this is getting old and so are you

The little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush as produces little effect after much labour.

Jane Austen at least left behind some perfect jewels of novels about a world even smaller than my own, and all I have is some poetry, some fragments of novels, a corner of the internet of dubious quality and copious angst that started out with a processing of my feelings of city, homeland, place, and, like someone who starts reading Zinn after a diet of perpetual red-blooded Murkan jingoism, there is more out there than this rust belt town like so many others.

One of my good friends and neighbors was on a panel last night that was ostensibly meant to discuss writing in the context of region but mostly turned into an analysis of boosterism vs. coming to terms with the legitimate and deep problems of the city, which only peripherally has anything to do with writing at all, though maybe it was an understood subtext as I'm sure damn near everyone who has a blog remotely related to the region was in the bar that night and so much of what was said, my own voice added to the fray despite the shyness that almost kept me from going.

And I look around the room, and we're all products of a technocratic society, of multiple degrees, of time to read blogs at the office desk or coffeeshop, and probably have a degree in liberal arts or social sciences, because like me, everyone who talked was in the information fields to some degree, or writing a book, and the vast majority were white, don't have kids in the school system, and could choose what neighborhoods we live in rather than getting stuck somewhere, and are generally between the age of 18 and 35, forgetting that not everyone is in our position.

We can talk about innovation all we want, and being positive and seeing the good things, but blogging about the groovy things we do doesn't change the school system, the party machine and power structure that siphons away millions of taxpayer dollars to the pockets of millionaire cronies for stadiums and casinos and urban playgrounds for the well-heeled, tax breaks for "nonprofits" whose directors make six figures and token gestures to "the children." The innovation has not trickled down to the masses, and even something so world class as the Cleveland Clinic prefers to build swanky campuses in Dubai while closing the emergency room in East Cleveland because of the cost-benefit analysis.

When I muster up the guts and foolishness to bring this up, there are blank stares and someone in the back starts yelling that if I don't like it so much and if I'm so negative why don't I just move and in the noise of that I retreat to my seat to scrawl passive aggressively on a halfsheet of notebook paper and observe the drama that transpires as people not-so-subtly snipe at each other and we're not talking about writing anymore, and people are ranting and before it can get too crazy it's time for the bands to go onstage and I'm out of there.

I've made an effort here to put down the roots that were already growing, to build a life, because I don't believe I can change the world or even change the city but I can at least try to do something in my own small sphere, without attaching some kind of deep significance to it. I've attempted to understand every corner of this city from the lakefront mansions to the abandoned factories, learned about immigrant communities and housing projects, and listened to a lot of people talk who aren't from my age group, income bracket, or socioeconomic strata. With everything, it's way more complicated than black or white or political party or personal taste. There's legitimate celebrations and equally valid grievances that are damn near impossible to distill coherently.

It's hard to "give back" to the community when you're working a couple jobs and trying to stay afloat. It's hard to "innovate" when there's no loans or capital to start with, or the prerequisite palmgreasing and red tape. What I might want is not what my neighbor might need because we're at different places in life.

What I do in my world is not for Cleveland personified, I'd do this anywhere, this is just where I ended up. But I'm tired of boosterism and bitching and honestly regret that I've pigeonholed myself into this regional corner. I may still post here, but I came away feeling disconnected from both sides, like the microcosm of the "love it or leave it" bumper sticker slogan mentality that comes with most kinds of patriotism and provincialism that ultimately shuts down the conversation and chokes out the life.

We still sound like the desperate girlfriend whose tries to overcompensate with the insecurity by talking about how great and unique she is and how beautiful she is. Cleveland is not my Paris just like I'm not Megan Fox or whoever you dudes think is hot. Let the others do the talking and stop with the self-absorbed conversation because it's boring and old.

For those who want to continue to follow the musings and randomness, I'll continue it somewhere else with hopefully a wider scope. I'm really glad that this has enabled me to meet some really fabulous people but I just want to drop out of the conversation that brought me here at this point.

drink a cup of kindness yet, and say goodbye to our regrets...

