Whenever I'm feeling particularly disillusioned...

about my life in general in the small sphere where I am, I just read the news.

Then I feel much, much better.

Back to boxes...

Moving again, the story of my life. With my dad and mum it was every two to three years, almost like clockwork. In college it was every four months to one year. Post college it's been every two months to nine months. I enjoy a change of address, a change of pace.

Yes, yes I do. If you enjoy the work out acquired from moving boxes and book cases, I'd love your help. I pay in tasty microbrews, back rubs, and delicious food.

THIS IS HOPE:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/08/chicago.evictions/index.html

An Illinois sheriff is refusing to evict tenants who had no clue their landlord went other.

The big men are calling him a vigilante. I say? High five, you rockstar!

My house is installation art on par with dooce's.

The Aussie cattle dog mix here, Spot, does the same. We've given up and we hand him boxes and stuffed animals from Salvation Army to shred. We know all the places in town where the stuffed animals are a mere 25c. He shreds the stuffing. He tears up the boxes.

Then later? I take a deep breath, scoop up the debris, and hand him another.

Eh VOILA.

http://www.dooce.com/2008/10/08/multi-room-installation

Reasons why...

1) Sliced funding
2) Sliced FAFSA
3) Sliced grants
4) Jobs that pay less than they say they will
5) Paychecks that arrive late, if at all
6) Paychecks that bounce
7) Rising costs of gasoline
8) Rising costs of vital food items
9) Rising costs of utilities (electric and natural gas)
10)The unavailability of loans for people with good credit who pay their bills on time.
11)Transit failure. Car failure. Expensive car repairs.
12)Rehabbing disasters
13)Ill pets
14)Parents and grandparents in the hospital
15)Broken hearts and heads.

These are the reasons why.

This one, is for you ...

In the face of tearful friends, cut funding, unfriendly grad programs, difficult cities, loans denied, collapsing economic and financial systems, a terrifying presidential campaign with stakes so high I can't see the top of the mountain?

In the face of all this hurt and loneliness and financial, emotional, social need, I have made one decision: I have often blogged rather than drink my way through angst and stress. Today, Thursday, October 9th, in the year of our lord 2008, I will drink for you, for your pain, and in honour of the wrongs the system has committed against you.

Salut!

The first drink of the morning is coffee.
The second drink of the morning (It's almost noon in Eastern Standard Tribe any way, right?) is a cocktail of fizzy lime water, strawberry puree juice imported from Croatia, and a marashino cherry. There is some vodka involved. Mostly because I can't find the gin. (Why is the gin always gone?)

This is for you, and for you, and for you! I am drinking today in honour of the pain and hurt that is, at this juncture, approaching unmanageable for many of my friends and loved ones.

With love, from Russia, with love.