Two Points for Honesty

Too many days lately I just don't want to even get out of bed. When I finally do, I lack all motivation to actually accomplish anything. It's all seemed so pointless and requiring too much effort with almost no payout. No one's interested in reading what I have to say. Freelance work seems to be drying up even before I get to it. I'm bringing in almost nothing; my monetary contributions barely cover half of a single bill.

It's been over a year since I had a steady paying job. And that was a contract position, so I didn't really bring in any money. I made just over $2000 in six weeks as a campaign manager for an underfunded congressional bid. Before that I waited tables for six months to help pay for the wedding, and before that I made $12 an hour as an administrative supervisor. That was my last real job, and that was done in December of 2009. It's understandable to see how a person could grow a bit demoralized.

Things don't seem to be getting easier, either. With over 9% declared unemployment, I'm in good company. And those numbers are understated. For instance, I don't count. I'm getting freelance work, so I'm self-employed. The PhD serving you beers doesn't count either; she has a paycheck of $0 every two weeks as taxes are taken out of her measly $3/hr salary. The stay at home mom and the housewife don't count, because they chose to take themselves out of the job market and settle into home life. The employment population ratio has dropped 5% in the past three years down to 58%. That means 5% less of the population able to work is actually currently employed.

It's hard. Everyone's struggling. Too many of us look at each paycheck and almost every cent of it has already been allocated to paying bills, paying for the necessities, getting by. There's little to nothing to save, to get ahead, to pay down debt and plan for the future. Forget the future. Let's just make it through the end of the year.

And we try. We take every little extra job that comes along, no matter how demoralizing it is to shill for horrible products or advise others about the next great ideas in entrepreneurship when we can barely get a job or afford those same awful products ourselves. It's something, right? Even then, after staying up late finishing those articles that need to be done RIGHT NOW, after cleaning the house, scrubbing the bathroom, bidding on seven new projects, applying to ten new jobs, exercised and eaten right, writing for my own novel, it still feels like I've accomplished nothing. I'm just treading water, because nothing is bringing in any money or moving me forward.

It's hard. To stay motivated. To get through searching for the next job. To get rejection after rejection no matter how many projects I bid on. To have resumes still go unremarked upon. To be underbid for that editing job by someone who barely speaks English but had the right price. To bleach the bathroom a few times each week but still have mold come back because the apartment was built shoddily. To not lose any weight despite cutting back on portion sizes and processed or fast food. To find that new chapter still doesn't feel right after rewriting it three times. To feel like I'm getting nowhere.

Like I told my wonderful husband today when I just couldn't bring myself to get out of bed: I'm torn between screaming at the top of my lungs in frustration or crying into a pillow in despair. How do I move past this? I keep plugging away, keep logging the hours, and writing the words, but dammit if this isn't hard.

Follow Up to Obama's Job Speech

After my initial impressions of Obama's speech (overall positive on the speech itself, doubtful on the follow through, and suspicious of motives), I've spent the last few days reading through analyses and criticisms of the speech and Obama's plan moving forward. I have to say I think I'm with the critics. This was a successful campaign speech and nothing more.

Obama sounded emphatic, forceful, serious, and like a man who gets things done. He appealed to his strongest bases (Dems, education, public works unions), and reached out to a few swings (veterans, the unemployed, independents). But did the speech really mean anything beyond a stump speech?

One editorial I read today summed it up pretty well. Obama knew full well that this jobs bill would never pass. First of all, they're replays of the exact things that were in the first handful of stimulus bills: infrastructure, education, unemployment checks. We still have ridiculously high unemployment, the infrastructure projects we already "paid for" have not even begun, and education bureaucrats just pocketed the money and fired our teachers anyway. And those bills barely passed when we had a DEMOCRAT Congress. With a Republican Congress, they'll never get through.

And his explanation of "it will be paid for"? To increase the tax-cutting Congress is already failing to do? It's nonsense and requires tax increases that Obama knows Republicans will never agree to, and again are something he couldn't get the Democrats to agree to when they had control of the Congress.

Obama's not stupid. He knew all of this when he gave the speech. His exhortations of "pass this jobs bill right away" were appeals to the public at large, begging them to see that "At least I'm trying!" Now he can point the finger at Congress when unemployment fails to go down or, gods forbid, rises again. It's not his fault that things are bad; after all, he suggested this completely reasonable, non-partisan plan that would surely save us all.

The plan is to set up a completely unprovable counterfactual. In a year, he can say "If my plan had passed, we would be out of this dismal situation by now" in the same way his administration says of the former stimulus plan "If we hadn't passed it, we'd be even worse off by now." Counterfactuals are completely unverifiable but incredibly useful political tools. You use failed expectations of the past and present and future to gain political ground by insisting that even the worst policy decisions did some good or prevented some evil, even without evidence. It's just as easy for the other side to say the opposite: "by passing the former stimulus, Obama made the situation worse," or "We saved the country from even higher unemployment and deficits because we refused to pass Obama's jobs bill."

People don't seem to be falling for it, and the bill is unlikely to be passed at all.

I have to run now, but I might write later on the mentality that says "We have to do SOMETHING" when things are bad, even if that something often makes things worse. Or I might not. Depends on what I feel like writing later. :)

Obama's Job Speech

(I've been up all night writing for work. I figured since it's about 5:30am and I'm still up, I might as well write something for me.)

Obama gave a jobs speech tonight in front of the joint houses of Congress today. I'm listening to it for the first time. Here are my reactions in real time (I'll be pausing the youtube video so I can type out responses and not lose too much of the speech): This should be fun.

0:30 "What will this speech mean for the President? What will it mean for Congress?" --Does that strike anyone else as incredibly arrogant? He's referencing the importance of his own speech. One, I might point out, that he had to schedule around both a debate that he tried to pre-empt and an important football game. But it's his speech that is important? I'd say the economic crisis is the important thing here, not the speech about it.

0:45 "Millions of Americans watching right now don't care about politics." --Okay, good. We're kind of sick about the politics of it. :)

1-3:00 Much of nothing. Americans are frustrated, aren't getting by on their hard work anymore, we've got to do something, etc.

3:05 Steps to take: Ok, I'm listening.

3:10 "I'm sending a bill that you should pass right away."-- Oh, I always get nervous when a bill has to be passed immediately. When actions HAVE to happen right away, a bunch of bad stuff gets packed into the legislation that everyone admits was probably bad later down the line. After all, it's how we got the Patriot Act, the Wall Street Bailout, the TARP bill, the Stimulus Bill, and the Health Care Act.

3:15 "There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation." -- Aw, come on. He's baiting the Republicans with that one.

3:33 "Everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything." -- Yup, I've definitely heard that one before. TARP, bailout bill, Medicare Part D (by the way, all Bush bills) ... Have we gotten half of the returns on those "investments"? He sounds defensive about it.

3:55 Okay, jobs for construction workers, teachers, veterans, and long-term unemployed. I'm calling it: Infrastructure, education spending, new veterans bill, and extension of unemployed benefits. Only problem is, most of the infrastructure spending we've initiated in the past 2 years have resulted in almost no jobs created, education spending has led to large amounts of teachers being let go while administrators and bureaucrats take the money, and unemployment benefits are not "jobs". Trust me, the unemployed want to WORK!

4:10 "cut payroll taxes in half for every working American and every small business." --But I thought this would pay for itself? We're already having revenue issues. I'm willing to pay taxes on my income, just so long as I actually have some.

4:30 "Pass this jobs plan right away." --Again, I'm nervous about that talk. Can we make sure we know what's actually in the bill before we pass it? Or do we have to pass it to know what's in it again? That didn't work so well last time and ended up with many waivers for people who couldn't meet the requirements of the mystery legislation.

5:00 "Pass this jobs bill. Pass this jobs bill." --Ok. Ok. What is in it??