It always comes together, everything working out except for that whole business of the lock on the apartment not locking and then being impossible to open. I called the landlady, and she says she'll change it and call me back but that was several hours ago now so I'm pretty much just waiting and starting to wonder what is going on and if I made a mistake.

Who knows, and everything seems to be closed except the swanky establishments, and didn't feel like being the three's a crowd extra with my friend and her new boyfriend. I appreciate the thought, but sometimes that just makes it more awkward, wondering what, if anything, to do next. Everything seems fraught with social peril, but I know it's just me this time.



Resolutions? I got out of Ohio, maybe I can try to get out of the country for a few days this time. Otherwise, not much. It'd be cool to start a band this year and have it click, I guess, maybe get back into the world of zinery to share the love of arcane artistry and general strangeness. Learn more, consume less, I don't know anymore. The time just keeps slipping away.

squeamish

The warm-weather reprieve meant that my furry friends went out to play but the chill of last night sent them running back into the house and I lay in bed listening to the scratching going up the ceiling, the clanking among the leftover pots and pans in the closet under the stairs, a knife in the middle of the kitchen floor, and my half-hearted trolling of Craigslist for new places to live has become a more urgent quest.

I haven't told my landlord yet because I have no idea when or how and hoped to leave the college-kid lifestyle of moving every year behind, but there are the vermin, and the small kitchen, and I can't walk to the next block over at night, and I get a new sex offender registry notice every few weeks in my mailbox which makes me more suspicious of these sketchy men hanging out in the alley that empties out across the street from me and the guy who wanders up the street wearing a t-shirt that says 'The Voices In My Head Don't Like You,' knowing that they probably don't.

I never used to be so skittish, but it's so painfully evident that I live alone in the almost-hood and I pick the streets I walk down depending on who's hanging out on the corner and how often I get hollered at. I wasn't raised with fear of the city, and I'm not really afraid the way others are, but I feel the vulnerability of being female, young, and unaccompanied too keenly here for comfort.

And then last night, I'm trying to plug up the holes in the apartment with steel wool, and stick some in between the window and the cardboard wedged in there and end up disturbing a nest of the critters that have caused me a month of sleepless nights, and I feel the squirming bodies beneath the cardboard as I'm trying to keep them from coming out of the wall and figure out what the hell to do and end up stumbling up to the attic to peel away the insulation and drop green kibbles of poison down into where I know they're swarming, and end up crashing at the neighbor's house. It's the first night in months I've slept like the dead. I need to get out.

verminator

The house feels haunted, with the scrapings and creakings, the little running feet, the rustles in the attic, the presence unseen but apparent. I keep thinking of the mice in the Nutcracker, that there's a huge one taller than me lurking in some hidden part of the house that will come out and take revenge for deaths of the one whose neck was broken in a trap and the other one stuck on the glue that I put out of its misery with a plastic bag and a trash can. And a slipper hurled at its head won't do the trick.

I wish we could coexist, but with the one-two punch of disease and eating my food, that can't happen. It's one thing to swat at wasps and another to premeditate with poisons and traps. I sleep on the living room couch because it's far away from where they hide, but I know it doesn't matter. It shouldn't freak me out a little bit but it does, and I want the damn things gone.

I also want a cat, but I feel like my motivations for pet ownership aren't completely pure, and it just makes me feel more spinsterly than I already am.

One of my coworkers tells me that it's better that I feel bad than take pleasure in the death of lesser creatures, and she's probably right, but there's something that makes me so queasy nonetheless.

invasion

A skitter across the floor as I left for work, a small mammalian body disappearing into the woodwork. Oh dammit. So after art class I'm at Home Depot looking at a vast array of traps and rat poisons, trying to figure out what I can stomach. I don't want the buggers in my house, but it's hard for me to consider killing things with beating hearts, if that makes sense, but there's those cheapo little wooden traps and I read that mint and bay leaves are smells they don't like so I place sprigs and roots ripped from the garden on the shelves in the kitchen, in the pantry, behind the fridge, feeling vaguely hippie and superstitious and stay up way later than planned vacuuming up the scat and tossing out tainted food.

