So it's six hours till the beginning of another year and it seems a convenient time to be a little retrospective. We've experienced 6 out of 10 of the 00 decade and it is thus non-too-early to begin conceptualizing the decade that is/was. What will it have been? What flavor was the zeitgeist? What will be said about the national character, the collective unconscious, all of that?
At a time when culture is more homoginized than ever before, I can't help but begin by noting how diverse America still is- even within my own family. I should note that one might call this year, for me, The Year of the Soapbox. Time spent working in the nonprofit sector and for an organic farm has opened my eyes to serious, and seemingly obvious economic and ethical problems facing this country. Among my generation, at least in certain circles, awareness of these problems seems high. When I say problems I'm thinking of America's fragile, globally dependent economy, rampant (maniacal) over-consumption and the resulting ill health of the population. I'm thinking of a food system that is toxifying and unsustainable. I'm thinking of car-culture and the suburban way of life that is both culturally barren and incredibly wasteful of precious resources. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Time spent with friends in the city makes me feel as if tides are turning. I see a rebirth of good urbanism, economic and social diversity, a drive to use green transportation and support local, sustainable economic systems. I think to myself that soon, everyone will be on the band wagon. A quick trip through Atlanta's northern suburbs on the way to visit my parents reminds me that things are not so simple. The ex-urban housing boom, even in its now-dwindling form, still far outpaces the urban one. Walmart is finding a way to creep into new urban markets that, once unattractive, now promise profits thanks to the efforts of pioneering small businesses. Strip mall after strip mall is going up on the virgin farmland around my parents' small town. When I'm at home I always try to "convert" my conservative father. He's a thoughtful Christian, and I believe a good man. Yet I can't seem to sell him on what, to me, seem such obvious moral imperatives. I ask him how he feels about the strip malls and he just explains, with a matter-of-factness that is utterly deflating, how convenient it is to have all the shopping. I ask him doesn't it bother him that they just keep widening the road instead of designing the city to better accomodate the growing population. He replys, again with that murderous matter-of-factness, that so many choices cannot be compatable with the population of a small/medium sized town without everyone driving their cars. In many ways he is a typical American, himself raised in the suburbs, taking much about our affluent, car-dependent lifestyle for granted. This year I didn't bring up our regular argument: George Bush and the war. I should note for fairness that in many ways he is not a typical American. He hates waste and over-consumption. Indeed, he is one of the least materialistic people I know and I'd like to think I inherited some of his strong critical thinking skills.
So, on the eve of 2007, I believe that America is still capable of a great deal of diversity of opinions and values. My father and I come from essentially the same place: white, middleclass suburbia and yet we see the state of the world in very different ways and have come to value very different things. Perhaps this is simply the typical generation gap but it is still an interesting place from which to try to analyze the state of the nation. Maybe it is reducable to the now cliche red state/ blue state dichotomy. Maybe it is the consequence of the even more simplistic post-modern relativism. I'm not sure, but I do believe that the 2000's can be characterized, as many times before have, by a dominant culture and a counter culture. I think their differentiating feature is, and Marx would agree with me on this, differing modes of production, or at least, differing ideals of production. Or maybe differing understandings of production in general. The dominant culture sees consumption as essentially morally neutral. Despite lipservice to religious feelings against gluttony, they no longer recognize themselves as consuming way more of the earth's resources than is healthy or just. This consumption has reached the level of mania in the 00's and will be the defining characteristic of this era. I believe that one source of the motivation for consumption mania is the comprehension, on some level, that "the end is near". That is to say, that it can't go on like this much longer. Either we'll blow ourselves up, destroy the planet, or poison ourselves with this lifestyle; whichever one comes first. People are desperate to ignore this truth, so on they shop, even if they must go into debt to do it.
The dominant culture is so extreme that it is producing a growing backlash, a counterculture, that is trying desperately to live differently. The counterculture has many, many faces: urban bike kids, organic farmers, savvy green entrepreneurs, New Urban planners, gen x mothers who are leading the trend to eat organic because they care about their children's health. Added to this are scores of young people who are trying to pick up the threads of the past, and learn skills for producing their own useful goods. Many of these skills are in danger of being lost forever as the generation of my grandfather begins to die of old age. The indie craft movement is one example of this effort.
