From the politics desk: A long time coming

Obama.

(What’s wrong with a fairy tale anyway?  I figured that I can’t be that cynical at 24.  What would that make me in thirty years? A Republican?)

 

From the music and behind-the-times desk: Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”

Okay, so I feel like I should have something coherent to contribute to vegetarianism discussion, seeing as how I’ve been a vegetarian since I was twelve (although I do eat fish, making my claim to vegetarianism shaky in many eyes). I’ve dealt with and contemplated many of those issues, including the strange hostility that merely saying “No thanks, I don’t eat meat,” tends to produce. However, I feel like I need to take a little more time before saying something…which segues nicely into my theme for the post, which is that I often find myself behind the times, pop-culture or literary-culture wise. I feel like my response-time functions just a little too slowly for this culture of ours sometimes.

Perhaps it’s my disinclination to seem like a bandwagon jumper, or simply laziness, or a superstitious tendency to let books and bands and movies and TV shows drift into my life, rather than taking a more pro-active approach, but I often find myself enthusing about something long after the cultural moment has peaked. Someone once pointed out that my bookshelf by my bed was full of “big books” from the 90s, as apparently I can only enjoy the literary bestsellers of 1998 in 2007.

 

Travel Report: New Jersey. “How you doin’?”

Over the holidays I spent almost two weeks in New Jersey, the land of my birth. Whenever I return to the east coast, I feel as if I have reached civilization. Although I pride myself on not being one of those uppity mofo’s from the east coast who believe nothing can exist outside the Northeastern bubble, I do feel as if I’ve returned to civilization when I see glitz and glamour of the Northeast corridor from my plane window. When my plane is descending into Newark and I peer out my window, I sigh a breath of relief upon seeing the lights of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings.

 

From the panic desk: new job

I’m not entirely sure when the ‘officially’ kicks in, but I am now employed. I haven’t started yet, but it is only a matter of waiting out the holidays. Which means that I have six whole days of cold sweats before I can once again restart my participation in the great American workforce.

It isn’t this job specifically that makes me nervous. It’s a job, one that I can do, and I’m not terribly worried about my performance. What will begin to keep me up at night is the fact that in less than a week I will be driving across town (variously, since the work site changes constantly) five days a week only to fight through traffic to come home at night to have just enough time to make dinner, accomplish two tasks, read a chapter, maybe ball my girlfriend, and go to sleep. Repeat, five of seven days per week.

Does this pattern get to anyone else? I’ve worked jobs like this before, but I’ve also spend enough time not working 9-to-5ers that I’m not accustomed to it. People like to sneer at me when I start to talk like this, and say things like “Welcome to the real world.” And they’re right, of course.

But I’m still terrified.