It really could be worse, but it's so gross, and I fall asleep hoping I don't hear anything die.

it won't begin until you make it end...

As rusty as the city as I call home, as rainy as the water on my windshield, blackclad and bluemooded, thankful for the empathy and the hugs of those in my world who understand who've been there too, yet hoping that the spell of sadness passes soon. So familiar, but it's getting old.

retain a sense of humor

A possibly innocent man is dead, REM broke up but that really didn't matter much, I still don't care what some politician says about someone else, my brain seems unable to function creatively with the cocktail of seasonal cold virus and rust belt allergens manifesting late in life.

I don't know what to do with myself when I have a night off of work and no art center, and these hours of daylight are becoming rarer and more precious, so I walk through the neighborhood, go down to the shore which is beautiful and pastel and almost completely emptied, even the water is subdued.



A stack of CDs from the library, more books on my shelves than I ever seem to have time to read, a feeling of increasing disconnectedness when I half-think about calling up whoever but due to not wanting to bother anyone, not knowing what to say as it is. As it's gotten easier to interact, it gets harder to connect and there's less to connect with as the inevitable pairoffs become more frequent. There's a lot of things I don't mind doing by myself, but being too relational for my own good, I don't like to do it all the time and one can't hide behind the creative all the time without going a little crazy.

I can't see you but I see what's in my way

Waiting for the bus, trying to navigate this whole insurance agent thing, driving through the rain to the east side sucking on cough drops, listening to Janelle Monae, zoned out, but still able to find my way, sitting in a room next to a dusty vending machine reading as the radio plays country music, coming home and turning on the radio to hear an Amber alert that breaks my heart as I drive down Harvard past boarded-up houses and steelyard bars and then coming down Denison to see the street blocked off and I find out that there was a shooting up there, and I just want to go home, so tired and wet.

But I haven't been to the art center in awhile, didn't get much done, but hung out with a fellow creative, puzzled over sheets and shapes of copper, jars of colored powders and chunks of glass and plotted future projects, deferring work on Paper From Hell Number 1 another day.

I just want to take a half day off and listen to Neil Young and watch the rain, shake the sleepiness, the sore throat and ennui, the discontentedness so unnecessary, sift through the halfhearted wants and incoherent thoughts. There are so many.

vignetted

Conversations of frustration over coffee, a glimpse of what feels like a third world country black market down the street, best-laid plans go so awry, ran into a friend of mine from high school and his wife, haven't seen them in ten years... they've got two kids and lots of tattoos and he's so deadly serious in ways that I saw glimpses of when he was a typical teenager with lots of extra cash for fast cars and a CD collection, helped paint a front porch around the corner, went to the bibliotheque to get books for the paper I'm writing and bring pickles for Randal and came out to find the little back window broken and all the contents of my glove compartment in the front seat.

Awesome.

So I call the campus police and just stand there with the art books scattered where I dropped them and the weather is beautiful, the cop really nice and wonders why I'm so chill but the reality hasn't completely kicked in and it's really not that bad (the car is still there, mostly intact, nothing's missing as the thief isn't interested in books of Byzantine folklore or Alice in Chains CDs).

So I head back from errand-running with all intentions of catching the Cloud Nothings at Ingenuity Fest under the fantastically beautiful bridge, but it's not safe to walk the almost-hood alone and there's no parking to be found anywhere, as the spaces close by are reserved for More Important People, and the one space I did find I relinquished to the gigantic pimptastic white Buick that I cut off, only to have an angry figure in a shiny dress and long nails come storming up to my car and I'm not going to get into a fight over a parking space on a dark street so I acquiesce.

After circling around the block a few more times, getting cut off by countless Lexuses and minivans that either don't care or never drive downtown, I'm fed up with everyone, tell my friends waiting for me this, and while one of my very good guy friends offers to come and pick me up when he gets off work I don't want to put him through the hassle and I'm just too tired to be around all the stimulation, everything's starting to hit.