So that's the general script for our lives right now. Technology is casting an interesting glow on the drama as it unfolds, offering great potential to either side of the conflict. I believe that, by the end of the 00's life will have changed even more dramatically than it has in the past 6 years. I also believe that many of those changes will play out pretty messily, and unfortunately, violently. Hopefully, by the time this is history, I'll still be around to join the debate.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
In honor of Jesus-mas
So, for whatever reason, I've spent the last couple of days contemplating religion, specifically the great Christian behemoth. I grew up in the church but these days consider myself agnostic/ I dunno, pantheistic. I've come to the conclusion that, though I have real problems with Christianity as an institution; many of my most deeply held convictions find their origin or at least some reflection in the Christian faith, particularly in things that Jesus actually said, as opposed to other Christian writings. I sometimes think that civilization is indebted to Christianity for many things we now take for granted, including ideals of fairness, mercy, charity, kindness, and respect for others that now (at least ostensibly) the societies of the world espouse. Because of Christianity, I was exposed to ideas like forgiveness, self-examination, and the concept of an inner-self. All of these values play some positive part in how I now view the world and myself in it. Thus, it's not fair for me to disregard the entire system just because I have also learned how abusive guilt can be, or the error of valuing an afterlife we cannot see at the expense of the life we have now on earth.
Upon reading the work of some mature Christian thinkers, I'm often struck by how beautiful and wise their view of the world is. They believe that conflicts should be resolved with kindness and understanding rather than violence and hatred. They believe that arrogence and valuing personal gain over the larger community or world is a dangerous thing. I agree and I understand how deep study in a faith that acknowledges the vastness and mysterious nature of life leads to this kind of wisdom. I see that kind of wisdom exhibited in many faiths though, and unfortunately, don't see this wisdom as a common fruit of the study of Christianity.
What then, is the commonality among those rare individuals who develop a thoughtful, loving attitude toward the world and other people? Maybe it is the process of experiencing that vastness and mystery. Maybe this is the nature of the divine. Many faiths hold that the source of human energy is external, is accessed from some greater source. My contention is that this process can occur with total legitimacy regardless of the name we give to that source of divine energy.
We all have the common experience of life on Earth; and Earth is truly a magnificent place. Existance, and specifically consciousness is the greatest of mysteries. More mysterious still is the human ability to find such joy and conprehend such beauty in it. An equally compelling mystery is how so many people take the opposite perspective, valuing money or violence instead. It's this I don't understand, and I often despair, resigning myself to think that a spiritual attitude is essentially spontaneous in people, never reliably rising from any set of predicates. Maybe it's just like any other predilection. Some people are really good at math and some people are really good at developing their spiritual selves. I think Jesus was probably one of this latter group; a spiritual genius. I think I should remind myself of his teachings and study them alongside other spiritual writings I appreciate. I'll do that after I contemplate another great mystery: why my cat just ran into the wall for what appears to be no reason.
Upon reading the work of some mature Christian thinkers, I'm often struck by how beautiful and wise their view of the world is. They believe that conflicts should be resolved with kindness and understanding rather than violence and hatred. They believe that arrogence and valuing personal gain over the larger community or world is a dangerous thing. I agree and I understand how deep study in a faith that acknowledges the vastness and mysterious nature of life leads to this kind of wisdom. I see that kind of wisdom exhibited in many faiths though, and unfortunately, don't see this wisdom as a common fruit of the study of Christianity.
What then, is the commonality among those rare individuals who develop a thoughtful, loving attitude toward the world and other people? Maybe it is the process of experiencing that vastness and mystery. Maybe this is the nature of the divine. Many faiths hold that the source of human energy is external, is accessed from some greater source. My contention is that this process can occur with total legitimacy regardless of the name we give to that source of divine energy.
We all have the common experience of life on Earth; and Earth is truly a magnificent place. Existance, and specifically consciousness is the greatest of mysteries. More mysterious still is the human ability to find such joy and conprehend such beauty in it. An equally compelling mystery is how so many people take the opposite perspective, valuing money or violence instead. It's this I don't understand, and I often despair, resigning myself to think that a spiritual attitude is essentially spontaneous in people, never reliably rising from any set of predicates. Maybe it's just like any other predilection. Some people are really good at math and some people are really good at developing their spiritual selves. I think Jesus was probably one of this latter group; a spiritual genius. I think I should remind myself of his teachings and study them alongside other spiritual writings I appreciate. I'll do that after I contemplate another great mystery: why my cat just ran into the wall for what appears to be no reason.
