. in that mix as well, because if the roommates have to leave, what are the odds that he’ll find a new roommate immediately? Not good. He could just as easily be out of a home because his roommates are out of work.
By me, the Unemployment Rate is better at 5.4%, but I know many people who are unemployed, underemployed, or unhappily employed and “looking”, none with any success. A more frightening thought is what I found in the public records database. In the area my library serves, just for 2008 so far, there are 461 foreclosures on private residences. In 2006, the Census folks estimated the population to be right around 53,000, and according to Epodunk.com, the average home houses 3.53 people. That means of 15,000 homes, 3.1% are in foreclosure. I know I see 100 people each day, and statistically, three out of those 100 are losing or just lost their home. Yikes!
Many people have it much worse than I do, and I don’t pretend for one second that my life sucks because it could always be so much worse. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I live with my disabled mother and my deeply depressed and unemployed adult brother. They both had breakdowns when my dad died, and I’ve kind of taken over the lead of my very fucked up little family because otherwise they’d be living on the street. Mom declared bankruptcy last year because of all the bills from my dad’s business, which became hers when he died, and the house is still in his name because my mom can’t prove a sufficient income to have it put in her name. I never know when the roof might be yanked out from above us. Between my mom’s Disability check, the assistance she gets for the utilities, the food she receives from the food pantry, and my income, we’re able to survive, but each month something doesn’t get paid. I’m the only driver and I have to do all the chauffeuring, so even though I really need an additional job to make ends meet, I can’t do it because I need to be around to take them to doctor appointments or for whatever the household needs. One day I’ll have my own life. However, I’m afraid that it wouldn’t be a windfall that would make that happen, but another tragic loss. I can honestly recognize myself in the faces of the people living in their cars, losing their homes.
And it scares the shit out of me. I honestly think about defecting on a daily basis.
Yet, today I was having a conversation with someone about a citizenship assistance program, and how each meeting sees at least one person who previously attended and that person has become a citizen. They return to the class with their good news and treats, so there is a party going on at each meeting, with food, drinks and the kind of high spirits I’ve never known in my life. It’s contagious and inspiring and I want to be a part of this. I want to help people become citizens. I already register voters, and that thrill is enormous for me, but to help someone become a citizen would just be awesome. One of the people who became a citizen said that 27 different countries were represented at this person’s citizenship ceremony, and each and every one of those people coming from those other countries was thrilled to tears to now be American citizens. This represents so much to them, so much hope and promise that they didn’t have from wherever they came from, and it’s hard to believe that as bad as I feel things are here, it’s a lot worse in other countries.
This leaves me emotionally confused, because while I’m saddened that a 67-year-old professional woman is living with her two dogs in her car, making $8/hour at a part-time job, at least she has the safety of her car on a protected lot, with the companionship of her beloved dogs. Maybe that’s something.
It’s amazing to me where people find hope.
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