Too many people, too much noise. So I'm at a coffeeshop down the street on the gold coast reading about Russian art movements, drinking tea, the barista's playing 90s hits and I forgot about all those one-hit wonders that weren't very good, but the general peace here is comforting even in the ennui.

storm in my house

Maybe it's some last vestiges of picket fence American dreams when I've wanted a place of my own, when I see for sale signs for little 1920s urban cottages in my neighborhood with stained glass windows or century old Victorian-era rowhouse townhomes with slate roofs and wild roses growing up the porch within walking distance of the water in Lakewood, knowing that with no credit history (no credit cards, no debt, no car payment), and little income, this would be almost impossible, and I'm not the world's greatest maintainer of things. Keeping an apartment clean and the garden weeded is hard enough, and I live alone. I really don't need all that space and hassle and wouldn't want to have my life and money tied up in something that seems to be more of an albatross than equity at this point in history.

So I went into the kitchen this morning, and realized that not only is it raining outside, it's dripping in my kitchen. A plastic bucket and some pots and pans on top of the fridge, going up to the attic to find the source, which looks like piles of insulation and boards of dubious stability. I'll leave this to the experts and my landlord, and head to the empty house I grew up in to do laundry and drink coffee. Plans of seeing Scrawl tonight look like they'll be derailed by both inclement weather and family functionals. It won't be so bad.

really should be leaving but I stay...

Small interludes, veering from place to place and mood to mood, unable to truly connect, and finding momentary peace in pews with a coffee mug in hand and in front of canvas, coloring in shapes, wondering why I keep returning to the same shades when I want something different. Maybe it was the glass of wine that had me admit to a table of relatives that sometimes I feel like I'm stuck, not that I mind where I'm at, but it's that sense of never being able to transcend it that is starting to sink in, while wondering if it even matters.

It's where I'm at I guess, wondering why if the feeling of being in a rut is just a feeling or if it's truth. It's not that I liked it when everything was changing and in a state slightly more organized than total chaos, but the routine, the structures immovable, something about it is getting to me.

Some talk of moving, of starting over, but one can't undo what's been done, unhappiness is as natural occurrence here as anywhere, things left behind will inevitably recur because no matter where you go, you bring with it who you are, for better or worse. Maybe I'm jealous that I'm too rooted and afraid. I don't know.

did you hear something outside?

I had a crew of youth group kids from a small Minnesota town over last night, who brought me blueberries and pizza and we talked about Cleveland and their hometowns and other stuff too. They were nice kids, still wide-eyed and enthusiastic. I felt bad that I have no air conditioning, let the ceiling fans run, opened all the windows and provided a bowl of ice cubes, fruit punch, and popsicles to keep us cool.

I went to sleep early, lulled by the sound of the wind and dead to the world until 1am when I hear an engine roar and a voice screaming 'you're going down, bitch!' and a crackle through the night air that sounds like gunshots but I'm not sure if I'm hallucinating this coming out of the depths of rapid-eye-movement. I wonder if I'm just dreaming, and I try to calm myself, but what are these bright lights?

Police searchlights, going slowly up and down the street, so I'm not dreaming all this, and I sit on my couch and watch the shadows and the light move across my living room wall, whispering to God because who else wants to hear at a crazy hour of the morning and because I feel something resembling actual fear, more at the not knowing what's going on than anything else, and because it's late, I'm tired, and alone.

I'm wide awake. It's 1am and I can't fall asleep, because even the quiet in between the noise of cars feels menacing, and I find myself cringing every time I hear the roar of another souped-up engine, looking out my window to the couple in the car below me wondering what the hell they're doing in front of my house but it looks like it's either some romantic interlude or something else as the dogs downstairs bark and finally after scrawling some terrible verse to release the tension, my brain is tired and I fall back into rest before rising to immerse myself in the mundane, drink coffee, and try to reawaken and shake this off of me.

same as it ever was

Maybe one of the reasons we feel so powerless to change things is that we've never seen any change.

