And it's summer time

Wow, just about a whole month since I posted. Let's check in shall we? There are usually about ten things which my brain is reminding me that I need to be doing more of at any given time, including but not limited to: enjoying my "youth", reading books, saving money, saving the children, making plans, following through on the plans, not eating so much ice cream (So the grammer of that clause would be "I need to do less eating so much ice cream." yes, sounds about right), making my front yard look socially acceptable, etc. Anyway, a quick look at The Oil Drum this evening reminded me what ought to be the most urgent thing on my list: consuming less petroleum. Not planning on it, but actually doing it. I believe this is a matter of survival even more than ethics and is, as such, much more important than all those other things I want to do to enjoy myself or further adorn my personality. Here is a much-reproduced image of Hubbert's Peak, a prediction of when oil production will peak globally. See the top of the hill? see about what year it's at? People are saying it happened as early as December 2005, or perhaps last year. Google peak oil and you'll find lots better info.

I found a phrase on a different oil blog rather appropos: people like myself are living in two worlds. That is, there are lots of us who are aware of what people are saying about peak oil, especially what Jim Kunstler says about "making other arrangements" (aside from any moral imperative we may feel about environmental stewardship). We are deeply concerned about being prepared for whatever lies ahead as our economy and society are severely jolted by an ever-decreasing supply of the single most important resource-petroleum. We are trying to think realistically about what kind of options we will have as global oil supplies and in turn all the myriad petro-products become less scarce. We know that this new economy, as it emerges and once it develops will look nothing like the current manic-consumerist everything-is-fine economy we are currently watching spring-break its way into its final bullrun. For example, my job at the Girl Scouts, which I love and am sometimes good at, which I believe does a lot of good in the lives of the girls with which I work, will have absolutely no place in a post-peak economy. It will not even make sense. For one thing, it is grant-funded, and I will be shocked if there is any non-profit world to speak of after the coming crisis sets in, and foundations no longer have any stock-market revenue. In addition, my job is only feasible if I drive around constantly to different program sites spending money on a variety of consumables to provide activities and snacks to the girls, many of whom are supported by parents who are barely stable, and barely making ends meet working service-sector jobs. Non-profit professionals live off the fat of the land (not that the proportion of fat to land has any bearing on my salary, but that's another story. ahem)

Anyway, I am trying to survive in this present world, to make my life work here in Mobile, to keep a pleasant home and live my life in a way I feel is ethical while the spectre of a world to come looms in my mind. Not even in my mind. It is all over the web, all over the fancy reports of important, knowledgeable people who actually have the credentials to speak on this matter: World oil production is peaking if it hasn't already and there is no amount of ethanol or biodiesel that will save us. Even if you don't believe in the peak, you've got to admit that oil is a finite resource. IT WILL RUN OUT ONE DAY. PERIOD. So, why, I ask, are we still building suburban housing tracts and mini-malls? You can only answer this question will some illogical or just plain evil response to the tune of, "I don't like living near poor people", I don't know the definition of 'finite' and therefore assume i'll always be able to drive everywhere I need to" or "I don't care about the world my children are going to have to live in, and I'll be dead before all the really bad stuff starts to happen." There is simply no argument. If you say "Oh, don't worry, they'll find more" You are answering on a faith that deserves to join the ranks of the "God is on our side in Iraq" crowd. But I digress

So I know this, and I'm trying to get ready for the consequences, assuming my future plans will play themselves out in an unpredictable, increasingly dangerous world. i'm stumped though, and I'm getting antsy because I can't figure out how to make the transition without playing the game for at least another couple of years, crossing my fingers and hoping the good times roll on long enough for us to sell our house, cash in and buy a piece somewhere. So on with the plan: This summer I teach myself chease and yogurt making, fix up my new bike, and keep trying to convince Nathanael we have room in the back yard for chickens. Here's hopin'.

Decision 08

I've been sort of bemused by the current moniker of the upcoming election. It's as if the very idea of an actual fair honest to goodness vote is so embattled, that the powers that be are just calling it a decision this year. Anyway, as I have no television, I just watched 9 consecutive Youtube clips of the recent debate between this year's democratic candidates. Part of me doesn't like any of them and is depressed at the thought that the slickest, best funded candidate will probably get chosen and won't do anything that seriously challenges the last 50 years of American foreign and energy policy, by which I mean, the policy of enabling big business to do whatever it wants at whatever human and environmental costs nessecary. You can trace this pattern of behavior back at least to World War Two, and presidents of both parties have enabled it to the point that I'm almost over hoping for anything different out of this year's candidates.