5:05 "Small businesses get a tax cut if they hire new workers or raise workers' wages." But big businesses don't? That seems really difficult to get away with, not to mention, very likely unconstitutional.

5:15 "Payroll taxes cut in half." --Wow. Um, is that feasible to even fund this?

5:40 "You should pass it right away." --STOP!

6:00 Infrastructure spending! I called it. And he invoked the black cloud of China to do it. Impressive.

7:00 Renovating schools. Do it for the kids.

8:00 "To make sure the money is properly spent..." Ok, how are we going to avoid the waste that has infected most of the other infrastructure spending of the past, um, forever?

8:10 So no earmarks, boondoggles, red tape or bridges to nowhere. Not really much of a solution to waste in spending, but hey, recognizing the problem is at least a good step!

8:45 He's all about the "It wasn't my idea. Dems and Repubs suggested it. I'm just the bridge builder here, folks." That could be really effective. But it makes it seem like he's giving this speech directly to the politicians in the chamber. It's not so effective at reaching out to the American people. I feel like I'm listening in on a business presentation or investors meeting.

9:00 "You should pass it right away." --Really getting creeped out by that.

9:15 Teachers back to work. Two for me!

10:00 Hiring veterans. THREE! Wait, what about the teachers? How are we putting htem back? Ooh, the veterans talk got the Republicans standing. Go troops!

10:55 $4,000 tax credit for companies that hire someone who has been unemployed for more than six months. Will that be enough to get companies to hire the long term unemployed? There's already such a stigma on us, and hiring the long term unemployed poses so much risk, it may not be enough.

11:20 Invoked the Georgia Works program which gets temporary work for the unemployed so they can develop their skills. Unfortunately, few of those jobs have transitioned into full time work or provide a real pay check. These workers just get their unemployment checks and work part time; employers get free labor for odd jobs and don't have any obligations to the unemployed.

11:30 Another year of unemployment insurance.

11:50 "pass it again--right away." .....

12:00 $1500 tax cut for middle class Americans. Wait. This is Bush's tax cuts extended again. I thought that was the worst economic decision in several decades? And this would be Obama's second or third time extending them. Someone needs to call him on this.

12:35 AHAHAHA! He invoked the "No New Taxes" pledge a bunch of the Tea Partiers took before taking office. Awesome mockery right there. Most of those pledges are so stupid. I urged my candidate (whose campaign I managed) to ignore all of those. He ignored all but this one. Ah well, close enough.

12:45 "Pass this bill right away." I should have made a drinking game out of this. Although, that might be seen really badly by some seeing as it is about 6 in the morning now. :)

13:20 Will not add to the deficit and here's how: Let's hear it...

13:30 He invokes the agreement passed in July to cut government spending by over $1 trillion over the next ten years .... Okay. Stop. That bill did not cut spending. It agreed not to increase spending by its usual increments to keep up with inflation. There were almost NO cuts made to planned spending. Some departments had their budgets reallocated, but there were no real cuts. That better not be it...

13:35 Another $1.5 trillion in savings by Christmas. --And how many of those have been agreed on?

13:45 Increase that amount so that it covers the cost of this new bill. --So you have no idea. You're just going to promise to make someone else find some way of paying for it while you increase spending? You want to cut spending while finding new ways to spend? Does not compute.

13:50 Huh. He says he's going to introduce a new deficit plan in two weeks.

14:05 "This approach is basically the one I've been advocating for months." I need Chris from Family Guy here. "Whhuuuuu-uuuttt??"

14:22 Huge moment here. He just put Medicare and Medicaid on the table!! Oh it is on.

14:30 Adjust tax code to make wealth Americans pay more. -- Wouldn't mind that. How about eliminating some of the loopholes? :)

15:20 Um, so health care costs are spiraling out of control ... but we need to cover more health care costs? Again, does not compute.

16:00 Eliminate tax breaks and loopholes for the rich. Woot! It's like he can hear me. From twelve hours in the past ...

16-17:00 Okay, this Obama character. He's growing on me.

19:20 Making America more hospitable for business. Sounds good to me. How so? Eliminating some regulations? :)

20:10 You'll actually paid for the work you do for the government. --Shouldn't that be a bare minumum?

20:20 Cutting red tape. Woot!

20:30 Helping homeowners and refinancing mortgages. -- Whoa there. Isn't that how we got our housing bubble in the first place? By artificially boosting home prices? How about something to encourage lending instead of directly affecting home prices?

21:15 Updated patent process. Woot!

21:30 Free trade agreements?? Who are you and what did you do with Obama?? I'm so confused.

22:30 Oh no. He just invoked his Jobs Council. That's the one where Jeffrey Immelt is the Chair. Yeah, Immelt of General Electric. Whose company has relocated several of its manufacturing companies to China. And Obama just said he wants to have the next generation of manufacturing "not in China, but here in the United States of America." The dissonance. It hurts.

23:30 We're number one. We're number one.

23:45 Here's where he calls out the Republicans. And they respond childishly. Ugh.

24:15 And wow. He just conceded that a lot of what the Republicans have been arguing for--cutting unnecessary spending and eliminating unnecessary burdens on businesses--are correct. And he's going to work with them to fix that. I hope those aren't just words.

24:30 Already found over 500 reforms and regulations to eliminate. Color me impressed.

25:00 Going to preserve the protections that Americans still need. Fair enough.

25:30 He goes on to list a whole bunch of regulations that I don't think anyone would argue are probably necessary. No fair going to the straw men. You were doing so well.

25:38 Collective bargaining rights not on the table. And Joe Biden goes nuts. I think he almost gave himself whiplash back there.

26:20 His characterization of the Republican position: "We dismantle government, refund everybody's money, and let everyone write their own rules, and tell everyone they're on their own. That's not who we are." To be fair, that is almost the Tea Party's position, or at least the one they give lip service to. It's funny. I'm a libertarian with some seriously researched and principled reasons behind my stances. But I disagree with the anarchist stance that is being taken by the Tea Party. (Of course, they're not really anarchists. They're just reactionary. Give them power, let them take the reins, and they're just as autocratic as the next.) I'm for some social safety nets, and even some progressive taxation. ... This is another rant. Back to the speech.

26:50 Communitarian invocation followed by Lincoln invocation.

27-28:30 Government has done a lot of great things.

28:30 "Where would we be if Congress had decided not to pass Social Security or Medicare because of some rigid idea about what government could or could not do?" -- You mean like the Constitution? Damn those restrictions. Of course, there's a way around that with an amendment, which had to happen to let those things even be legal. But details. Bah!

29-30:30 Reiteration of what's been said.

30:30 Next election 14 months away. The American people don't have the luxury of waiting 14 months for us to do something. -- Great rhetoric there. Very nice job by his speech writers.

31-32:00 Invoke Kennedy, wrap it up, and God Bless America.

Overall Impressions: Pretty good speech. I'm usually not a fan of his speeches, but he seems to have hedged a lot of his positions and conceded a lot of ideas about government spending. I'm actually pretty impressed. I'm not completely convinced by it all, but I'm curious about what's REALLY in that jobs bill. I'm looking forward to see how it works out.

Getting Paid

Post finishing up the grad school story is still coming, but I'd like to interrupt that for a bit of good news.

After nearly a full year of being unemployed I finally have some work. It's not a full time job, and I don't have to report into an office. I'm instead freelancing with article writing, proofreading, editing, and rewriting on a couple of different projects. It's flexible, reasonably well-paid, and I can do it in my own time from my own home.

I'm so excited to finally have some work, and I'm actually really enjoying it so far.

So that's all. Now I have more of an excuse for my breaks between posts, but I promise I'll still try and update fairly often.

Leaving grad school

Today while compiling a solid portfolio of my writing for some freelance jobs I'm bidding on, I came across a document I made while deciding whether or not to leave grad school. If you've known me longer than five years, you know what an agonizing decision it was for me to leave the University of Virginia before I got my PhD in Political Theory. For those of you who don't know me well or may have just met me since I've moved back to Georgia, I can tell you, it was not something I came to lightly.

