alexis in the city

#Occupy Festivus

I’ve been avoiding this Occupy stuff because I knew that if I looked into it, I’d just get angry. I know myself pretty well so I was, of course, right - but I decided to at least get familiar with the list of demands from the protestors. What I found was a list of a couple dozen grievances covering just about every ill known to (American) humanity. There’s the stuff you would expect about corporate pensions and salaries and those responsible for the economic meltdown, but there’s just about every other issue on there as well. From repealing the death penalty, to stopping the war on drugs, to enacting a better environmental policy, to passing health care reform, and so on and so on. Even if some sort of meeting were to occur between the two sides, how could they begin to make headway at all with such a Festivus-like airing of grievances? The possibility seems laughable.

So what seems to have happened is everyone who has some sort of complaint - or just likes a good rage against The Man - has thrown their hat in the ring. There’s no need to atone for any financial missteps you may have taken when you can just blame someone else. It’s much more fun to march around with friends than to hustle and get creative and work - and at the end of it all, pay a huge portion of what you earned in taxes.

I’m not that old, but I feel so far removed from the current ethos when I talk about how Ryan used his time in the military as a way to (mostly) put himself through school (going double full-time at two different colleges). Or how we kept paying our mortgage even though we were naive and signed off on an adjustable rate loan. Or how when I got laid off, I booked up freelance work too fast to qualify for unemployment. Or how I’ll work my way through grad school instead of taking out loans.

On the one hand I’m mad at the people who are using this as a way to shift the blame of their less-than-ideal financial or economic circumstances. On the other hand, I’m mad that the movement couldn’t pick one or two core principles to focus on. People are clearly upset. They clearly have an audience. Reform of some kind arguably needs to occur. But they’ve seemingly wasted an opportunity for that to actually happen by airing every possible grievance and expecting something to be done about it.

I know there are people who have a singleminded reason for participating in these demonstrations. For them it’s not part of a blame game or a bandwagon. But I fear their efforts for targeted, peaceful reform is being drowned out by everyone else - you may know them as the 99%.

Circumstantial Housewife

Are you there, no one? It’s me, Alexis

I’ve noticed something lately: I’ve been talking a lot. And not in the way my teachers would complain to my parents about at every single parent-teacher conference, and on every single report card. Working from home by yourself makes talking much more disturbing. My mom says she used to narrate her daily life to me as a baby, so I suspect I get it from her. When I’m at home, I can pass it off as talking to the dog, but when I’m out in public it gets a lot weirder.

My mom had baby-me as the recipient of her grocery store soliloquies and coffee shop musings and she says she still got strange looks. I’ve got me, myself, and I - and whoever happens to be milling around while I’m wondering aloud if the apples are local, or audibly noting that my smoothie is much spicier than normal.

As any of my K-12 teachers will attest, I’ve always been chatty but I’m not sure when I started talking to myself. Does anyone else do this? It doesn’t seem to bode well for impending senility … which I’ve heard gets WORSE with age.

Portland is the South of the Northwest

(my run this morning)

People here are slow. And really friendly. It’s weird. Ryan says the fact that I think this is weird just shows my level of ignorance; since most of the rest of the country operates at a much slower pace than I’m used to, I’m actually the strange one. That may be true, but it’s such a drastic, marked difference I can’t help but notice it.

I’m not a patient person and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Even things in so-called “big cities” tend not to move fast enough for me. I get stuck walking behind gawking tourists. Or the person in line in front of me can’t decide what to order. Or cabs take more than 30 seconds to arrive. People show up late to meetings, take forever getting on or off the train, forget my order, blahblahblah. It’s something I’m working on, ok?!

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