On the other hand, I was pleased to see some measure of actual candor among some of the candidates, (that guy from Alaska, HILARIOUS) although, this immediately caused me to think, "That guy is totally unelectable." I mean, he is; despite his courage in deriding US foreign policy as a war policy, cursing twice, and saying at one point, and I quote, "we've scared the bejeezus out of them" in reference to Iran. Then there was sweet little Denis Kucinich who I think is, among other things, too short to be elected president. There's a reason he's the darling of the activist community. This guy is totally unswayed by the reality of the campaign universe. For this reason, he says all sorts of things that are totally true and obvious, but which other candidates won't say for fear of sounding too extreme, like the fact that we're in the Middle East for oil, and the fact that Dick Cheney deserves to be impeached, which I think he probably does. Part of that reality however, is the fact that people simply won't elect a president who doesn't make it clear that he has no problem shooting people and blowing up other countries. What makes this even more difficult for me, and renders me unable to revert to the convenience of indignation, is that I can't reconcile this conflict for myself. I desperately want a world where the US and it's business partners leave everyone else alone and start living ethically. Where we pull back our industrial colonization of the third world and all those angry young men say to themselves, "cool, now I can get on with it" and decide we're not worth fighting and quit blowing people up and everything's fine. At this point, however, I somehow doubt the response to a new, less hostile U.S. presence in the world would be this kind. Alot of people have suffered tremendously at the hands of US economic interests, and unfortunately, a soft cuddly America would probably, rather than warming the hearts of all those people, just invite them to give us what we deserve, which is to be blown off the map. That's really what it comes down to. Enemies of the United States are real. We created them, and they have very legitimate reasons for hating us. Given the opportunity, they will kill us and we would totally deserve it. That said, I don't want to die, and most of the people voting next year don't either, so Dennis Kucinich doesn't have a chance, despite the fact that his vision for a non-violent, humanitarian America is precisely what we need. As for Barak and Hillary, eh. I am officially over Barak. I don't think he offers anything unique policy-wise. All of the lesser-known candidates had at least one moment each where they impressed me with their command of a particular issue. So, at least there is some intellect in the field this year. I particularly remember agreeing with that guy with the creepily white hair who made the point that the real threat of terrorism is the threat of nation-less enemies and that is another reason why diplomacy with existing nations is so important. That's fine. In fact, every candidate seemed much happier talking about Iraq and national defense than any other issue, especially the environment.

The next president has to take environmental issues seriously. They must be treated with the same urgency as the War of Terror has been treated heretofor. None of the candidates impressed me with anywhere near that kind of urgency. In fact, several of them took their time allotted to answer an environment question to talk some more about Iraq. None of them has any sense of the systemic changes that are required in America to combat both the problem of global warming, and impending energy scarcity. Some lame bill that requires a tiny increase in the amount of ethanol available in this country falls pathetically short of what's needed. How about reinvigorating car alternatives in this country like public transt in cities and rail travel nationwide? How about making suburban zoning illegal? Alas, I don't think it's going to happen. Furthermore, most of the progress that's been made on any important issue in the last fifty years has been locally generated. That said, I think I'll just ignore politics altogether this year in favor of seeing what I can do on my own, unless of course, the candidates keep cursing during the debates and otherwise entertaining me.

Pictures!

Here's what's going on in the garden right now. Some of these pictures are out of focus because I can't seem to take a good picture with Nathanael's camera. These are the Accidental Poppies. I planted them last winter on a whim and then thought they had dies. As I was weeding the spinach, I realized that there were a whole lot of this one weed and they seemed to be where I had planted the poppies. Smoke started coming out of my ears and I realized the truth. This picture doesn't capture how gloriously red they are, and how they seem to float in the air when you stand at a distance. Next time, I will plant them in between something else because they kind of fall over without support. They've been blooming now for weeks with no signs of stopping. Those spikey things in the next bed are my garlic and shallots which are almost ready to harvest. This is the Rainbow Chard. Hopefully you can't see how blurry the picture is. Behind the chard are two tomatoes, some lettuce and to the left of the lettuce is mache or corn salad, a lovely little green that can take the cold and has yet to bolt during our 80 degree days. There's also a great big florance fennel that will hopefully bloom soon and attract wasps to kill the army worms that are beating up on my cabbages. These are the blooms on our Owari Satsuma. Our Kimbro Satsuma has already set its fruit so Owari is a bit of a Johnny-come-lately, but the blossoms are just beautiful and the fragrance is intoxicating. Roses don't got nuthin' on citrus blossoms for smell. This is the Giant Red Mustard. I got the seeds from the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, a great catalog that specializes in stuff that grows down here. In person, their color is really magnificent, varying from lime green veined with purple, to purple veined with red. They're also delicious and we've been eating them at least once, sometimes twice a week for at least 6 weeks. You can see some lettuce in front that we've cut for salads at least three times already and it's still growing. Behind you can see the scarlet runner beans growing up window bars that used to be on the house when the neighborhood was rougher. The taller thing is our smallest fig tree and way in the back, around the corner of the shed are the poppies but you already know all about those.
Ok, this is Kitty sitting amongst various members of the Curcurbit family. For some reason, nothing has germinated well in this bed and I just can't figure out why. What you see is maybe one fourth of what I actually planted. Anyway, there's a lemon cucumber, two Charentais melons, one zuchinni, one yellow crookneck, 4 watermelons (woohoo, one Cheyenne Bush pumpkin (not shown) and three plants that are either weeds or the yarrow I planted. so far, I can't tell the difference, but here's hopin. On wednesday, I mulched with the live oak leaves from the front yard with newspaper underneath to keep down the grass. I'm hoping to get some okra in the bed in the next couple of weeks. In the background you can see the herb bed with cilantro that's gone to flower and also the famous mating lawnmowers which now serve to hold up the clothes line. Here we have the mighty dill that is beginning to put out it's yellow umbels. Every one of these little flowers will produce a dill seed for my pickles. It's hard to tell from the picture, but these flowers are almost as tall as me and hopefully they too will attract some good bugs to the garden along with the cilantro flowers. Last weekend I made blackberry jam: You just take a bunch of berries and a bunch of sugar and magically produce jam.
Tada!