The document I found lists out a number of things I considered when making my decision. Specifically I listed out what I liked about academia, what I disliked, what I liked outside of the academic arena, what I do well, and what my concerns about leaving were.

In truth, I did love the graduate experience. Or rather, I liked a great deal about it. I decided to go to grad school late in 2005 and by mid-2006 I was enrolled on a full scholarship and receiving a living stipend from the University of Virginia. I doubt I have to tell you how amazing it is that not only did I get into one of the top schools for political theory, but that they were paying me for the privilege. I was honored, proud, and excited all at once. I was also terrified that someone would figure out that I wasn't nearly as smart as everyone else in the program, and they'd surely kick me out soon. (I found out later that almost every graduate student feels this way at some point.)

It was great. I was paid to work with some of the greatest minds and talk about ideas daily. I was paid to read and write about some of the most interesting things I've ever encountered. I was contributing to the debate on topics of identity, governance, race, and gender. And if you've never had the opportunity to develop a new idea and see it turn into something other people want to learn more about, then you cannot understand what a thrill it is!

On top of all of that, I got to teach and mentor excited and exciting students. For a lot of graduate students this is the drudging price one must pay to do what one really wants to do: research and write. For me, though, teaching was a revelation. I got to work with kids that were hungry for knowledge, and I got to help that student hone this hunger into something greater: a sharp and inquisitive intellect. I loved working with my students to improve their writing, to give them a chance to voice their opinions and help them articulate better what was in their minds, to take the shy girl in the back of the class and turn her into a well-spoken debater. I loved it!

So why did I quit? Why did I just give up after I got my Masters? Why not continue what I clearly enjoyed?

Because it wasn't all hearts and rainbows. I went to the University of Virginia for a few specific reasons. One, it was the alma mater of two of my undergraduate mentors, and they told wonderful stories about the guidance they got from their professors. Two, there was a professor there I was dying to study with and learn from. Three, I got accepted and received funding.

Two of those three reasons failed me pretty miserably. First, the professor under which I desperately wanted to study turned out to be nothing what I expected. He made himself almost impossible to get a hold of, ignoring emails, blowing off office hours, refusing to answer his phone, and generally declining to give me any guidance at all. I was so excited about a few ideas he had introduced in some of his earlier books about individualism in America as defined by Tocqueville, and I was so anxious to ask him about them in one on one conversation in the hopes that I might be able to expand on them in my own research. To my dismay, he had no interest in discussing his ideas. He had tenure; he was close to retirement; he was invited to guest lecture at other universities for lots more money while maintaining his chair at UVA. So he disappeared. For months at a time, he was no where on campus or even in the same state, and as I have already pointed out, he refused to communicate in any way over technology (be it phone or email). He was an utter dead end to me.

No worries. In my first year, I was still learning. I could easily change my interests and explore another avenue for my own research.

As luck would have it, I took an amazing class with a junior professor who had not yet been granted tenure. She was inspiring, brilliant, and encouraging! Everything my last professor was not. She helped me take my ideas on individualism and helped me reformulate them into a more theoretical study on identity and essentialism. She had tons of literature for me, and urged me to read more and decided if I wanted to pursue that for my doctoral research instead.

Boy did I! I was hooked. The ideas were new and ever evolving. This was the perfect avenue for me to lay down the groundwork for a lifetime of research and publications. And here, too, was what my mentors had described: an eager, accommodating, and encouraging mentor at the most beautiful university.

Then she came up for tenure at the same time as her husband. Good for her, she got it. Bad for him, he was denied it. My professor was asked to make a decision: accept tenure and hope her husband can stay on as an adjunct, or look elsewhere for them both to begin a new tenure track. And my masters thesis fell in the middle of this.

My professor had to take me aside and tell me she could not be my advisor for my thesis, let alone my dissertation. I had to find someone else to guide me and accept or reject my research. Alas, there was no one else in the entire department who was willing to take me on as an advisee with my current research interests. I had to abandon my work to this point and find a new topic.

That brings us to my third year. I'll continue the story in the next post as this is getting quite long.

New Projects

I am a very bad blogger. Sorry that it's been over a week since my last update. Life tends to get away from me very quickly these days. I swear, my calendar for June has been full for weeks, and now July is beginning to fill up. And yet, I still feel like I'm neglecting dozens of friends. I haven't seen some of my friends who live in town in over a month, and that's just shameful. Maybe I'll invite a few of them over for a pool day ... nope, this weekend is full. Maybe Sunday of next? Possibly. Who knows? Too busy.

In other news, I feel I should defend myself. I HAVE been writing. Obviously I haven't been doing it here, but I have been writing. I've actually been catching up on some of my fiction.

I know, I can hear the gasps from here! "Has she overcome her writers block?" I hear you ask, your voice catching in your throat. To you I say, "Sort of."

No, I haven't been working on the novel I'm supposed to be working on. I am still stuck in the beginning of Chapter 7. I don't know what it is about that chapter, but I have no idea where I'm going right now, and my characters do not seem to want to give me a clue. What I really want is a road map that will just point me toward my destination with that novel, but I'm stuck asking directions from people that think "Take a left where the Old Market used to be" is an adequate direction.

No, I've been working on plotting a few new ideas. This is almost miraculous. It's been well over a year since I've had any new ideas I'm actually excited about enough to plot out. What's even better is as I get to the drafting stages of any of these projects, I can then work on the longer project as a form of procrastination. (Sometimes it takes mind games against myself to get any work done.)

So yay me!

And Now for Something Completely Different

I will admit, in addition to being a fashion junkie, a fiction glutton, and a political addict, I am a ruthless consumer of pop culture. There's no shame here. I read Perez Hilton. I watch American Idol. I know which Kardashian is which.

Currently, I am thrilled at the return of So You Think You Can Dance. I regularly find YouTube videos of my favorite routines to watch over and over again. And I always have an opinion. So for my friends who love it as much as I do, here are my takes on last night's Top 20 performances.

• Jordan and Tadd, Afro Jazz: The judges raved about how this routine was perfection, but I'm not sure what routine they were actually watching. I thought Tadd fumbled most of his lifts, Jordan was not nearly loose enough for the African side of the dance, and their timing was constantly off. There was a lift in the middle when Tadd was supposed to move Jordan from a handstand on one thigh to the other, and I could see how awkward it was for both of them to hold themselves up. Maybe the judges were just trying to keep enthusiasm up, but I thought the routine was painful to watch.
• Sasha and Alexander, Contemporary: Now this was the sort of routine I watch the show for. Sasha and Alexander had the precision, the power, and the passion that Jordan and Tadd lacked. And what do you know, it's a Travis Wall routine. Wall was in season 2 and has regularly delivered some of the most memorable choreography since. When he finds two dancers that can convey a story as these two dancers clearly can, he steps it up. I'll be watching this one again.
• Clarice and Jess, Broadway: Another routine the judges praised that really did nothing to impress me. While Jess is a Broadway dancer and Clarice executed the steps just fine, but my god was this one of the most boring Broadway routines I've seen. The real annoyance is how cute Jess seems to think he is. His pre-dance interview and rehearsal bit put me off of him almost immediately, and his smirk through the dance didn't help. Mostly a forgettable dance.
• Ryan and Ricky, Lyrical Hip Hop: Oh, I love this song! They danced a hip hop number to "Ain't No Sunshine," which is an amazing song. Weird thing was, and the only criticism the judges offered, was that Ryan smiled through the whole thing, which didn't gibe with the story of the song or the dance. The dancing was really strong though, even if the choreography was at times a bit repetitive.
• Caitlynn and Robert, Jazz: Ooh! A Sonya Tayeh routine. Sonya is the weirdest, most original choreographers on the show. The second one of her dances starts, you know exactly who is responsible for it. And because Caitlynn's partner was injured, she got to dance with Robert from season 7. They did a wonderful job, and Robert was able to accomplish the lifts that Tadd could only dream about.
• Miranda and Robert, Jive: Again, everyone else loved this routine, while I thought it came off as a bit weak, forced, and a little sloppy. There was no doubting the energy the couple brought to the stage, but the constant mugging was a bit off-putting. I get that it's a jive, but if some of the energy they put into pulling faces had gone into their footwork, I might have liked it better.
• Missy and Wadi, Jazz: This was a strong performance, but I found the choreography a bit unimaginative. The only thing that was really impressive was Wadi's flying over the box set piece; wow, that boy can move!
• Melanie and Marko, Contemporary: By far my favorite of the night. Another Travis Wall routine, this dance was emotional, beautiful, and memorable. The dance was about two statues that came to life when no one was looking, and as Melanie and Marko came together, they displayed the chemistry I had been waiting for. I think this will be one of the best of the season.
• Ashley and Christopher, Hip Hop: This was a hip hop set to Cee Lo's "Forget You", and had all of the cheese and fun of the song. That said, it wasn't exactly difficult choreography, when there was any choreography at all. The dance was mostly a mime to the lyrics of the song, which was very Junior High. Not quite to the level we've come to expect from SYTYCD.
• Iveta and Nick, Quickstep: Lucky for everyone, the first person to get the "kiss of death" the quickstep was the world champion in quickstep. Iveta, of course, rocked it, and Nick stayed right there with her. I think the two of them have enough of a following already to stick around, and now we won't have to see another quickstep for the rest of the season.

