Saturday Nights

Sitting at home in my dark basement room, with my one light in the damp corner, reading the Stranger online and pondering about the future... let's just say not the most pro-active thing I could be doing on a Saturday night. Because I could be at the Capitol Hill Block Party (even though John says it's bullshit, and I missed VW anyway...), but I can't even afford $18 for the ticket, let alone food or drinks I would have to buy, plus a ferry pass back. I could be at my old work, bothering my ex-co-workers, but it's too much wasted gas to get there when I don't really need to go there. And so i sit.

So let's be honest here. Nobody reads my blog anyway. I have like $300 to my name. I don't have a job or a steady income (because I'm focusing on my last semester at college), although, that may change soon. I am generally good at saving money, so it stresses me out to be this poor. But not in a how-am-i-ever-going-to-pay-my-bills way, more like a i'm-so-poor-it's-almost-funny kind of way. Because it really doesn't stress me out. I have a good enough relationship with my parents that I know they would give me some money. I'm not in debt up to my knees, I'm not about to lose my house, I'm not any of these things that are plaguing Americans at the current moment. But I still feel the impending doom that will affect even me.

I was just reading an article in the Stranger called "The United States of Anxiety." The first paragraph says, "When people ask me why I sold my house in Madrona last month and moved to a rental apartment on Capitol Hill, I say, "The economy is going to tank." But that's not exactly accurate: The economy has been tanking since last August. I just sense that things will get much worse before they improve. When I call my brother Paul, in California, he insists, "There will be a depression in two years like nothing we've seen before." The last paragraph says, "I realized yesterday that my tax rebate check, which may never find its way to my new apartment, seems more like a cry for help from the government than an act of assistance. It is a last-ditch, shortsighted attempt to prop up the illusion of a way of life that can't be sustained on a national—or a personal—level. It's enough to buy something pretty or pay one ledge off a big credit-card bill. It's enough to make the heart slow down, just for a second, before the backhoe loader next door starts crashing around again, taking dirt out of a big hole and piling it somewhere else." (Read this article here.

Kind of spot on to how I've been feeling lately. The economy is/is going to tank, yet I'm not scrambling back and forth to get anything done. See, I'm a young person, and I haven't yet had the chance to go out living beyond my means. The good news is now, I'll probably never get that chance. I'll probably never get the chance to do a lot of things that people have been enjoying for the last 50 years (read: shopping, buying houses, having children, repeat). But that doesn't bother me. It doesn't even bother me that everything is going to have to change, which might result in severe discomfort. No.. discomfort, I'm looking forward to that.
I've been reading a lot of articles/books to the same tune lately. Take the adbusters article, which says that once people make 10,000/year, any more than that does little to contribute to happiness. So basically, once the essentials are covered, you don't need to work more. And in fact, we're spending so much time working that we don't have time for friends and family, and that's what makes us happy. Whodathunk?
It reminds me of my cultural studies class where we talked about how Native Indians can't adapt to the "American" way of life, because they just can't put their heads around it. In their culture, one lives in the valley so that his house is protected (meaning he doesn't build his house in fire/hurricane/tornado row). He fishes for 5 hours on Monday and collects all the food he needs for the entire week. For the rest of the week, he relaxes. Could Americans ever do this? Could we concievably work 8 hours a week and accomplish all that needs to be done, so that we could relax for once in our lives? It's a novel concept, but it also makes me dread looking for a job. Maybe I'll just find a good paying part time job for starters...
Anyway, I forgot where I was going with this, and I really want Root Beer. So more later... maybe.