The New America

As I was leaving the house yesterday Jerry Springer happened to be on television even though nobody was watching. I stopped long enough to catch the topic. There was a stripper dancing scantily clad as the woman being interviewed was bragging that she was a single mom, a student and a stripper. Later when I was logging on to facebook there was an animation of two dancing women with an advertisement “Obama is sending Mom’s back to school.” Within the same week California college students protested the raise in tuition prices. This is the same time that the new government health care bill is being beaten to death in DC. What the hell happened to America?
A few weeks ago I was in New York City. I used to live in NYC so I was there to visit and run the marathon, not necessarily to sight-see. Still it is impossible to go somewhere and not sight-see some, if nothing else you see your favorite places. The one place that I love seeing over and over again is the Statue of Liberty. It represents the dreams that America was built on:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door

We all have stories of how our ancestors struggled – whether it was the Native Americans we stole land from and spread disease to or how our parents or great great great great grandparents crossed a sea, fled a country, did whatever so WE could have a better life. My generation is reigned by apathy. We don’t vote. We don’t care that our freedoms and rights are being taken away in between lines of bills and acts that we don’t read through because we’re too busy playing video games or drinking beer and watching football. We feel entitled to free educations and healthcare because we’ve never had to work for anything. Technology is making life easier and kids fatter. It’s sad. Really I watch knowing there is little I can do because I am part of this generation. Why stand against the current when you know nobody else will stand with you? Why wage war when you know it’s a battle you can’t win? These days we praise women for getting knocked up and trying to raise their kid on their own, but nobody praises me for being responsible and NOT getting knocked up. Nobody gives me a break on my school loans because I only have a couple thousand dollars in credit card debt. I don’t get bailed out because I didn’t buy a house I couldn’t afford. In the animal kingdom the weakest of a group gets weeded out by natural consequences, yet we continue to bail people out. Now, we have a culture of American’s who take and take and take and expect more from the government. The few who live responsible lives are being punished for others irresponsibility. It’s not going to end with government health care these programs perpetuate the program. I’m being punished for living a healthy lifestyle because I don’t weigh three times my proper body weight. It’s like feeding a tape worm. The problem is only going to keep growing.

When did the American dream go from “land of opportunity for those who are willing to work for it” to “land of entitlement for those who are willing to give up freedom for government payouts.” Since when did we stop dreaming for a better life and just expect it. When did we stop working towards a better life and start sitting on the couch waiting for a government representative to stop by and hand it to us on a silver platter? Seriously America. Probably those who are reading this are still part of the America that works hard for what they have, so it’s time that those of you who work for what you have to stand up and fight for your rights. Fight for your freedoms. Fight for a reward for living as an upstanding citizen rather than being punished for it. If you don’t stand up for it nobody will and if you don’t exercise your freedoms and rights they will be taken away.

Warm house on a cold Indiana night

I’m home. Not the place I currently live, but home. My parents house. Unfortunately, not the house I grew up in, but the house that is now called “home.” These visits start out very exciting, go through a period of relaxation and then mixed anxiety and guilt about having to leave again. I love it and I hate it. I know if I stayed I’d go insane, but at the same time it’s so hard to leave and the guilt of missing everyone. Really you just can’t win. I forgot what cold is like. It’s only November, but I think these nights are the coldest of the whole year, because they seem so sudden and out of place. The temperatures have been warm enough lately to not feel like winter, but there is a looming chill in the air reminding you it’s coming. The leaves have almost all fallen off except for a few stubborn pieces. The farmers took down the last bit of corn this week so the fields are bare. That was the last event of fall. Now, the wind blows over the land with nothing to slow it down. The temperature dropped a few more degrees, the air is a little damp and the clouds are gloomy and overcast. I will go back to San Diego in a few days where it will remain sunny all year, even on the chillier days, but For now I’m enjoying my parent’s warm house on a cold Indiana night thankful for heat and thick blankets, hot coffee and good conversation, school days and hectic nights. It’s nice to be with a family again, even though like the corn I know I’ll be gone soon enough.

Battlestar Galactica: An Essay on Obsessions

I woke up at 9 today. Earlier than days I spend the night at my boyfriend’s house, but much later than I used to sleep. I used to be a morning person, but Brent work’s second and third shift and I don’t work so my schedule now mimics his. We stay up until 3 or 4 AM and sleep until noon. I would say 9 was early, but I fell asleep around 10 last night after sleeping until noon. So, needless to say I have hibernated the last 24 hours – sleeping more hours than I was actually awake. I go through periods of hibernating and periods of sleeplessness. This usually coincides with my mood: When I’m depressed I sleep, when I’m in the middle of a project I don’t sleep until it’s done, telling myself you can sleep when you’re dead! The only person in the world who truly gets this is my older sister. She is also the only other person in the world who loves sleeping more than I do. “Megan-Van-Winkle,” she calls herself saying, “I could sleep for twenty lifetimes.”