Monday, December 18, 2006
My Superbackyard
If you walk out into my back yard, the first thing you'll see is my garlic patch. It's the pride and joy of the back yard, the only thing that seems to be growing well. It is not to be outdone however, by the courageous collard green that is growing, against all odds, in the winter shade of our southern fence. Last evening I was kicking around, cleaning out the frozen marigolds and tomato plants, depressed at the thought of the one meal that collard plant would provide. Not even a whole meal, a third of one meal, as payment for my exertions in the heat of august. I was annoyed that my sugar snaps had, in the past 4 months, offered exactly one blossom. That's exactly one sugar snap pea, not exactly a positive impact on the grocery bill. I considered giving it all up and putting in some hedges I'd never have to fool with again.
Today I've regained some of my idealism. I walked out in the tender morning sun to see that my little Calemondin Orange had perked up from last night's doldrums in response to a watering. I thought about my bay bush and how I needed to give my mother some of the leaves for Christmas so she can cook with them. I thought, what if everyone in this town put in a zuchinni each summer? What if everyone had a little dill and parsley in a pot next to their kitchen? What if everyone took out a pine tree and replaced it with a pear tree or satsuma?
Let's go even further. Every poor neighborhood in America, every government housing project, ought to plant exclusively fruit trees. It is idiotic, when considering the nutrition problems we face as a country, not to consider this obvious solution. Why do they put in an azalea when they could put in a blueberry instead? Every town where their are hungry people could be transformed into the garden of Eden.
It seems to me that most people in modern America have become so removed from any form of the agrarian lifestyle, that they cannot even concieve of producing their own food. They cannot imagine actually touching the dirt from which their carrots and potatoes come. They no longer actually realize that their potato came out of the dirt at all. I'm reminded of my friend Wendy's 5-year-old son Nathan who vehemently refused to eat the popcorn I made for him on the stove because he had only ever eaten it out of a microwave bag. This broken conceptual link probably makes it incredibly easy for people to trash the place without any sense of the consequences. It also makes it easy for most people to think that the only way to get food is to buy it. As a result, people subconsciously imbue money with the power to feed and sustain them instead of the earth. This misappropriation of the power to produce from the earth to human wealth is extended nowadays to every other product Americans consume now that manufacturing is almost nonexistant in this country.
I miss alot of things about the city I used to inhabit. I miss the culture, the sense of being part of a teeming organism, the variety of people and activities. But one thing the city doesn't have, one thing I love about semi-rural southern Alabama, is the awareness among the average person, of the ability to produce food. Half the people I know here have some kind of citrus tree in their yard. Our proximity to the bay makes fresh-caught fish a common luxury. The drive to my job at a farm took me past cotton and peanut fields and farm markets whose offerings changed with the seasons. I believe that when the inevitable happens- some serious economic crisis that severely affects our fuel-dependent food supply-places like this will fair most successfully. I also believe that, in the mean time, my little collard green and handful of garlic is a step in the right direction. It's a tiny dent in my grocery bill, that, multiplied by every person in this country who has room to grow some kind of food (everybody) could make a huge difference in the way food (and every other good) is distributed in this country. It is a tiny step toward ending the dirty little secret of American life: that we don't and don't know how to produce anything of value for ourselves, a deficiency which leads, no doubt to the histeria of imperialist war and the willful ignorance of a distribution system that causes so much suffering around the world.
So I'm an idealist again and tommorrow I'll plant some e. coli-free spinach where the marigolds used to be.
Today I've regained some of my idealism. I walked out in the tender morning sun to see that my little Calemondin Orange had perked up from last night's doldrums in response to a watering. I thought about my bay bush and how I needed to give my mother some of the leaves for Christmas so she can cook with them. I thought, what if everyone in this town put in a zuchinni each summer? What if everyone had a little dill and parsley in a pot next to their kitchen? What if everyone took out a pine tree and replaced it with a pear tree or satsuma?
Let's go even further. Every poor neighborhood in America, every government housing project, ought to plant exclusively fruit trees. It is idiotic, when considering the nutrition problems we face as a country, not to consider this obvious solution. Why do they put in an azalea when they could put in a blueberry instead? Every town where their are hungry people could be transformed into the garden of Eden.