So that's that. Fun blog post for me. Empty reading for you. And I meet my writing goal for the evening, and I can still write some fiction tonight! Woot!

Where are the jobs?

So I came across an article yesterday in the Investor's Business Daily website that discussed an op-ed released by Obama's new Jobs and Competitiveness Council. Obama promises he really is concerned about the massive unemployment in the country, and to prove it, he's put together this council dedicated to finding every potential for job creation. He's vowed to "leave no stone unturned" in his quest to putting America back to work.

Unfortunately, the path he seems to be taking on this is mimicking his approach to everything: top-down, centralized power, and over-reliance on government power.

On the council are some of the biggest heavy hitters from the largest American companies: CEOs from GE, American Express, Time Warner, Kodak, Facebook, and more. Noticeably under-represented are members from the small business community. Granted it might be hard to come to the notice of the President when you employ fewer than 200 people, and yet they deserve a voice, seeing as small and medium-sized businesses employ more than half of U.S. Workers.

So what solutions has the Council come up with?

• More training and education.
• Provide more loans.
• Require more energy efficiency, forcing people to hire construction workers to retrofit buildings.
• Cut red tape by streamlining the permitting process.

Wait! What was that last one?? Really? Big business wants us to allow new businesses to acquire new permits, thus allowing them to legally work? That sounds like a step in the right direction. Granted it's a fairly small step, considering the number of regulations hindering the creation of new companies and even new jobs. Let's see what the op-ed says:

• Streamline permitting. Cut red tape so job-creating construction and infrastructure projects can move forward. The administration can take a few simple steps to streamline the process of obtaining permits, without undercutting the protections that our regulatory system provides.

Um, does anyone know what that really means? Could it possibly mean that government needs to every once in a while get out of the way so businesses can do what they need to do to make money and expand and grow? And is that for all sectors of the economy, or is that inclusion of "construction and infrastructure projects" deliberate? And wait. What exactly is involved in the permitting process that they're willing to cut?

Between the permits construction workers alone must get, they have to get "permission" to work from everyone from the IRS, EPA, HHS, OSHA, NAHB, NHBC, and that's just at the National level, and is in no way exhaustive. For other businesses, the permitting process can be just as long and longer. There are countless impediments to creating and expanding business, let alone conducting the day to day work of the business, that many (like me) shy away from any thought of entrepreneurship.

Perhaps the Jobs Council should take a look at this article published by the Cato Institute, which describes regulation as the hidden tax on job creation. At the very least, the article exhorts the federal government to at least make their regulations clear and concise. As it is, you can spend years in a business and be shut down by a single audit, due to the confusing, arcane, and often contradictory regulations on the books. The contradictions range from one regulation agency contradicting another to a single agency contradicting itself.

It's no wonder job creation has stagnated and then plummeted. If by the regulations alone, it's amazing there are ANY jobs anymore.

I did write, I swear!

I have vowed to write something of substance every day, and I have largely succeeded at that, with the exception of yesterday. You may ask, "Why, then, is today's post so short?"

First, I wrote some fiction, which I will not post here yet. Second, today's short essay was full of spoilers for the latest Doctor Who, and I don't want anyone who is following me here and may not be completely caught up to accidentally spoil the heck out of an awesome Season Six. Thus, if you ARE caught up, or if you don't care about spoilers, you can find a quick essay debating some of the intricacies of Doctor Who and its mysteries in my comment on my friend Catie's website.

That is all. Something of more substance tomorrow.

Unemployment

You know. You've heard the statistics. You've read the reports. You are not unaware that we are "living in the worst economy since the Great Depression" (anyone else getting sick of that phrase?).

But I'm here to tell you, the facts do little to convey the truth, and they offer even less comfort.

At the end of the next month, I will have been officially unemployed for a full year. Considering my last job paid only $2000 for about six weeks of work and before that I was waiting tables, you could say I've been under-employed for much longer.

As I wrote earlier, I do love taking care of my home and being a bit of a housewife. However, at times it can be very, very hard not to contribute to the financial stability of my young family. I want to help pay off debt; I want to increase our savings. I desperately want to improve our credit ratings for when we want to buy a house or a new car.

And there doesn't seem to be a damn thing I can do about that.

I've been applying to jobs for months. I don't mean I've just been searching for the perfect job and lamenting that it doesn't exist, as some people have done. I mean I have applied for EVERY job in the past many months. That means everything from academic and policy jobs for which I am actually trained and qualified; that means mediocre secretary positions that I could do in my sleep; that means retail jobs that are hiring large groups of applicants.

Still nothing.

The jobs I'm over-qualified for are well aware of that fact, and they don't want to take the time to hire and train someone who's going to have at least one foot out the door, looking for something better. The jobs I'm qualified for are inundated with people just like me: over-educated, under-employed, and perfectly willing to accept less than we're worth.

I won't lie to you; it's incredibly frustrating. After a while you start thinking, maybe it's me. And in some ways, it really is. I am a less than ideal candidate as I lack the experience for the jobs I really want (they're all wanting 6-10 years plus the education), and I would be a horrible fit for the jobs I don't (I'd be bored, but happy just to have a job).

Some days are easier than others: I appreciate having the time to do my own thing and learn how to be a better cook and wife, and I love getting a chance to see my friends any time I want. Other days are worse: I feel like a leech on my husband as he works to support us both, and all of the things I use to fill my days feel trivial, silly, and a waste of time and money.

Today was one of the bad days. I was rejected in the first wave for one of the jobs I actually really wanted and spent days on the resume and cover letter. Then I spoke to my mother, who, in her worry and love for me, made me feel even worse. "I don't understand. You are too smart, you have plenty of experience, and you can do almost any job. You're the only person I know who can't get ANY job, lately. I know it may not be what you want, but you should be doing SOMETHING. Stop being so picky. Just get out there and get a job. You're not trying hard enough."

Ouch.

In my busiest application week, I sent out over 40 resumes, signed up at every temp agency in the area, and put up profiles at every networking site I could find. And nothing came of it.

My mother's reaction is understandable, though. I AM the only person in my circle of friends and likely her circle of friends who doesn't have anything. It seems ridiculous that I can find nothing.

It must be me, right?

Like I said, today was one of the bad days.