After sleeping almost 11 hours straight I called her to brag, “I slept so much yesterday!” I also called because she is the only other person who would get why I have slept so much. You see I recently finished something I have been obsessed with for a month or more. It can happen with epic novels or a project or school (I know graduation should be a happy time in life, but I get really sad after I graduate). In this case it was Battlestar Galactica (The newer series that came out in the last ten years). I have obsessed over the series. Postponing runs for days on end, putting off schoolwork, neglecting basic needs like showering and eating. My excuse to myself was the irrational thought that if I did these other things the human race could be wiped out while I was gone. Clearly, my watching affected the outcome of the battles. I finally finished it over the weekend. Brent was disappointed over the ending, but I think I was more upset over the fact that it was over. Finished. Done. No more. The end. What now? It’s like having a close friend move away – you can visit them by watching an episode, but they are gone. I felt the same way when I finished reading Lord of the Rings, when I finished watching the first three seasons of Lost while I was in Iraq and every time I finish rereading The Alchemist. It’s over. It’s done. It’s time to move on. But how?

My older sister, Megan, of course, understood this immediately. She compared it to her obsession with the Twilight series and American Idol last season. “It’s like you are lost and don’t know what to do with your time now,” she says from across the country. She suggests books to read or a new TV series to watch, but I do not want suggestions I want to mourn this end. Yes it was just a TV show, but to someone with a super-over-active-imagination it is so much more – it was my dream-world, my escape, to me it was as real as Santa Claus is to children.

Megan suggests a book, but I tell her, “No I don’t feel like an uplifting book right now.” She suggests I watch Glee, but I don’t have cable, any kind of reception or the internet so I have no way of watching it (except at a coffee-shop with free wi-fi).

She suggests another book, but at my disinterest says, “I know what you are going through. I’ll start ten books after an obsession ends and not finish a single one of them. It’s not like they are bad, they’re just not whatever I was obsessing over. And then there’s the fear of starting an obsession knowing it is going to end.”

Is it so hard to believe? Does someone who breaks up or looses someone close to them not hesitate to form relationships with people afterwards? Is it so hard to believe that after one obsession ends I would hesitate to start the process over knowing the inevitable outcome?

I tend to not finish books a lot for this reason. It can be an incredible book or a horrible book that is entertaining and either way I’ll set it down and never finish the damn thing. Sometimes it is because something shiny distracts me. More often it is because I don’t want it to end. If you never watch the season finale, or read that final chapter then it is always there to finish someday. Ironically, Admiral Adama discusses this reasoning in one of the episodes. He gives President Roslin a book to read during her cancer treatments and tells her he’s never read past a certain part. He doesn’t want it to end so he just rereads the same part over and over again. For people like us curiosity would kill much more than just a stupid cat.

If you are one of those people who likes to finish things with a clean cut end, then you will probably find us as strange as we find you. Brent doesn’t get this about me. He gave me a book to read in June and I have about a 100 pages left to read. I got distracted with school and then started a Robert Heinlein book then got distracted from it and now I can’t seem to remember where I was in either book. I tried to explain that the best books I don’t want to end and therefore don’t finish them, but he gave me his, “you’re on crack and I can’t believe you’re my girlfriend” look and we let it drop. I want to finish the book he gave me, I do! Yet, I don’t know if I can.

It’s hard for me to accept when something is over. It’s no different than school, or holidays, or a relationship. I get sad and depressed and don’t know what to do to fill the free time I now have. There is a void in my day that I now have to fill with something else. Is it that hard to believe when we live in a society that is constantly engaged and entertained? Kids don’t get the full effect of road trips when they can watch movies on portable DVD players. The Xbox generation doesn’t have to deal with the tedious boredom that is inevitable in life, but they also don’t get to think of creative ways to entertain themselves with imaginary worlds and people. Is it so hard to believe that after watching a television series that consumed three hours plus of my day that I would be disappointed that it’s over and disappointed that now I have to find something to do in that time. Eventually I will find a job and a new obsession to fill that time. Scrapbooking, writing, reading, running, something to fill the long hours of the day. Now, it is time to say goodbye to the Battlestar crew and move on with my life.

If you are not quite as obsessive as my family's personalities tend to lean towards, than you probably don’t get it, but that’s why I’ve been on the phone with Megan for three hours today ... trying to find something new to obsess over.