My adorable neighbor Naden has been learning to love blackberries this season. He started dancing around in the yard when I said I was going to take his picture. Can you see all the blackberry bits on his face? Behind him you can see my collard greens, strawberries, Calemondin Orange, and a pinapple plant.
These are the men in my life: Aren't they adorable. Ok enough pictures. Mr. Courtney, for whom I used to pick kumquats, gave me a basket full of mayhaws today so I have to try to make jelly with them.

I am so tired of listening to the sound of the aquarium that Alex left in our hallway

I have decided that, perhaps tommorrow, I will set the goldfish and the sucker fish free. They're already gone wild in the fish tank which I refuse to attempt to clean. There is so much algae that I can't tell if the sucker fish is still alive because I can't see it. I have been feeding them. There used to be four sparkly fish (tetra?) but we went out of town over christmas and it got really cold and I think that killed them. A couple of days later, I saw an ominous fish skeleton at the bottom of the tank. This was gross but also hilarious and one reason why I don't like having fish as pets. If your pets could potentially eat eachother, it's a good indicator that maybe they shouldn't be your pets.

Speaking of pets, I saw a headline the other day that the FDA has approved the use of Prozac on dogs who experience "separation anxiety". This annoyed me so much, and the reason for my annoyance seems so self-evident to me that I can barely figure out how to begin writing about my annoyance. The reason for my annoyance is, however, obviously not self-evident to thousands of people, so I'll proceed. I think it's best to begin by stating that nobody can legitimately argue that anybody who made this decision actually cares about dogs. The drug companies want to make money and apparently, dog owners want to have dogs but don't want to deal with them when they actually act like dogs, and bark a little and maybe poo on the floor. It's bad enough that they're keeping a member of another species in an unnatural habitat and treating it like an accessory to enhance they're lifestyle. It's bad enough that these people approve of the idea of shutting out part of the range of life experience and its attendant emotions because they just don't want to deal with it, because it actually requires some effort to grow as a person and learn coping skills and develop wisdom (all of which are potential results of pain and suffering). But to put these two things together, that is, to project onto animals the human idea that we must medicate emotional suffering, is not only idiotic, and annoying to me, but sort of unethical, and brazenly profiteering. Why can't these people busy themselves with finding a vaccine for malaria or spend the money that was going to go toward Fluffy's meds on a nice statue of a dog, which incidentally, will not need any pills to get it to be quiet. Bleck. Or better yet, send that money to me, or some other worthy charitable cause. You could fill a book with the moronic things people waste their money on, like gigantic aquariums in my hallway that essentially employ animals as decoration. I am so annoyed.

jammin'

Today, I made 13 beautiful jars of strawberry jam. t's strawberry season down here in Mobile and Nathanael and I went to a U-pck farm and got five gallons of beautiful strawberries for me to make jam. To make this beautiful jam I had to use pretty much a whole bag of white sugar, two boxes of fruit pectin, and about two gallons of strawberries. One of the jars just popped! I can hear them in the kitchen. It was actually really easy. After you mush up the fruit, you mix in the pectin, cook it for a bit and then mix in tons and tons of sugar. Then, you put the mess into jars, close them, and boil them to seal the jars. Then, while they're sitting on the counter cooling, they pop as they become sealed. I like the noise. Nathanael has been making a batch of strawberry mango sorbet which I believe will be very good. I'm not allowed to eat t yet because it isn't all the way frozen. Nathanael also made meatloaf tonight on a whim and it's really pretty good despite being a shoebox-shaped hamburger.