The World According to GM

Dan Akerson, CEO of GM had many things to say in his interview with Detroit News, published this morning. Naturally, none of them will likely endear him to you as they nearly turned my stomach. A few key points:

• The governments bailout of GM is "beginning to wear" on him and his company. He likens the billions of dollars and oversight the government has "pushed" on his company to a visit from the in-laws that has gone on too long.
• He's worried that government ownership of GM is driving his stock prices down. However he refused to state whether GM would actually buy back that stock from the government, paying the taxpayer back, but not to worry, because "[they] have a lot of cash." Even if they were to buy back that stock, at its current price, the bailout will still have lost over $12 billion.
• Also, don't worry about judging whether the bailout was a good thing or not. He's got you covered. "We are in the midst of transforming an iconic American company so 20 and 30 years from now (taxpayers) will look at this company and they'll say, 'Absolutely it was the right thing to do." We shouldn't evaluate the bailout on economic returns, because this was an "icon" we were saving. "It's a good feel good story."
• He thinks government can still do more for him and his by raising federal gas taxes. That will force consumers to purchase new and more efficient vehicles, providing economic incentive for his company to provide those same cars, without forcing them to with economic penalties. "You know what I'd rather have them do — this will make my Republican friends puke — as gas is going to go down here now, we ought to just slap a 50-cent or a dollar tax on a gallon of gas," Akerson said. "People will start buying more Cruzes and the will start buying less Suburbans."

So there you have it, folks. I kind of just want to throw this guy in the Detroit River and see if anyone would even think of saving him. Anyone with me?

Weinergate? Really?

Ok, just a quick note on this ridiculous political scandal.

Summary: Congressman Anthony Weiner accidentally tweets a crotch shot to all of his followers on Twitter when he meant to send it as a private message to a college coed in Washington whom he had never met before. The message immediately disappears, and Weiner insists that his account has been hacked. He hires a lawyer to "investigate" the matter, and the media grabs hold of the story. For days he insists that he had no knowledge of this message being sent, and he "cannot say with certitude" whether the crotch shot is of his package. Cut to today and Weiner admits he was lying all along. He's been actively sending intimate pictures to young women he meets on the internet.

There's only one real reason this is a scandal at all. He lied about it and tried to hide it.

Who cares about a guy flirting online with girls? Really, only his wife should care about that. But it became a matter of national fascination because he tried to hide it. Seriously, if the guy had just admitted, "Yeah. That was me. I made a mistake of indiscretion. I owe my wife an explanation, but it's of no concern to you" the whole matter would have gone away without much ado.

Instead he insisted he had been hacked, which happens to be a federal crime, and tried to cover the matter up with much blustering. That only instigates investigation by intrepid bloggers and journalists. If they didn't think there was something to discover, if everything had just been laid bare, there wouldn't have been much attention, and there wouldn't be a scandal.

Seriously, who is coaching these politicians? In the age of camera phones, traceable data, and almost no privacy, the worst thing you can do is deny, deny, deny, because chances are, someone's got proof that you're full of it.

Renting Versus Buying

Sadly it's been too long since I've posted anything. I could easily use the excuse that I was out of town for my one year wedding anniversary (woot!), but that is a disingenuous excuse. I didn't go out of town until this last weekend, and I've had plenty of time both before and after that to post anything. I swore I would do better with this attempt at blogging (and husband scolded me for not updating), so mea culpa. Renewed efforts and all that.

So I've been pondering a major debate for all newlyweds and young professionals, and thought I would do so transparently and systematically here. I've been debating the age old question of whether tis better to suffer the slings and arrows ... no wait, wrong venue. Whether to rent or buy. Yeah, that's it.

You see, my husband and I are have been living together for about four years now. (Quick math majors, how many years of living in sin? Riiight.) We've moved from the top two floors of a house to a two story townhouse to a large two bedroom apartment. To some this may seem like we're moving backwards; you're supposed to move from tract housing to condo to townhouse to house, right? But we've maintained roughly the same rent--if anything it's gone up-- and square footage--from 950 square feet in the house to 1,400 square feet in the townhouse. We've lived quite comfortably with progressively nicer amenities and locales. I think we've done quite nicely.

Lately, though, I've been feeling pressure from my family and others to start looking into buying a house. After all, it's the buyer's market! We should be stocking money away so we can buy a cute little home to have our babies in.

I feel the allure. I do love living in a house with land. I want a fireplace and a front porch and a driveway and a backyard. I want the space to live without worrying if my high heels on the floor are bothering my neighbors. I want to be able to blast the music without having to worry about waking up the toddler next door.

My hesitation is whether we need to buy a house to get what we need. I think renting a house provides all of the benefits without the drawbacks of home ownership. Consider this article: Economics 21 Renting v. Buying. The article discusses that while the perception is that, beyond being the "American Dream"-- I thought that was starring in your own reality show or getting a gold medal or becoming president--home ownership actually holds fewer actual benefits than purported. We might get mortgage tax benefits and the like, but in the end, the overall economic benefits of home ownership fail to trump the benefits of renting.

While the common wisdom is that renting is just throwing money away, when you could be "investing" that money in home ownership, the truth is, both schemes involve handing money over. Consider that even if you buy a house, unless you are buying it directly with cash, you are always renting in some capacity: "The choice is between renting the property directly or instead renting the capital necessary to buy the property." The majority of the money you pay off on your mortgage, toward "home equity", is just an "added expense that renters don't have."

And that home equity is not the only added expense that home owners have. They have to pay for all repairs out of pocket, and all services such as gas, water, and trash pickup are added expenses each month. Most rental companies will include these services and repairs in the price of the rental. Home owners also must usually buy all of the appliances in their home, whereas most rentals include these with the house. Further, few homes provide the amenities that apartments or even townhome rentals provide, such as pool and gym access.

So why buy? If you want to live in a house, why not just rent? The costs-benefit analysis on a purely economic scale favors renting, unless you can pay outright or are likely to stay in the home far beyond the length of the mortgage. So why do so many still buy their homes?

For me, I guess it would be the sense of being settled, of finally fully belonging somewhere and having it belong to you. Any changes you make to the property are fully your choice and responsibility. You are less likely to pull up roots and move. You have more of a sense of security (assuming you can make the payments continuously and don't have the threat of foreclosure over your head as so many do these days).

What else? Why do so many of us want our own homes?

Intelligence vs. Identity

Sometimes, (Okay a lot of times) I feel I let people down. I'm not living up to my potential or I'm not doing all I could or I'm not succeeding in the ways that people think I should. These people I'm letting down are sometimes vague and sometimes quite specific. Sometimes it's my parents. My mother thinks I should be the President of the United States's speech writer (so long as it's not a Democratic President). My father is less specific in his desires for me, but he's constantly pushing me to have a "real" job (though, hell, that's sort of what I want most days!).

Sometimes the people are less specific. I'm letting down my high school teachers, my college professors, my grad school mentors (did I have many of those?). I'm not as far as I should be, not as successful as I should be, not as rich as I should be, not as famous as I should be.

I was told all through my childhood, adolescence, and subsequent young adulthood that I would go far, because I was "just so smart." Of course that signified I was meant for "great" things. Granted, no one ever specified or even hinted what these great things were (aside from my mother; she's always been very specific about me being a speech writer), so I was left to fumble my way through exploring what these great things might be. Hell, I went through about six majors before settling on something I really enjoyed studying. But what the hell are you supposed to do with a major in government and philosophy?

Grad school! But of course. Waste some more time trying to figure out what "great things" you're supposed to be doing while studying something you really and truly fell in love with. Alas, grad school is not very good about giving you direction for your passions. Even fewer grad schools are good at fostering your passions for a subject; rather they choose to bury that passion in bureaucracy, politics, and immaturity, though that is a rather long blog post for another occasion).

So what am I supposed to do with all of this alleged potential? Aspire to ruling the free world? Just contribute to those who would? Try for some great moneymaking job that means little to me? Fulfill my obligation to the world?