They will do what they must do

Yeah it's true
But only in part
Actions best forgotten of a desperate heart
And it hurts
This salt in the wound
But what compels them to spend their time bothering you

Don't let them touch you baby
Don't let them make you cry
Don't you waste your time
Trying to find the reason why
They will do what they must do

Yeah it's strange
That vicarious choir
Ever searching for a stage where they might sing higher
And they share
The generous souls
But nothing gets in the way of a story untold

It's not fair
The only intention's to hurt
Always there
The strategy's rumors and dirt

Don't let them touch you baby
Don't let them make you cry
Don't you waste your time
Trying to find the reason why
They will do what they must do

grease and grit

So I understand that we're an unhealthy city that drinks too much, eats too much, and in some cases, smokes too much. I get that this isn't good, and that it contributes to higher health care costs and whatnot.

But who would I be to tell someone what they can or cannot do especially when it's not a moral issue? Even then, my life is mine and yours is yours and so long as you're not hurting someone with what you do, we're cool even if we might disagree.

I don't expect others to make the same life choices as me. I love going to a coffeeshop or watching a band play and coming home not reeking of cigarette smoke, but I voted against the ban on my half-assed and totally inconsistent libertarian principles. Smokers outside don't bother me. They have their vice and I have mine, though coffee does smell better than cigarettes.

I don't eat a whole lot of greasy food as I prefer dirty hippie fare with generous amounts of spices, but I don't like the idea of being told what to eat. When carnival season hits, me and Tangerine love our elephant ears and scary-because-it-might-fall-apart-rides. Yes, it's not as healthy as going jogging and drinking smoothies, but it's fun and doesn't hurt anyone and we know full well what we're doing. It's a part of living here that we love.

It's hard enough to sustain a small business in this city as it is, and this just makes it harder for places like Sokolowski's and small bakeries. Cimperman may want to change the culture, but this place isn't California, where people are super thin and their teeth are perfectly white. We don't mind our schlubbiness. Even skinny chicks like me will end up looking like babushka women someday due to our genetics.

It's a winter town full of people who grew up on meat-and-potatoes peasant fare and soul food. We don't exercise much because the weather sucks and we can't always walk in our neighborhoods after dark, we like our comfort food like our grandparents made it, and we drink because life here gets depressing. Of course we're unhealthy. A love of grease is in our rusty blood.

While the Powers That Be seem obsessed with catering to the uber-rich who own sports teams and corporations, and turning this city into a playground for the bright young things, there are other people in this city who aren't into trendy neighborhoods, art openings, and vegan food. I would even venture to say that they might be a majority, a little more worried about employment, paying rent, and hoping cars don't get stolen because the police care more about graffiti than they do about people with no power who get beat up.




Something's wrong here. It really is.

scams, paint, punk

At least the nights of insomnia and angst could end in sleeping and waking up to sun and snow. Henry Rollins is unsurprisingly sold out, but a message in my spam folder says I have some rich and deceased distant cousin in Malaysia with the same last name as mine so I'll be fabulously wealthy once I give all of my personal information to "Barrister Eric Anthony Esquire" and not ask the logical questions as to why someone Kuala Lumpur would have a long Polack surname like my own.

Meanwhile, in my fair city, the Powers That Be are more concerned about spraypaint than police brutality, because heaven forbid that the police union gets offended. I might be a bit biased to be sure, but this is everything that is wrong with the world encapsulated, with property and wealth being treated as more important than human life, and it's always the voiceless and the vulnerable who are more likely to get screwed in this twisted calculus.

While I love the non-legal artistry of those who make my RTA ride colorful, I've got no love for taggers either, especially the tagbanging types in my neighborhood who've turned vibrant graffiti spots into some macho lameness. But it bothers me way more that whenever I've called 911 I've been blown off by the dispatcher, that people who aren't creative class crackers get beat up at worst or ignored at best, and I know there's probably decent people out there on the force who actually do care about the city, but I get more doubtful by the day because I haven't always seen it.

don't wait for the bang...