Restless

It's Sunday night - or rather Monday morning. It's past 3 and I can't sleep. I fell asleep watching a movie earlier so naturally I'm awake now, while the rest of the world is sleeping. It's annoying, but at the same time I kind of like the fact that everyone I know is safe in bed. I don't have to worry about going to street fairs or dinners. I can sit here and be alone and not worry about my phone ringing or people texting me to ask what I'm doing. Nobody is worrying about the fact that I don't want to be social. I don't want to go out with my friends or go to the stupid street fair. I don't want to do anything. Yet, I am restless. I have been for a few days. I can't sit still when I am at the bar. I can't sit still when I'm watching a movie. In fact the only time my body isn't twitching is when I'm asleep and lately I seem to only be able to sleep in spurts. Naps here or there. Not at night. Not when normal people with normal jobs sleep. Maybe 3 or 4 hours, but then I wake up from a bad dream. I woke up earlier tonight and even though I can't remember my dream, I know I died in it. I remember that much of the dream and my physical reaction - racing heart beat, out of breath, adrenaline rush - let me know that something bad happened and I died before I woke up. This is all I dream about anymore.

Last night, while my friends were out at the bar drinking, I went for a walk. I was waiting for my boyfriend to come home from work and we had decided earlier that we would stay in and watch movies instead of going out. It wasn't late - around 8 or 9 PM, but I couldn't sit still in the apartment so I went for a walk. I called a couple people I haven't talked to in awhile and left messages when they didn't pick up. Then I paid attention to my surroundings because we don't live in the nicest area of San Diego. While walking a homeless man came from the other direction and asked for sixty cents. I don't usually have cash on me so I apologized, "Sorry, I don't have any change." Then I remembered that I did have a few dollars in my wallet that I forgot about. "Wait, I have a dollar." I gave it to the man, not out of pity or self righteousness, but because it could happen to me one day. It could happen to anyone really. We get our degrees, our jobs, our houses, etc. but there's no guarantee that it can't all vanish over night. There's no guarantee that I will never need to ask for help for a stranger. Hell, as many times as I've been stranded on the side of the road it's my karmic duty to help this man out. I give him the dollar and his whole face lights up.

"Thank you so much," he tells me. "You didn't have to you know."

I just smile.

"You are really pretty," he says. "I'm not trying to hit on you, I just mean you are a really beautiful woman."

I say thanks, and smile bashfully. I don't know why I don't keep walking, but his body language stops me. He keeps a safe distance from me and for whatever reason I feel safe standing in front of a busy restaurant. He can't stand still either and moves from left to right, messes with his hat, plays with his backpack.

Randy, as I soon learned, talked my ear off for about 45 minutes. He told me about all the famous people he met in Santa Monica. How he met Sean Penn and his brother, Chris, in the hospital and how upset he was when Chris died not too long after that. "He was such a nice guy," he told me, "but he drank himself to death." He cried when he told me his mother had recently passed away and that he had started drinking again because of her death. He told me how he caught his wife cheating and asked if he was right in beating the man - almost to death. He told me how he spent a year in prison for battery charges that were originally attempted murder of this guy. He sang his favorite Guns N' Roses song and told me how he met Axl Rose and that they used to go grocery shopping together. He told me all this and more. He asked me what to do about the married woman who managed the laundry mat and helps him out from time to time. He recently decided he was in love with her. He asked me if I had a boyfriend and if I was in love with him. Eventually he ran out of things to talk about and walked away as abruptly as he had walked up to me. I walked back home unsure what to make of it all, but laughing because it was the most interesting conversations I had had in weeks.

Plans changed when Brent got home from work and we ended up going out after all. After preparing myself to stay in for the night it was a hard adjustment to put myself into a social mood. Yes, they are all my friends at the bar I always go to, but this is just how it is for shy people. Sometimes you just have to prepare yourself to be social. There was karaoke and lots of drunk strangers trickling in from the street fair and as I looked around, generally annoyed by the crowd, I realized that maybe Randy needed the sixty cents, but I was the one who needed the chat with a complete stranger. Brent asked me what was wrong and I assured him it was nothing I was just in a quiet mood, but really I was and still am just completely restless.

Focus

I feel very focused today, which seems odd considering I haven't felt focused for the last few months. I also feel very energetic today, which is also odd considering I was out late drinking. So, what am I going to do with all this energy and focus? So far nothing. It's already 1 in the afternoon and I have only been up for an hour. The funny thing about focus and energy is it can be wasted if you don't have anything to focus on. As I write this I'm coming up with a list of things I need to do and yet none of them are things I want to do today. This is ridiculous and I know that, but that's the thing about growing up - you realize there are things you need to do, want to do or will put off until the end of the world. Running for example: I don't need to go running as much as I need to work on school projects, but I like running more and I do need to go for a training run today, so I will probably run. But how long can I put off the things I really need to do by doing things I need to do less, but enjoy more? As long as I can I suppose.