Ugh. The whole though bothers me: that I owe something to everyone else in the world because I have an undefinable potential. What does that even mean? Sure, I'm fairly intelligent; but so many I know are far more so than I am. Yes, I sometimes have a creative mind; but plenty of people have better ideas than I do. Okay, I have fairly widespread experience, connecting me with a number of people who do "big" and "important" things in the world.

But what does that have to do with me?

I have no aspiration to working in politics. I find the field disgusting with leeches and bloodsuckers. The mess offends most of my values and almost all of my sensibilities for fairness and justice. I don't care about making tons of money. Sure, I'd like to be comfortable and provide for my loved ones, but not by accepting just any position. I like the idea of making a difference in the world with my research, but I'm not about to compromise my self worth by slaving for an uninterested tenured professor for years just in the hopes that my articles reach a few dozen people.

Surprisingly, I've found significant enjoyment in what I'm doing. No, I haven't found a job yet. I'm acting as a great housewife. :)

I've spent the last week or so cleaning, organizing, and making my house a generally wonderful place for my husband to come home to.

I know! It's crazy. After all of my researching, studying, working, I have found my greatest fulfillment in the last several years in making a wonderful home for my family. I've written publishable articles, run a political campaign, and revamped a company's strategic program. I've been successful by many measures in most of those, but they've not given me the satisfaction that my latest job has.

I'm a housewife. And I sort of love that. I've found an identity in creating a home over the past year. Now as I'm about to celebrate a year of marriage with my best friend, I'm starting to become attached to my role as wife. I've learned how to cook; I've adapted recipes and seek out new ones all the time to have the best dinner for James when he comes home. I find satisfaction in a clean house; I feel better about my organized home than I did about several papers in grad school. And I love giving my husband somewhere happy, safe, and comfortable to come home to every day.

I still want a job of some sort, as I want to help contribute to savings before we have a kid (I want to buy a house and start college funds, and all that good stuff). But I don't think any of that will ever really define my success, as I thought I would. No matter what potential there might be for great success out there in the world, I don't owe anything to anyone else. I think I've found more identity in my current role as wife and homemaker than I have in any other role. And I'm great with that.

A Writer's Confession

Seriously, what is wrong with me?

I have all the time in the world. I have ideas and outlines. I have a story. I even know what words I want on the page next.

But I'm not writing.

It's worse than that. I can't even bring myself to open the document that houses the work I've done. It's like I'm paralyzed.

And I don't understand it.

I left grad school in part because it was taking me away from some of the things I wanted to do, namely writing. (Rest assured there were very many other reasons, not least of which was the lack of support and guidance within my department.) But it's been two years, and I have a little over 52,000 words? Almost every single one of those useless words was written during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) this year. (I wrote close to 30,000 words last NaNoWriMo, but I've either thrown them out or recycled them in this year's rewrite of last year's novel). Maybe it was the structure, or the deadline, or the accountability to something bigger than me, but the NaNoWriMo project spurred me to do what eleven months of the year cannot.

What have I written since then? The beginning of a chapter. Six times. The same chapter. Every time I sit down to write (in a notebook with a colorful pen, because I still can't bring myself to open my novel file), I feel I have a better way to start the chapter, or I doubt too much the previous attempt, or I just feel it's easier to start again and capitalize on my momentum into the middle of the chapter. The middle never comes.

I give up. I stop writing. I avoid it like the plague.

What's wrong with me?

I can't even really call it writer's ("writers' "? "writers"?) block, because I know what comes next. I'm just not writing it.

Maybe it's fear. Fear that finishing the novel will mean having to begin the rewriting/editing process? No, it can't be that, because I love editing. Fear that I will eventually have to show people the novel? No, because Daniel has been reading it all along in its incredibly rough and unfinished state. Fear that I'll have to send it out to agents and publishers and get rejected? Doubt it. After the demoralizing job search of the past, oh, nine months, I think I'm getting pretty damn used to rejection.

Why? Why can't I just write?

It's not that I dislike writing. I love it! It's easily one of my favorite things in the world. The feel of creation, of stringing together thoughts to manufacture something new, is exhilarating! I even love the hard part of finding that perfectly elusive word that completes the most nuanced though. Of balancing clauses. Of combing through for mistakes. Of taking a single sentence or paragraph and molding it, shaping it with tones and voice, and just making it fit more perfectly on the page.

But I'm just not writing lately, and it's killing me.

The funny thing is, though, since I began writing this little blog post, I've actually opened my novel file. I've actually contemplated writing in that rather than finish writing this confession. Maybe I just have a pathological inability to finish things.

Might explain leaving grad school before I got my PhD.

Nah, that's too harsh on myself. Even for me. And I love to beat up on myself! (Too fat. Not talented. Lazy. Not smart enough. Seriously stupid thoughts fill my head all the time, but I figure that's just natural.)

Any suggestions on how to actually write again? I'm going to try tonight, and maybe I'll succeed. Rest assured, though, I will go through this same struggle tomorrow and the next day. I would love to know any tricks anybody else uses for getting through this kind of struggle.

Frivolity of Hair Color Addictions

Note: Last post was so serious and political and such, and now I post on something completely trivial. Such is the state of my mind. Feel free to not read. I just feel like typing. :)

I think I've developed the redhead sickness. I'm addicted to getting my hair that perfect shade of red. Nothing seems bright or true enough without crossing into cartoon/comic villain land.

You see, naturally, I'm a blondish brown. It's a color declared "Ash blonde" or "Honey Wheat" on haircolor boxes. It's where blondes insist I'm a brunette, but brunettes refuse to acknowledge me as anything but a blonde. Suffice it to say, it's a very English/Irish peasant girl sort of color. Bah, here's a picture:

If you could just ignore the fact that I'm a little drunk in the picture (hey, it was Dragon*Con! And I was in costume!), I think it's a really good picture of my hair. See what I mean, though? Hard to classify as blonde or brunette. Neither group will have me.

So I've given up on trying to classify myself, and joined a much more fun group: the redheads! When I went off to grad school, I decided I wanted to experiment for the first time with my hair color and started dyeing (dying?) it. First I went for as dramatic a change as I could:

That's right. I dyed my hair black. It was quite dramatic, made my green eyes pop, but really upset my mother. I only kept it for a few months, and while I had fun with it, it just didn't suit me; I'm no Dita to pull off the blonde to black. So I decided I needed to transition back to light colors, went to a stylist (at Great Clips, natch) and asked her to move me in the right direction back to my natural color. She explained that to go from black to blonde/brown would damage the heck out of my hair, and suggested I try a color in between. I thought she'd suggest a nice caramel color, but instead she asked if I'd ever considered being a redhead. I laughingly explained that my then boyfriend (now husband) loved redheads, and I'd be up to try it. So she went for a nice shiny burgundy color.

I instantly fell in love. It was dramatic, it turned heads, and it made me feel like a true Scotch Irish girl. James drooled over it, my friends insisted it was so me, I was hooked. But my mother hated.

You see, my mother is a natural redhead. Copper hair, blue eyes, freckles EVERYWHERE. She said she just wanted me to embrace my natural color and stop playing around with my hair, but I think she liked being the only redhead in the family. So I went back to my normal color. I colored it my normal color, let it grow out, chopped off any residual treated hair, and thought that was it. But I missed being a redhead.

So about two years ago, I decided I was going back to red. But this time I'd find the perfect color for me. I scoured the boxes of color, looking for the one that was closest to my mother's natural color. I figured if I'm her daughter, and I have close to her coloring, then her hair color should work best for me. I grabbed two boxes (as my hair was quite long by then) and got to work.

It was perfect. It looked so natural. People came up to me in the grocery store regularly to comment on how beautiful my hair was, how it was such a gorgeous color, and was it real? Addiction begun.