I'm getting excited about filling up my shelves with beautiful colors in glass jars. This is my first full season since I learned how to can and I plan to can as many of my favorite things as possible, when they're cheap and in season. After strawberries, it will be time for blackberries and then peaches and then tomatoes and pickles. I'll make mostly grean bean pickles I think, but if we get some nice peppers in the garden, I'll pickle some of those too, and maybe some squash for the hell of it. I will never, ever pickle beets because I think they're nasty. Last year at the farm, Kyle, my fellow worker, was known from time to time, to drink beet pickle brine. Upon seeing this, I remember Mike saying "That's GOT to be good for you," as if trying to convince himself. Good for you? maybe; nasty? definately.

Late in the summer there will be figs, but I don't really know what to do with figs. I'm especially excited about the blackberries because they're 100% free. A few weeks ago they were blooming and the vines grow wild everywhere. Literally. Blackberry jam is my favorite so I'd be a fool not to try to save some of this bounty. It's weird to think that people used to spend 90 percent of their time doing work related to feeding themselves. I imagine it wouldn't seem so fun if there was no other choice. What is fun, is letting the seasons guide my appetite, spending a month or a couple of weeks gorging on a particular vegetable, and getting really tired of it so I won't want it again till next year. The only thing I can't wait for is fresh tomatoes. That, and come August, I will really want some lettuce, which is hopeless in the 100 degree heat of that time of year. After reading this, I'm sure everyone can guess what their christmas presents will be this year.

comments

Dear all (Will),
I changed the settings so you should be able to comment now without being registed with Blogger. yay!!

busy bee

I've gotten alot done over the past couple of weeks. Some of my vast accomplishments include:
-learning to like peas
-totally getting over my job
-warming up to my job again
-deciding I don't like my job anymore
-remembering why I like my job
-finding out Daddy reads the blog (Hi daddy!)
-finding a place to have my wedding
-having a nervous breakdown about my job and crying alot, to which Nathanael responded "I don't understand." before gently rolling over to face the other direction
-doing my taxes on the interwebs in about 10 minutes (bee-atch) and getting a pleasant return
-having a good day at work today and being genuinely impressed by one of my girls' ideas about "having a fundraiser where we make a play and sell tickets so we can raise money to buy our trampoline" and touched by a couple of other girls' weird desire to play with my hair
-picking out flowers for my wedding and being disappointed that a farm I found to grow my flowers organically didn't know the difference between corn and blue corn flowers *sigh*
-eating alot of easter candy
-proudly setting up a clothesline that goes from fig tree to mating lawnmowers to sprinkler stand to fence gate, hanging up a load of laundry, and promptly watching it get rained on by what was, incidentally, the only rain shower we got for a month
-eating some of nathanael's easter candy
-seeing my precious niece and nephew who, along with my sister and the mother she is becoming, make me so proud
-eating two ripe strawberries right out of the garden
-discovering that there are 8th grade girls in Mobile County who honestly don't know how babies get made, either because the school system doesn't bother to teach sex ed (which they obviously should) or a bunch of lazy parents are leaving the actual parenting up to an impoverished school system.
-feeling like a big fat cliche looking through book after book of wedding cake designs
-remembering that I love Nathanael and I'll love him when he's old and even skinnier than he is now and it really doesn't matter what our damn wedding cake looks like (except that I want it to be different, and really express who I am as a person)
-almost curing a certain fungus among us with tea tree and aloe gel. Take that tough actin' tinactin!
-making the best white gravy of my life

Yep, it's not easy living with the burden of so much abundance, but I'm doing my best.

more news on things that are growing

So todayI can report a most victorious accidental discovery. I was on my way to place an order for some seeds when I came across an entry in Johhny's herb catelogue: chickweed. I had heard of chickweed and looked at the picture. I gasped, looked again, looked up another picture, ran out into my yard, looked up another picture and I can say with confidence that Chickweed is growing all over my yard. It's just this soft-spoken weed, very unobtrusive, that I have been foolishly pulling up and putting in the compost whenever I'm out in the yard looking for something to do. Turns out, this stuff is basically magic. I looked it up and it is reportedly great for insect bites and skin irritation, as well as good internally for circulation and kidney support. You can also eat it on salad like spinach. Yay! One more excuse not to repare the lawnmower! Why on earth would I want to mow down the free medicine growing in my yard? I am also happy to report that I finally spotted a bonafide honey bee in the back yard yesterday. This was in addition to about seven wasps, two bumblebees, one stink bug, a shiny looking beetle tht may or may not be eating the mustard greens, possibly one cabbage moth, possibly one robber fly, definately one squash bug, and I think three hover flies, in addition to the standard army of roly polys and fire ants, and a couple of spectacular butterflys that have been visiting the wisteria. There are also dozens of some bug or other that I still cannot identify. All I know about this bug is that I saw one eating an aphid on my sweet potatoes last August so I know these bugs have my best interest at heart. I am still waiting patiently for a lady bug, just one lady bug, to join the backyard party, but am nonetheless heartened by the diversity of beneficial insects in the garden. The plan of course, is to go all summer with no need for pesticides, even organic ones. We'll see what happens when the squash get bigger, with their requisite vine borer woes, but I am still faithful that mother nature is perfect and will help a sister out if I don't go spraying poison everywhere. Nathanael and I have eaten at least one home-grown, organic vegetable every day for about two weeks now. I must say, I'm getting a little tired of the mustard greens, but soon we'll have our english peas, and some strawberries. We will have chard, about one and a half carrots, and the collard greens and lettuce are still going strong. Then it's on to the squash and tomatoes and the humidity and 112 degree days and maybe by then I won't be so happy about all this gardening.