Now all of this makes very little sense even to me which goes back to the beginning ... I am very focused with nothing interesting enough to keep me focused for very long. Sigh, it's going to be a long afternoon.

Unemployment

I still wake up every morning at a normal hour. Sometimes to run. Sometimes because I can't sleep in - I've always been an early bird. Lately I don't even want to get out of bed. Really there is no point to it. This extended vacation has given me an opportunity to reexamine my life.

I know if I get up right now and run, the chemical changes in my body and brain will elevate my mood as if I took an antidepressant. My energy will soar throughout the rest of the day thanks to these chemical changes. I will be upbeat and pleasant to my friends. I will smile at strangers in the store. If I don't, I will sit here for an hour looking at random jobs online and slip into a trance of guilt and pity. After looking at jobs and concluding that I have no applicable skills, I will move on to the few things I have tried to write in the last few weeks. This will push me further into a trance of loathing and pity. Around noon I will completely give up.

The world - 1 Libby - 0.

So what do I do? Do I give up now because I know it will inevitably happen? Or do I go for a run and wait for the serotonin and adrenaline levels to keep me upbeat the rest of the day and push hitting rock bottom until later? It's going to happen. It's just damage control at this point.

....

I went running. Like I said I would, I feel better. I watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica, which made me miss the military and daydream about an incident that would almost wipe out the entire human race. As one of the few survivors I would rise up from the ashes and be the hero in our questionable future. After I'm done daydreaming I will work on an essay that is going to be the narration of a YouTube video for a project I'm helping with (I'll post more later). I'll go over to a friend's house tonight for homemade pasta and meatballs. I'll push the negative feelings out of my head a little longer and live in the moment for the rest of the day. I'll forget all the self-imposed pressure to do something grand and exalting with my life. I'll keep the sweat pants in the bottom of the laundry basket for the day that I do call it quits. Not today. Today is going to be a good day.

Birthday Blues

I love birthdays. It's your own, individually wrapped, national holiday. OK so you're not a dead President and nobody takes off work to celebrate with you (unless it's on a weekend or they are just awesome). But birthdays should be celebrated big and loud and wonderfully no matter how old or young you are.

Today is not my birthday. It's two stupid days before it. It's as about as significant as the day before Christmas Eve. I did the same thing I do everyday. Got up, went for a run, came home, took a nap, showered and all by noon. I don't have much money as a consequence of being unemployed and on unemployment (which barely covers the bills, but DOES cover the bills), but I do have time.

Time is a tricky gift. When you don't have enough of it you'd do just about anything to get more of it. When you have too much of it you'd do just about anything to fill it. On any given day I spend too much time looking in a mirror - a luxury I hardly indulged in when I had to go to work everyday and wear a uniform. Today I spent a long time doing my hair and make-up (only to take a second nap and ruining my efforts). I wasn't planning on going anywhere, but I knew that if I tried to write today I would end up drowning in a pool of self loathing. I know myself well enough to know that when this swan dive took place I would start picking myself apart starting with my imaginary weight problem, moving on to my weird eyebrows, then the fact that I don't have any clothes because I sold, donated or shipped them home and on and on and on. To combat this I spent a little extra time on my hair and make-up so when the breakdown over a blank computer screen pushed me to the edge I'd look in the mirror and at least feel pretty before my evil twin took over my thoughts.

I'm supposed to go hang out with friends this evening and at least my hair and make-up is somewhat done (as done as it's going to get anyways). I haven't written a thing other than this post and I successfully avoided a complete breakdown by not opening a blank Word document on my computer. Instead I took a second nap, talked to my Pops, sorted a stack of papers on the table and wrote this post. Tomorrow is my Birthday Eve, which is as every bit as fun and exciting as Christmas Eve. I will again try to avoid self loathing thoughts of all of the million and one things I have not done with my life, because they are not nearly as important as the million and one things I have done with my life. I turn 28 again this year (had a problem with math last year) and I will spend the day with wonderful friends and an amazing boyfriend and put off all feelings of failure and self-hate until Monday (Sunday is a day of rest after all). On Monday I will have to do my hair and make-up only to sit at the table by myself. I will have survived one of the hardest days of the year - the day before the day before your birthday when it's too early to celebrate, but not too early to think about your life. I will muster the strength to take on the second hardest day of the year - the day after my birthday. The day after the celebration and excitement. It's the day of letting go and acceptance. On Monday, after I run, shower and nap, I will have to look in the mirror, as naked as the day I was born, and accept myself and my life for exactly what it is and not what I want it to be. Then I will have to dig down deep and find the courage to change it and make it the life I want it to be before next year's birthday.