With the crazy that I saw yesterday, of angry drunks in large groups in a dying city, the machinations of many kinder gentler machine gun hands, our predator drones flying around south of the border, Denny K tried to get us out of Afghanistan and actually gives a damn about Bradley Manning and though we don't agree on other things I've got to give him mad props for being my congressman and not totally sucking, potential nuclear meltdown in Japan, nastiness as usual on the part of the usual trigger happy suspects, the Damoclean Sword of Austerity has spared me and my fellow peons for now but not most of the other things that make life in Ohio bearable, and now we're going into Libya as if we haven't learned our lesson from every single other stupid military excursion we've gone on.

Meanwhile, I look at the streets where the brick from who knows when is exposed from the potholes, watching innumerable deals going down on my way home, trying to avoid the drunks, knowing as the temperatures get warmer, the tempers get hotter and it's not that I live in fear, because I've hung out in every part of this city, but I'm always watching and I don't like what I see going on around the corner and around the world.

it's all blueprint, it must be easy...

I was in line at the bank this weekend listening to old men talk about how it sucks that people are revolting in Libya because that means their gas prices are going up. "I'm for freedom fighters and all, but I gotta fill my gas tank too."

I couldn't shake the depression this weekend, forcing myself to not be alone with my unproductive thoughts, not wanting to explain and articulate because my jaw is sore and I wonder if I'm just adding to the noise, if I've been doing it wrong, if what seems to make sense now will be something I will regret later.

Because I can't play these games of ladder climbing and career hopping and what people call love but usually ends up being a total mess full of regret. I'm just not interested in dealing with that. I can't compete and it doesn't look fun or fulfilling. I've got no debt, I can sustain myself and have enough to share, I've got creative outlets and spiritual sustenance. I wonder if I'm crazy for not trying harder, if I'm just another slacker wasting my life like all the burnouts I used to hang with, or if this kind of race is even the one I should bother running.



"I'm not playing with you / I clean forgot how to play....we'll draw a blueprint, it must be easy, it's just a matter of knowing when to say no or yes. frustrating, frustrating, always waiting for the bigger axe to fall.

a patient game that i can't find my way to play. never mind what's been selling, it's what you're buying and receiving undefiled..."

this ain't no picnic

I've been through this rollercoaster of emotions before, in regards to certain pressing issues at hand, and know that I'll endlessly repeat these for quite some time until the next round of cuts comes around.

I'm a people person by nature, but tend to avoid those who make me nervous, especially when they have a lot more power and when this could really affect one's future. I gingerly bring up the suggestion that in the future of skeleton crews and general austerities, that there are a lot of other things that I've done before, could do again, and yes I know that there's such a thing called training do I look that dumb, because you seem to think so.



And I know it's stupid that it makes me mad. It's one thing to be ignored. I'm fine with that. It's a whole other thing to not be taken seriously, to feel like the word of one person or the unfairness of one incident when the person lowest ends up getting the blame totally invalidates the fact that I show up on time, heck, early, every day, learn from my mistakes quickly, and do whatever is asked of me, and go above and beyond on a regular basis. I get along with everyone, even the people I don't care for so much.

It's been like this awhile now, but when there's balance sheets involved, the sword of Damocles, the Axe of Austerity, it just adds to that sense of helplessness and frustration. At least there's always nerdy disenfranchised 80's punk to get me through the rough spots.

every week I need a new address....

Having a week of vacation without school or work for the first time since I was fifteen was amazing but I really don't mind coming back to the routine, now that the apartment is as clean as it'll get, I got plenty of socializing and time to read books, listen to good music, drink tea and watch awesomely terrible Ernest Angley Christmas specials ("And Jee-zus IS the Christmas Tree!), white rapper videos from the likes of House of Pain, 3rd Bass, and Snow, and Krull with my neighbors around the corner.

Everyone acts shocked when we get the annual thaw, and it was great to leave the house in a hoodie instead of a winter coat to pick up a fellow DJ and go up to the station on Friday afternoon to do a "Grungy New Year" with the sweet and sludgy sounds of the Pacific Northwest. We did the more obscure bands (Green River, Mudhoney, the Wipers, the Gits) and then the b-sides and rare cuts from the ones that get played on the radio still.