Speaking of growing things, I watched a blurb about peak oil the other day that actually made it to CNBC. I was shocked to see a mainstream media source actually giving air time to a problem, that just last week I heard flat-out denied on NPR. I won't spend time talking about it here as there are plenty of better-informed sources on the web concerning this issue. I was reminded however, that we have very little time indeed to prepare for what will, I believe, be a world-changing event, a process that will change all of our lives permanently. Nathanael and I talk about it sometimes and I still have no idea what would be worse in the event of an oil-supply collapse: stay intown with all the crazed, scary people, or be out on a piece of land somewhere isolated from help. I think there's no way to predict which scenario will be the best, so I console myself with the idea that as long as I am continually building important survival skills, I am doing the best I can to prepare for whatever is coming. Skills are something that noone can take from you. So, no matter where I end up, I will be ok if I know how to take care of myself. I've decided that the next project will be learning how to make cottage cheese. They say it's among the easiest to make, and it doesn't require anything I don't already have, except rennet. I've read of some plants that produce rennet alternatives, and that might be a possibility. There are also cheeses, like the Indian paneer, that require nothing to curdle the milk but vinegar, so that is worth trying out as well. After that it's yogurt which is supposed to be easy to make as well. Maybe I'll have some made in time to eat with all the free blackberries that are currently growing along every single street in Mobile. The south ain't so bad after all.

Surviving

So it's been a while since I posted and I know my masses of readers must think I've died or finally caught illiteracy from the Alabamians with which I've surrounded myself. Neither is true. I've just been..... adjusting. Something about that last stretch of winter always finds me hanging on for dear life. Of course, it feels much less dramatic than that. I find myself surviving, and just that. It's always the same set of symptoms this time of year, a reluctance to bathe, clean the house, cook, get out of bed, do anything really, much less write about how uninspired I feel on my blog. I accidentally wear the same thing to work two days in a row and subsist on sliced cheese. It so happens, actually, that Nathanael has helped me through this particular aspect of winter doldrums by not being too lazy to cook. We've taken to celebrating "Mainstream Mondays" with a piping hot blate of Tuna Helper and an episode of Starwars (we're watching them all in series.) Speaking of the bandwagon, my remedies du jour also include finally reading those damned Harry Potter books which are not bad thankyouverymuch. I started last week and I'm already on book 4. They're just so easy to read. (This does NOT mean however, that they don't include some decent vocabulary words and historical references. They do.)

Yes, escapism abounds these days as life has, with a dull "thud", become boring. I know it will pass, it always does. But it's still hard. One thing does, however, bring me great joy. I could spend hours watching things happen in my garden which has only just recently found itself free of all eyesores except for the mating lawnmowers, one of which belongs to a certain ex-roommate who also left a certain broken down car blocking the view to my english peas. Nevertheless, the mustard greens and lettuce are reaching upwards, alive with deep red and electric green. Spring comes early in Mobile, a pleasure for which we will pay dearly in the muggy heat of August. The peas and sugar snaps are doing their thing in a jolly sort of way, wrapping little tendrils around everything they can reach, including eachother. The crocuses have been this months most exciting surprise, blooming despite the prediction to the contrary by Mobile's newspaper columnist/garden expert guy. I meant to send him a picture to directly contradict what he wrote a couple of weeks ago about them not blooming "down here" but forgot to. They've been so cute, popping out just above the surface of the soil and opening up a violet or creamy white blossom. Above them, the fig branches are pushing forth crinkled, baby-green leaves and tiny, immature fruit. I didn't realize they don't blossom first. Does that mean the fruit is actually a juicy flower bud? If anyone can tell me the answer, they can come pick figs from our three trees this July. If you are really lucky, you can also have some watermelon from the seeds I planted over the weekend. If all goes as planned, their vines will set off across the yard and we won't be able to mow the grass for a couple of months. Should be hilarious.