It seems to me that most people in modern America have become so removed from any form of the agrarian lifestyle, that they cannot even concieve of producing their own food. They cannot imagine actually touching the dirt from which their carrots and potatoes come. They no longer actually realize that their potato came out of the dirt at all. I'm reminded of my friend Wendy's 5-year-old son Nathan who vehemently refused to eat the popcorn I made for him on the stove because he had only ever eaten it out of a microwave bag. This broken conceptual link probably makes it incredibly easy for people to trash the place without any sense of the consequences. It also makes it easy for most people to think that the only way to get food is to buy it. As a result, people subconsciously imbue money with the power to feed and sustain them instead of the earth. This misappropriation of the power to produce from the earth to human wealth is extended nowadays to every other product Americans consume now that manufacturing is almost nonexistant in this country.
I miss alot of things about the city I used to inhabit. I miss the culture, the sense of being part of a teeming organism, the variety of people and activities. But one thing the city doesn't have, one thing I love about semi-rural southern Alabama, is the awareness among the average person, of the ability to produce food. Half the people I know here have some kind of citrus tree in their yard. Our proximity to the bay makes fresh-caught fish a common luxury. The drive to my job at a farm took me past cotton and peanut fields and farm markets whose offerings changed with the seasons. I believe that when the inevitable happens- some serious economic crisis that severely affects our fuel-dependent food supply-places like this will fair most successfully. I also believe that, in the mean time, my little collard green and handful of garlic is a step in the right direction. It's a tiny dent in my grocery bill, that, multiplied by every person in this country who has room to grow some kind of food (everybody) could make a huge difference in the way food (and every other good) is distributed in this country. It is a tiny step toward ending the dirty little secret of American life: that we don't and don't know how to produce anything of value for ourselves, a deficiency which leads, no doubt to the histeria of imperialist war and the willful ignorance of a distribution system that causes so much suffering around the world.
So I'm an idealist again and tommorrow I'll plant some e. coli-free spinach where the marigolds used to be.
Friday, December 15, 2006
The Flavor of E. coli Part II
I think it is useful, while my vast audience still has Taco Bell on the brain, to discuss the related web of issues a little more. Nameley: most people get their lettuce or green onions or whatever from the same place: California. What is it like out there in a lettuce patch? First of all, there are no cute bunny rabbits hopping about stealing a nibble. Large corporate farms have some things in common: the soil is essentially sterile and supports vegetable growth only by being bathed continuously in toxic, petroleum and natural gas-based fertilizers and pesticides. Who is going out into that mess to harvest my lettuce? Who else, but underpaid migrant labor (who, by the way, have no emotional investment in the quality of the product. I wouldn't if I were them). I suspect that, although bound to by law, farm managers often don't provide onsite bathrooms for their workers. Now, poo is not the only source of E.coli. It can come from farm animals and some other sources, but clearly, the scale of these veggie operations is lending itself to a lack of quality control.
People ought to be shocked when they realize that 1) they are eating food the origin of which is completely unknown, and 2) when one source of spinich or onions or whatever is called into question, they have no other option but to avoid buying the stuff all together. What we have here, is an incredibly fragile food system. If it was disrupted for a week, people would start starving.
Why, when California spinach showed evidence of contamination, did we not simply buy good old Wisconsin spinach or Maryland Spinach or Arkansas spinach? Or better yet, why not buy spinach froma local grower or get it from your own back yard? Oh, I see, because none of those options actually exist for most people. Spinach is essentially a luxury item. But what will happen if some staple food becomes contaminated with somethin or other? What will happen when we can no longer ship all of our food 1,500 miles across the country on a daily basis? A more plausible scenario in the near future is that this system will not so much become impossible as it will become unaffordable. When this finally happens, there are a couple of things I don't want to witness: the look of a conventional spinach field the year after they cancel the growing operation. Rolling back all that artificial chemical fertility will no doubt leave a field of lifeless sand, incapable of supporting anything, even microbes. The other thing I don't want to see is the look on people's faces when they realize that they took all the available farm land in Baldwin County Alabama and built subdivisions and Taco Bells on it.
People ought to be shocked when they realize that 1) they are eating food the origin of which is completely unknown, and 2) when one source of spinich or onions or whatever is called into question, they have no other option but to avoid buying the stuff all together. What we have here, is an incredibly fragile food system. If it was disrupted for a week, people would start starving.