It being the middle of the day meant that we couldn't play most of the requests we got for fear of being smacked by the almighty FCC so we threw in some Stooges and midwest 80's punk like Naked Raygun but it was fun to play Nirvana covers, dig through the racks of vinyl, and have guys in Lakewood singing this song over the phone to us.



I wanted to take pictures of the frozen lighthouse on the lake but it had already begun to melt like a wicked witch but we went to Whiskey Island and took pictures anyway and I fell through a snow drift into the lake but the water was only up to my ankles. The park was closed technically but everyone was out there with their cameras and pets.



It's days like that when I feel damn lucky to live in this city when the lake is greenish blue and icy, the shore is littered with sticks and Black & Mild stubs and I got a full tank of gas and no plans except to be a slacker for the day.



We got food and went up on the balcony at the West Side Market before making excursions to the Glass Bubble Project to hang out with random friendly people who give me history of Parma while I take pictures of Morty the chicken, random stuff on the walls, and lamps that I would have in my house if I had money.





I took her to the graffiti walls before it started to rain, and we took pictures of paint and general Rust Belt disintegration that never gets old. It was too cold for the skaters and the gangbangers, but "Cleveland/LA" graffiti covered the art that was left and the skaters had built jumps and ramps on the concrete.





I had a lot of New Year's Eve invites, but really wasn't in a mood to be social among strangers, or drink so Lindsay and I went to Algebra for strong cardamom-laced coffee and Scrabble and overhearing earnest conversations from zealous recent converts to Islam on the evils of Facebook as a tool of Western fornication. It seemed like every major social ill went back to the other major branch of Abraham's descendants owning the media or fornication which I should have counted because it was said more times than I've ever heard anyone use it.

Meanwhile, we dispensed with scoring and the banning of proper nouns and Shabba made an appearance on the Scrabble board before going back to her parents' house to watch the ball drop and bang on pots and pans. I still don't understand boy bands or Ke$ha, but I probably never will.



I came home and stayed up awhile longer thinking about all the crazy that transpired over the past year as the gunfire crackled a few streets over. One of my friends stopped over the next night with her dog and we're plotting trips to Boston and road trip excursions to weird places, with my flexible vacation time and her teacher's schedule. It's too bad This Noah's Ark/Tabernacle extravaganza is on the other side of the country because she said it's amazing.

My great-aunt died this weekend as well, making it into the new year at the age of 99. She was sassy and completely lucid up until the end and spent most of her last days going to Mass and playing pinochle. It's the side of the family I don't know nearly as well with cousins I only see at funerals, but the ones I did know outside of that were telling me about their trip to Poland, giving me some family history and asking when I'm going to make something of myself and go to law school, considering my lack of income and matrimony.

"I'm happy with the way things are," I insist, knowing that I can't explain my cynicism about the rat race of modern society or this whole idea of romance, that I prefer cheap rent and something that looks like bohemianism but is really more that my interests are eclectic and that all my furniture has been inherited from previous roommates and elderly relatives.

And yet I enter 2011 with uncertainty, wondering if I'll still be employed by the end of the year, wondering if having something on my record really means it's expunged if I try to get another job, wondering what proverbial shit is going to hit the fan this year, trying to trust God with an increasingly uncertain future.

I'm ok with the possibility of downward mobility but I know that there's not too much further down that I can go, knowing that while there's a lot I contribute, I'm ultimately disposable, with little seniority and being constantly reminded that I'm just a kid by my boomer overlords even though I'm closer to 30 than 20. We were all young once, right? Right? Or maybe everything was just handed out back then, the right hands were shook, the right credentials earned back when it meant something.

Is part of the fight of climbing the ladder a response to this anxiety, because it's better to be knocked down a few rungs than be at the bottom completely? Is the whole culture of sucking up and tooting one's horn born just as much out of desperation as ambition?