How's the job going you ask? Ehh. I still sometimes stop and think, "I really have a pretty cool job." but what can I say? I just don't like HAVING a job. I'm over it. No matter how cool the job is, it's more time away from my life than I want to spend. These days I'm rethinking a desire I once had to be a teacher. My current job is teaching me a few things: teaching itself is very hard work, I'm not that bad at it, and I can get into the idea of a summer vacation. Maybe it's all those years as a student, but some part of me keeps expecting Spring Break. For now though, I guess I'll just keep gettin' er done and spending as much time as possible surrounded by vegetables.

The bandwagon

So, after about two weeks of Internet Explorer not allowing me to access my blog (for absolutely no obvious reason) I've switched back to Firefox. Firefox still doesn't allow me to use the scroll function on my mouse, the original reason I stopped using it. What can I say, I'm kind of lazy. But, after the blogger issue and learning more about how Firefox is safer, I'm sold. I will learn to live without scrolling.

Speaking of bandwagons, today is Fat Tuesday here in Mobile. What that means is, "you partied all weekend, now party some more. You've got all of Lent to get your body to forgive you." Yes, please. I'm not really a big "partier" in the sense of injesting lots of intoxicating substances. I am, however, a big fan of excuses to eat funnel cakes and candy and catch chinese junk being thrown at me from passing parade floats. Every time I go to a parade I can't get over what a fun idea it is. It's a wonderfully over-stimulating experience complete with garish costumes, semi-robotic parade floats and high school bands that dance in sink while playing their instruments. Most of this is entertaining; some of it is shocking. (My high school's band never humped their sousaphones while marching, and the majorettes never wore hot pants.) In addition to all this fun, you get the added sport of trying to catch as much stuff as possible from the maskers. In New Orleans, I hear the standard throw is beads, although I hear the Zulus also throw coconuts. Ouch. Here in Mobile, one is always surprised and has a chance of catching all manner or ridiculous items including Moon Pies, peanuts, stuffed animals, any cheap plastic toy you can think of (my favorite is my new pink plastic whistle), ice cream sandwiches, Dublunes, streamers, beef jerky, entire boxes of oatmeal creme pies, and the list goes on. This weekend, friends came down from all over and, as a team, we faired quite well, subsequently filling my dining room table with a massive mound of junk food and beads.

Our favorite spot to watch the parades is in an area where the crowd is mostly lower to middle income families with children. I was struck by what fun all these free toys and candy must be when you are young and not already spoiled. Amazingly, however, a childlike greed for what are essentially useless items seems to extend to every age group. We were shocked by one old lady who continually demanded of passing band members that they grab "those beads over there" which she was unable to reach because of the parade barricades. I couldn't imagine what she was going to do with all of them. Despite this, I much prefer this crowd to the mostly well-to-do adult crowd one seems to find further downtown. They made me feel sort of ashamed of myself. Also they were more drunk and tacky.

Anyway, if any of my friends are reading this, thanks for a great weekend. I laughed almost the whole time, from the moment the girls team pulled ahead in pictionary, to the moment Amanda asked, "Is there something in my teeth?" to which Karen responded, "If there is, it's tooth-colored." Hilarious.

The other dream was about a man trapped in a space ball. If you really want to know, I can tell you what a space ball is.

Last night I had no less than three distinct disturbing dreams. I guess this is what happens when you go to bed early. One of them involved me listening guiltily to an old teacher of mine rant about how I didn't care about the class. This is related to an event that actually happened and, at the time, the teacher and I were friends. You know, we hung out. We don't hang out any more. We don't even talk. He can have these totalizing views about people and events, and I guess that event led him to believe I was totally not worthy of respect... My dream makes me think that I must still feel guilty about it. I do I guess. Cookie, if you're reading this; sorry. But why has this memory decided to bother me now? Maybe it has to do with my new job and how it involves a lot more responsibility that anything I've ever done before. I'm nervous about it, but I really want to do a good job.