Why, when California spinach showed evidence of contamination, did we not simply buy good old Wisconsin spinach or Maryland Spinach or Arkansas spinach? Or better yet, why not buy spinach froma local grower or get it from your own back yard? Oh, I see, because none of those options actually exist for most people. Spinach is essentially a luxury item. But what will happen if some staple food becomes contaminated with somethin or other? What will happen when we can no longer ship all of our food 1,500 miles across the country on a daily basis? A more plausible scenario in the near future is that this system will not so much become impossible as it will become unaffordable. When this finally happens, there are a couple of things I don't want to witness: the look of a conventional spinach field the year after they cancel the growing operation. Rolling back all that artificial chemical fertility will no doubt leave a field of lifeless sand, incapable of supporting anything, even microbes. The other thing I don't want to see is the look on people's faces when they realize that they took all the available farm land in Baldwin County Alabama and built subdivisions and Taco Bells on it.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Everything at TacoBell has E. Coli
I'm currently listening to an NPR report about the recent E. Coli scare at Taco Bell. Apparently, Taco Bell wants to assure customers that eating at Taco Bell (including the "food" they shoot out of a cauking gun) is indeed safe. I find this laughable, not leastly because, every time I've eaten at Taco Bell in the last year, it's made me sick to my stomach, e. coli or no. I consider it a symptom of growing older that I can no longer stomach junk food like I used to. I suppose I should consider it a luxury that I have the time and resources to avoid it.
This begs the question, in my opinion, why do bajillions of people still eat this food every day? Frankly speaking, it is nasty sub-food. Are they just really used to feeling like poo? Has human chemistry adapted to process more toxins since I was born? Are people really so busy they can't afford not to eat this convenient food? I think that at least two of these theses is correct, namely, that people are very used to feeling like poo. I ate alot of junk food while working an office job last year and, though I gained some weight and got kind of depressed, I got used to it. So many other elements of modern life are culpable for the dull shitty feeling I associate with an overconsumption of sugar, fat, and empty calories, that the connection is hardly obvious in the course of daily life if one is not looking for it. Furthermore, I also think that people are indeed, too busy to nourish themselves properly.
I recently enjoyed a stint of semi-employment between jobs. What a miracle! At the end of the week I had succeeded in cooking dinner a couple of times, doing the laundry, even sweeping the floor and watering the plants, and I wasn't, at the moment I thought of this, unconscious because I was so tired from a week's work. Comments on division of labor and sexism aside, there was a time, say 40 or 50 years ago, when women stayed home, not simply because men didn't want to compete in the labor market with them, but also because it was recognized that the work of a healthy life occured, at least by half, in the home. How was a family going to eat and stay healthy if there was not someone there, making a home? How, indeed? The scary fact, for me, is that I probably will not be able to afford my health-inducing semi-employment once I actually start a family.
I'm not here to lament self-righteously about the sorry state of the world, however. I'm here to come up with solutions. So I propose, among other thrift-strategies, an increased consumption of beans. They're the cheapest food I can think of, easing the semi-employment squeeze; a slow-cooker can take care of them while you slave away to pay the bills; and best of all, they're fully cooked, reducing your chances of contracting e.coli.
This begs the question, in my opinion, why do bajillions of people still eat this food every day? Frankly speaking, it is nasty sub-food. Are they just really used to feeling like poo? Has human chemistry adapted to process more toxins since I was born? Are people really so busy they can't afford not to eat this convenient food? I think that at least two of these theses is correct, namely, that people are very used to feeling like poo. I ate alot of junk food while working an office job last year and, though I gained some weight and got kind of depressed, I got used to it. So many other elements of modern life are culpable for the dull shitty feeling I associate with an overconsumption of sugar, fat, and empty calories, that the connection is hardly obvious in the course of daily life if one is not looking for it. Furthermore, I also think that people are indeed, too busy to nourish themselves properly.
I recently enjoyed a stint of semi-employment between jobs. What a miracle! At the end of the week I had succeeded in cooking dinner a couple of times, doing the laundry, even sweeping the floor and watering the plants, and I wasn't, at the moment I thought of this, unconscious because I was so tired from a week's work. Comments on division of labor and sexism aside, there was a time, say 40 or 50 years ago, when women stayed home, not simply because men didn't want to compete in the labor market with them, but also because it was recognized that the work of a healthy life occured, at least by half, in the home. How was a family going to eat and stay healthy if there was not someone there, making a home? How, indeed? The scary fact, for me, is that I probably will not be able to afford my health-inducing semi-employment once I actually start a family.