Since then, I've regularly dyed my hair red. I've experimented with a couple of brands and shades to find the best one for me (L'Oreal Superior Preference, Intense Red Copper), and even planned my dyeing schedule to get just the right amount of fade for my wedding last year. I know how much it fades and when it needs to be refreshed to have the most vibrant color for special occasions.

Now here is the addiction. Even my perfect color has started to seem not quite "red" enough. It's too copper, too auburn, too ... brown. I start thinking it's just a normal brown with hints of red. It's not really "RED". I laughed at my friend Erica when she insisted her intensely red hair was too brown for her. What was she thinking? It's the most vibrant shade of red I'd seen that was outside of a box of Crayolas or comic books. But I think I understand now. Even the brightest shades I find in the drugstore are starting to seem too bland, too muddled, too ordinary.

See the great thing about being a redhead is being unique. You stand out. Even if you're sitting quietly in a corner at a party, you draw attention. If you're quiet, at least your hair is vivacious. And everyone knows redheads are crazy, in a totally good way, of course. But if you can pass for a brunette, if your vibrant hair color has faded, you feel faded, too.

You see? It's an addiction. I'm writing about the stimulating effects of hair color, for the gods' sake! And when the vibrancy/high fades, you start thinking of how to get that next coloring/high. I'm relying on my husband to keep me from crossing over into too much of the cartoon reds, and I'm relying on my fear of damaging my hair with too many chemicals to keep me from indulging this addiction too much. But am I alone? Am I the only one (besides Erica of course) who gets addicted to the silly, superficial, easy things?

Stomach Churning Parallels

A girl I went to high school with has recently posted on her Facebook page a long and detailed screen on gay marriage. This particular friend was a bit of a wild child in high school but had a spiritual awakening a few years ago. She has since become an incredibly devout Christian, and she seems happier in her life because of it. I'm very happy that she turned her life around so incredibly; she's gotten married to what seems like an incredible man, has a successful job, and recently discovered she is expecting her first child. I couldn't be more proud and happy for her.

However, with her spiritual and personal transformation has come some vehement and vociferous positions on political issues of the day. Last night she posted a series of status messages, which she later condensed into a note on gay marriage. Specifically, she has condemned gay marriage as something dangerous and inimical to the stability and morality of America. Normally, I would just ignore her posting and avoid the debate all together; few on either side do much to persuade the other side, and things just end up with everyone frustrated and nothing solved. Handing me scripture will do little to persuade me away from my position on equality and tolerance, and the social and medical statistics she brought up in her argument to explain why any homosexual relationship is inherently unstable and dangerous are countered by mounds of research, which she will likely discount.

So, in short, I wasn't much surprised to see her post her ideas on the issue, nor was I much surprised by the manner in which she defended her view (very respectfully and with much care to avoid bigotry as she understands it). She brings up the common arguments that so many on that side of the debate do: mother and father needed for a "stable" family, stronger childrearing in a traditional family, social order through monogamy, etc. However, I was surprised when I got to the following paragraph:

The law has already made several arguments in favor of marriage as solely between one man and one woman, generally because it recognizes that marriage is the most stable relationship for child rearing and therefore furthering the generations. Additionally, there is no legal “right” for homosexuals to marry anywhere in the Constitution, nor is it discriminatory. This is because homosexuals are not denied the right to marry, in fact, the can marry the same as anyone else in society, which is to say they can marry someone of the opposite sex. They are denied the right to marry someone of the same-sex, but this is not discriminatory, because everyone is denied this. This provision is extended to everyone in society equally. Consider a man who wishes to marry his sister. This privilege is denied to him because the law prohibits incest. But he cannot claim discrimination, because incest is prohibited for everyone. There is no special provision that discriminates against him; instead he is claiming a new right in contrast to the laws already approved by the whole society. And society is lawful in denying him his right to marry his sister.

This argument seems uneasily familiar. Let's try replacing some words to slightly alter the subject but not the object of the paragraph:

The law has already made several arguments in favor of marriage as solely between a man and woman of the same race, generally because it recognizes that marriage is the most stable relationship for child rearing and therefore furthering the generations. Additionally, there is no legal “right” for people of different races to marry anywhere in the Constitution, nor is it discriminatory. This is because individuals of different races are not denied the right to marry, in fact, the can marry the same as anyone else in society, which is to say they can marry someone of the same race. They are denied the right to marry someone of a different race, but this is not discriminatory, because everyone is denied this. This provision is extended to everyone in society equally. Consider a man who wishes to marry his sister. This privilege is denied to him because the law prohibits incest. But he cannot claim discrimination, because incest is prohibited for everyone. There is no special provision that discriminates against him; instead he is claiming a new right in contrast to the laws already approved by the whole society. And society is lawful in denying him his right to marry his sister.

I am a bit naive, because I thought this vein of thinking was mostly dying out in the younger generations. Some may still cling to a notion that separate can still be equal, but surely, we had learned the lesson of our parents. Surely this line of thought wouldn't carry over into the gay marriage debate.

But then I discovered I'm even more naive to think we had gotten through the worst of it when it even comes to race. Apparently there are almost as many people who want to outlaw interracial marriage again as those want to keep gay marriage illegal. A recent study in Mississippi shows that 46% of Republicans polled believe interracial marriage should be illegal. (The numbers for non-Republicans has yet to be released, but I worry the numbers might not be terribly different.)

I don't even know how to react to this. Disgust. Outrage. Denial. Devastation. Bewilderment. All have passed through my mind just writing this post. The other day I remarked to a friend about some backwards people having a problem with my happy and wonderful marriage, and she was bewildered as to why anyone could have a problem with me and James being married. James had to speak up and remind her that he was black and I white. My friend's reaction SHOULD be the norm. Why would anyone have a problem with anyone else being married to anyone else?

My Christian friend posted on her Facebook that it becomes her problem "because then my children will be taught in schools that marriage is between any people that love each other. And I don't value that. I don't agree." I wonder, does she a difference in these people in Mississippi explaining to their children that our president is neither black nor white but both? Does she have the same problem? The arguments share the same base, and have historically used the same arguments. They share stomach churning parallels, and it seems we've made little progress on either.

I just don't understand. I am at an utter, utter loss. I cannot comprehend the thinking that--no matter how much they protest it--is bigoted and full of ignorance that ACTIVELY resists knowledge. My god, my stomach churns.

Steampunk Parade: Final Act

Final costume in the steampunk parade! The last thing I will work on in my many steampunk costumes is the Adventurer. Everyone needs to have at least one costume true to the innovative explorer motif that runs through most steampunk novels. She needs to be spunky, assertive, and completely sure of herself, even in uncertain circumstances ... especially in uncertain circumstances.

So I'm going to do my final costume as an adventurer. I'm planning to use another Simplicty pattern as seen to the right. I'm probably going with the cropped saloon girl one, but not in those colors. What adventurer would be caught dead in teal and black? Likely, I'll go with a more rustic/lived in color. Again, here the fabric will depend on what I can get a good deal on, what fits the time period, and what fits within the character. In brief ... I'll let the character decide what fabrics to use for her outfit.

I plan to make an undercorset to go over the dress that fits with the costume's color palette, but it may be expendable. Corsets take more time to make, so I may skip this. In that case, I will most likely make a harness like the one below.

I like that it fits around above her waist and serves almost as an undercorset, and then fastens again above her breasts up to her neck. It has an industrial feel and will allow for the attachments an adventurer will need: lantern, watches, compass, canteen, flask, etc.

I will add either high boots or leg bands, so I can cover some of the significant skin left by the short skirt of the saloon girl dress pattern.

But the last part is my favorite, and probably the hardest to make and/pr procure. I really want an aviator cap with goggles. If my adventurer wants to accomplish anything, she'll need goggles for her constant travelling in airships. I'm most inspired by the image below.

This is my least developed character and the one I'm least excited about. However, she could be the most fun to play, so cosplay as her and writing her short story might be the most enjoyable. We'll see. What do you think?