I think that various things throughout my life in which I flaked out have lead me to fear that flakitude is inevitable for me. This fear has caused me to avoid things that are challenging. UNTIL NOW! (say with megaphone). Here in Mobile, the job market is slim. If I want to make money here, it's either bite the bullet and take some responsibility, or I don't know, wait tables and waste away growing big, nasty varicose veins and smoking a lot of cigarettes. There is nothing in between. Yesterday this fact was expressed vividly to me when I went to Walmart to buy supplies for my program. I hate Walmart. Oh, how I hate it. I never shop there for a number of reasons, not least of which is that, on a very visceral level; that shit is creepy. For the program though, it's really the only option if I want to do all the things I have to do in a reasonably short amount of time and stay within the budget. (I will have to explore this web of conflicting ethical concerns another time, but today, it's all about me). Anyway, because I did not have my tax-exemption code to buy the many pairs of scissors and clothespins I needed; a veritable fiasco ensued during which I had the opportunity to talk to some assistant manager type who was very helpful by the way. He explained that he had applied for a position at the girl scouts about the time I did. He had been a couple of days late and just missed the job. He paused for a second, fluorescent lights ablaze, a cacophony of "doots" from the registers in the background and I got the tragic sense that this man desperately hates his job. Fifty years ago, this man would have been some jolly fellow running a somethin or other store of his own on a city block. Now, he's in middle management at Walmart. It's really heartbreaking when you stop and think about it.

Anyway, I'm having to step up so as not to end up doing meaningless work. I also want to prove to myself that I can push myself and not be a perpetual flake. So far, I'm really happy with how things are going. Tomorrow I have a whole day of programming at a school and I'll be by myself. I think that everyday will be a little challenging, but I also have found that if I don't think about it too much, I don't have time to be scared. That has been the method by which I did every ballsy thing I've ever done in my life, from asking out boys to jumping off a bridge this one time to eating a plate of octopus parts at a Peruvian restaurant. That plate was too big for this particular method to really work. It just took so long to eat that I had lots of time to think about tentacles, and suckers, and baby octopi and mommy octopi and ink squirting out of their butts and oh god I have to stop. But for this job, it's pure gold.

So I guess the dream I had last night is reminding me of a time when I was a major flake. Now that I know I can get things done if i just make an effort, those times have been brought into sharp relief and I sort of mourn them more. Lots of lost opportunities.... But like so many evolutionary moments in my life, I don't think this one could have been rushed or happened a second sooner. I guess I should be thankful for the mercy life has afforded me in teaching me this lesson without me having to work at Walmart (or eat more tentacles) to figure it out.

Back to Work

Last week I started my new job at the Girl Scouts of the Deep South. It has its plusses. It has its minuses. I have to edit what I say about it because it's like, current. I can say though, that if I can get over the usual list of bureaucratic headaches and inconveniences (I'm thinking of the inevitable "dress code conversation" which happened yesterday, learning how to manage hyperactive personalities, figuring out all the forms I have to fill out) I will really love this job. The other thing I have to do is be really good at it. My job is to make some teeny tiny dent in a massive wall of negative influences that girls in poverty are forced to deal with. Some of the girls I'm working with (we're talking middle school here) are already mothers. Most of them don't have fathers. Their inner-city schools are run like prisons out of nessecity. They are surrounded by drug-dealing and hopelessness. Their faces light up when you give them a compliment.

Coming in contact with real poverty (The shelves of the school's library are half empty) is enough to knock me right off my usual soapbox. Environmental concerns seem like such a luxurious worry compared to the lives these girls lead. They are worried about surviving. They are wondering if they will ever have a life that's different from the one their family has been leading for four or five generations. I'd like to think that this country is still rich enough and powerful enough to apply some energy to all of our problems. I see no reason why we should have to choose between giving kids resources that can help them through the public school system and trying to prevent a totally preventable economic catastrophe. I guess what I'm saying is that one set of issues is not more important than the other, or more essential to remedy. Rather, this country just has a shit-load of problems.

Tonight I watched Bowling for Columbine, a documentary that, though a few years old, still has relevant things to say about this country's investment in violence. What if we actually took all tha money we're investing in building new nuclear warheads and actually paid teachers more than 30,000 a year? What if we used that money to support renewable fuel research or rezone cities so they wouldn't disallow good urbanism? What if? Would we really all get blown up the second we changed our priorities? Because that's what some would have you believe. That, essentially, we can't "afford" educated children. I'm not sure, but I do think that this outcome (the getting blown up one I mean) is almost assured if we keep doing what we're doing now. As a nation, I'd rather go down fighting for something worth having, like healthy kids and a healthy planet rather than global domination and a now-dwindling oil supply. But what do I know? I'm just a program facilipotater.

8th grade girls= toughest audience ever

So today I started my new job with the Girl Scouts. Yes, I can get you cookies. I will be in charge of "facilitating" a program about wise spending and saving habits. Facilitate is a long word that basically means "do". What I will "do" is hang out with some middle-school-age girls and tell them to be quiet alot and teach them how to make money by, what else, selling cookies. At first glance, this sounds manipulative, and it kind of is. It's also legitimately instructive though and the more I think about it, the more I wish the program was longer than the six scheduled sessions. I want to get to know these girls. I wish I could make some tiny impression on their lives at this critical age when they still have so many choices and second chances. The older girls- the eighth graders- sit on the edge of a precipice. Some seem already to have fallen over. They know everything, think in groups and revolve their energies around lusting after boys and expensive shoes and clothes. They have all the desires of women- some even have the bodies of women, but none of the wisdom. Pain and loss is in their future, whether or not I can get through to them, and I could see it in their eyes.