I'm not here to lament self-righteously about the sorry state of the world, however. I'm here to come up with solutions. So I propose, among other thrift-strategies, an increased consumption of beans. They're the cheapest food I can think of, easing the semi-employment squeeze; a slow-cooker can take care of them while you slave away to pay the bills; and best of all, they're fully cooked, reducing your chances of contracting e.coli.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Keepin' if Real in Mobile
My fiancé, Nathanael and I are lonely right now. I just moved to Mobile four months ago and haven’t really made any friends yet. Nathanael has lived here his whole life and the last of his really good friends just moved away. So we’re lonely. It can’t be blamed entirely on a dirth of people or opportunity though. It’s also my fault. At 25 I find myself experiencing…. Friend fatigue? I’m probably too young to just be over new people, but maybe I am. So often, I just don’t find it worth the trouble to have that first exploratory conversation with someone, and take the risk that they’re a totally worthless human being- or worse, that they’re perfectly nice but just a little bit annoying. It’s not easy moving somewhere new. It’s not easy growing old enough to loose that youthful faith in humanity while still being young enough to need friends. It’s not easy doing all of this in a world that is increasingly isolated and alienated.
Nathanael recently dubbed our house the house of the “keepin’ it real” people, in contrast to the “rock and roll house” we’ve observed on the other end of our street and the “crack house” next door. We think that puts us in a category that is not necessarily superiour to others, just difficult to recognize. The keepin’ it real person is non-comodified. That is to say, she does not necessarily adorn herself with the kind of markers found among other subgroups. No particular shoe, hair-cut, car, or smell typifies the keepin’ it real person. (Well, maybe they drive a Honda.) Rockers recognize their kind easily enough. The same goes for hippies, hoochies, yuppies, potheads, cheesedicks, rednecks, and senior citizens. They know where to go to find each other. They probably have fun parties. But where do the “keepin’ it real” people find each other? My first instinct would be to answer ‘The skating rink’ because I think the skating rink is fun. That’s actually not a bad idea. If anyone knows of a bimonthly roller rink party for keepin’ it real people in Mobile, please let me know.
But who are the “keepin’ it real” people you ask? They’re just that, keepin’ it real. If they’re anything like us they do totally reasonable thinks like vote, plant a tomato every once in a while, play pictionary while drinking liquor, listen to good music, make dirty jokes, eat bacon fat. You know- keepin’ it real kind of stuff. Again I ask, where does one find such people in Mobile, or anywhere for that matter? My generation has entered that strange age of embryonic adulthood- too young to be friends with your kids’ friends’ parents; too old to wear band patches on your jacket. You know- dinner party age. I’ve decided through this experience in a new town, that 1) I should embrace my inner nerd and go hang with the grannies at the quilting circle I saw advertised and 2) an important measure of a city’s maturity is the availability of social situations that do not necessarily involve alcohol or nerdiness. It’s enough to make a girl want to go to church, just to meet some people. Until then though, I’ll keep trying the skating rink.
Nathanael recently dubbed our house the house of the “keepin’ it real” people, in contrast to the “rock and roll house” we’ve observed on the other end of our street and the “crack house” next door. We think that puts us in a category that is not necessarily superiour to others, just difficult to recognize. The keepin’ it real person is non-comodified. That is to say, she does not necessarily adorn herself with the kind of markers found among other subgroups. No particular shoe, hair-cut, car, or smell typifies the keepin’ it real person. (Well, maybe they drive a Honda.) Rockers recognize their kind easily enough. The same goes for hippies, hoochies, yuppies, potheads, cheesedicks, rednecks, and senior citizens. They know where to go to find each other. They probably have fun parties. But where do the “keepin’ it real” people find each other? My first instinct would be to answer ‘The skating rink’ because I think the skating rink is fun. That’s actually not a bad idea. If anyone knows of a bimonthly roller rink party for keepin’ it real people in Mobile, please let me know.
But who are the “keepin’ it real” people you ask? They’re just that, keepin’ it real. If they’re anything like us they do totally reasonable thinks like vote, plant a tomato every once in a while, play pictionary while drinking liquor, listen to good music, make dirty jokes, eat bacon fat. You know- keepin’ it real kind of stuff. Again I ask, where does one find such people in Mobile, or anywhere for that matter? My generation has entered that strange age of embryonic adulthood- too young to be friends with your kids’ friends’ parents; too old to wear band patches on your jacket. You know- dinner party age. I’ve decided through this experience in a new town, that 1) I should embrace my inner nerd and go hang with the grannies at the quilting circle I saw advertised and 2) an important measure of a city’s maturity is the availability of social situations that do not necessarily involve alcohol or nerdiness. It’s enough to make a girl want to go to church, just to meet some people. Until then though, I’ll keep trying the skating rink.
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