Picture copyrights/web locations:

*Simplicity 2851

*Dr Gearhead

*I cannot find this one again, but if anyone knows where it comes from, I'll gladly give credit!

Steampunk Parade Act Three

Copyright Yaya Han

I don't have permission to use her images,

but she is one of my idols in costuming, and

I would encourage everyone to go to her site,

buy from her store, and support what she does,

because I eagerly await anything she unveils at Con.

For my third steampunk outfit, I was planning on a relatively easy costume (especially after the sewing that the lady will take!). While it will look lush and exotic (if I do it right) the costume itself is really fairly easy. This one will be an exotic madam, proprietress of a thriving business of working girls. She caters to the whims of the wealthy with her girls from around the world. She is a bit amoral at times, but she is a first rate feminist, who will capitalize on the lot she has been given in life.

See? Told you I'd develop stories for the characters. This one will be a lot of fun to play. I can see myself assuming her character all day, and possibly acquiring her girls for the business throughout Con! :)

So, the costume. I guess I can say a bit about that one. Unfortunately the pattern for this one is a bit more than the others, but I already have the fabric I want to use, so yay there! The pattern is to the right and comes from Ageless Patterns and is called the Princess gown. The descriptions say it was worn over a "plastron" blouse and a "heliotrope faille" skirt. Because my character is a might scandalous, and this is steamPUNK, I will be wearing little underneath but a corset and some lace knickers, with fishnet stockings. Of course, you won't see much of that, but it will be implied. (Sad note, I could not think of that word, but I knew a great synonym was intimated. This is what I get for reading and writing too much fantasy! Or from teaching... I choose the vocab word over the obvious one.)

For the fabric, I plan to use one of the several Chinese brocade fabrics I have been holding on to. I have a black and white with red silk screening, a pale green with darker green, and one I can't remember without going to dig it out, and seeing as I'm lazy and drinking wine on the couch while watching the newest Camelot series, which is turning out pretty good, I'll skip that one for now.

Since I'm going to use an Asian-inspired fabric for the dress, I will use steampunk elements in the accessories. I want to design a collar choker necklace with lots of beads to mimic the high necks of lots of Victorian wear, but leaves a bit of skin showing. I'll likely incorporate a few gears into this as I have available. I'll wear high buttoned up or laced up boots with my fishnets and almost assuredly a top hat with veil and feathers. If I can find a suitable pair of eyeglasses to go with it, I'll add those, but I don't see them as necessary.

Ideas? Criticisms?

Picture credits:

*yayahan.com

*Ageless Patterns

The Steampunk Parade Continues

My second costume for the steampunk parade will be a lady about town. This one will be more Victorian in inspiration than punk, and I need to develop a stronger backstory and name for this character. Who knows, maybe in the future I'll post some short stories to further develop the creative outlet in this costuming. But for now she's just a lady about town.

This costume will be very piecemeal, using several different patterns and alterations to achieve the look I want. I will start with another Simplicity pattern. This pattern was designed to take special advantage of the creativity and the DIY-ness of the steampunk community, and frankly, I rather like the basic design of the pattern. However, I'm planning to make significant changes.

First, my favorite element of it is the front fasten jacket that buttons just underneath the breasts and falls back into tails. But it needs a bit of work. The front will mostly remain the same, though I may alter the sleeves a bit. I have not decided on a fabric, but I'm thinking something lush and rich looking but that I can find for a reasonable price. Maybe I'll do it in a nice navy blue, possibly with even a bit of a sheen to it. We'll see what I can find on sale, and work around that.

I plan to alter the tails though. So far the back seems to just fall voluminously down the back of the dress. I want something more. I want a bustle like you can see to the right. This means altering the front edge of the bottom of the jacket, adding a bustle to turn it into more of a traditional polonaise than a simple jacket with tails.

Instead of the bustier from the pattern I plan to wear a full corset top underneath. I haven't decided (again) what fabric exactly I will use here. I'll choose something to compliment the fabric I choose for the jacket. Either way, I prefer the cinched full corset, best. This will give me more of the tight Victorian hourglass without disrupting too much of the ladylike feel of the full jacket and skirt.

Speaking of the skirt, I at first wanted to do a fantail or mermaid skirt, but James has mostly talked me out of that. One, it will make the bustle just a bit too much for the skirt. Two, it would betray the aesthetic of the more formal full skirt with the polonaise, and I want this to be a very regal lady costume. The fabric may be the same as my jacket, but I may choose something contrasting like above with the white and black. Ooh, that's a fun idea. Maybe do a white and black striped corset with white and black contrasting jacket and skirt... I don't know. Any ideas??

As for the accessories, I'm thinking either a cameo necklace on a ribbon or with extravagantly designed choker collar. And a hat! I don't know if I want to do a tophat with feathers as I've done in the past or attempt something a bit more extravagant. (I hope we're gathering the theme here is extravagance!)

The image to the upper left is a good example of what I would do to develop my top hat further, and would fit the outfit better. The one below is the larger more extravagant version. Of course I could do it without the single large feather and instead adorn with many small feathers, a number of silk flowers that fit the design of the dress. Or I could do something with just a fascinator. I really haven't decided yet. :)

Anyway, that's mostly the extent of my upperclass lady costume. Any ideas for a name? A backstory? Any suggestions might help me figure out more of the details for the costume. I'm starting to think new money; maybe she just married a wealthy inventor type, knows nothing about technology but thrives on the proceeds of her husband's genius. She loves to go to the opera and take transatlantic zeppelin rides, but hates what the wind up there does to her fabulous hats. Approval? :)

Picture Credits:

*recollections.biz

*Fashionable Lifestyle

*Homey Living

The Steampunk Parade

After several days of research, I've picked out several of my costume patterns for Dragon*Con this year. All of them I have planned so far are going to be Steampunk characters that I will be fleshing out more completely over the coming months. As for the designs, I promised Erica I'd lay them out in detail here, but if you're not interested, just ignore what follows. I'll be linking to the patterns I'm using as well as pictures of adjustments. I haven't chosen my fabrics yet, but those will follow soon. :)

First and foremost is the costume I am most excited about. If I complete nothing else, I will be making this fully and perfectly. I'm doing a Steampunk version of Tinkerbell.

Copyright held by ~irobert

I've wanted to do this for a while, and since I did almost no costumes last year, due to getting

married earlier in the summer, I look forward to doing something challenging. I will be using a pattern from Simplicity in a military green khaki as my base. I will use a shorter skirt and thinner straps. I plan to wear an undercorset (a variation bridging the gaps between this, this and this) over that with harness that fit back to hold up my wings.

The wings are the difficult part and will definitely take the longest to create. I have several ideas of what to try. If you saw the third link for the undercorset, you saw a version of steampunk wings. Unfortunately, those are not fairy wings in any way. They're too feathery, too bulky to be fairy wings. Tinkerbell has very light, translucent wings. But how does one make that steampunk?

Here are two images I found that are adaptable. Again they are too heavy, but replacing the substance of the wing with some lighter fabric. I like the span of the wings on the far left, but fear they're too batlike in design. The wings on the near left have the coolest mechanism at the joint, which I would happily duplicate (though I don't have the engineering ability to make them work), but the wings themselves are also too heavy while still looking insubstantial. If anyone has any clue on how to do fairy wings with a steampunk bent, I would really appreciate the help!

I'll wear either knee-high, lace-up boots or spats that extend to my knees, but on whichever I choose, I'll affix tiny bells to it, so I jingle when I walk. In addition, I think I'll add a utility belt with tools and gadgets so I can be a true "tinker." Finally, I think I will use a blonde wig with a geared and belled headdress like the one to the right.

And I think that's about it. That's my first costume: "Tinker"Bell.

Any comments will be appreciated! :)

Picture Credits:

*Deviant art

*Xevian Industries

*Flickr.com

*Adiene(Krista Holewinske) Beautiful work!