Today I watched the reactions of several classes ranging from 5th to 8th grade. The youngest were eager, attentive, impressionable. As they got older you could watch them grow less and less reachable. By high school, if they are not already motivated to become something other than a hood rat, most of their teachers will have stopped trying. The recess area was right outside our classroom door and two girls got in a fist fight during a break. I don't know which grade they were in.

I saw my middle school self in some of the girls today. I was the dorky one who wanted to answer all the questions- the easy sell. I was the girl shushing the loud mouths. For that reason, I don't know anything about what it takes to get the attention of the popular girls with the attitude problem. I'm terrified of them and suddenly a range of emotions comes back to me from some not-so-far-off place. "I hope they like me." "I hope they think I'm cool." I take comfort in the thought that their idea of cool: someone with Air Jordans and a pair of Apple Bottom jeans, is a fairly shallow construct. Maybe it won't be too hard to tear down and replace with something more substantial. Maybe I can start their, get them to talk about the kind of person they respect, and go ahead and admit that that isn't me. Maybe they'll appreciate that I'm leveling with them and take what I'm offering them more readily. Maybe they'll eat me alive.....

Mom and the Apocalypse

Sometimes my mom is really funny. Like today she calls me to tell me I have some "unclaimed property" being held by the state of Tennessee. Images race through my mind of 20 acres of beautiful farm land I forgot about or maybe, a treasure chest full of gold. It's actually more like a check for 23 dollars from this one stock my Mimi bought me when I was little. That's great. I'll take it. We're talking about it and Mom says that sometimes it's a person's last paycheck before they moved away or a long-lost relative a person never knew she had who left them a zillion dollars. "Wish I had one", says mom and I burst our laughing. She and I never developed that friend thing that, apparently, lots of girls develop with their mothers after they move out of the house and no longer have to confront mom with their burgeoning sexuality. We still essentially misunderstand each other all the time, so those rare moments of shared laughter are a treat. Sometimes I think about the future of the US economy and the impending petroleum crisis, an event in which I, for whatever reason, have a faith bordering on religious. I think about my mom and dad and what on earth they will do in a dog-eat-dog post-apocalyptic end-times economy. Shit, I barely know what I will do.

Today I was looking through the classifieds for a new job. Nathanael and I compromised yesterday and decided that, in exchange for him agreeing to join the peace corps with me for two years after we sell the house, I will work and try to make some actual money for the next two years while we do have the house and the bills and all that (oh yeah, and for the rest of our lives after we get out of the peace corps). I will have to put my entirely cash-less lifestyle on hold till we actually don't need cash anymore. Fair enough.

There is something communal in the experience of job-hunting I think. Where once all men knew what it was like to hunt a deer or a wild boar; now it is the stealthy decent job that tests our wits and reflexes. Where once every woman required the discernment to tell an edible root from a poisonous one, now we must be armed with the ability to recognized the distinction between "must have organizational skills and follow-through" and "must be good with hands and ambitious". The pages full of tiny boxes with tinier type seem so promising, so full of possibilities until I actually scrunch up my nose and read them.

I have a couple of good prospects, but the time of tense anticipation is upon me. I am mourning what will prove to be the loss of my blessed state of semi-employment. Time to write, clean the house, work on a hobby. I am sort of terrified by the choice I've just made. "Putting it on hold" is the death knell of many a dream of many an alternative lifestyle. What will happen? Will I forget what I wanted? Will I be bogged down till I'm 50-something and can't relate to my daughter and just wish to god I had a relative I never knew I had who I just found out died and left me a zillion dollars? Maybe my faith in a future economic chaos is the latest excuse to rebel against what must necessarily be a work-a-day life full of glum responsibilities and mediocre health. If that's the case so be it. I'll take any excuse I can find to maintain some small shreds of idealism as I get older.

Our reasoning is certainly different, but now that I think about it, Mom deserves a little admiration on the subject of choosing one's life's work. At 50-something, she's eschewed a career that made her pretty good money as an accountant and now works in a daycare with little children because that's what she loves. She doesn't make much money, a serious issue as she approaches retirement age, but she doesn't care. I see the charm in what she does. I visited the daycare once and was shocked by the bizarre, but pleasant feeling of being surrounded by short, curious, messy, adorable, 2-year-old people. Now that I think about it a little bit more, this experience has probably thoroughly prepared her for all manner of future chaos. Maybe I do have a relative I didn't know existed. Seriously though, it would be nice if she felt like giving me a zillion dollars.