Clinging

Why do we cling? Security seems like it should be such a simple thing, but I'm not sure if it really exists.
I feel like I'm clinging, and yet at the same time barely hanging on...I think maybe I've been watching Apocalypse Now too much lately.
Clinging to a huge wheel, desperately clinging because if you fall off it will crush you.
I see crushed people all around me, the consequences of that turn of the wheel. Wizened, scrawny people with hard eyes and no hope, begging with a cardboard sign.
I'm going to try and stave it off as long as I can, but I'm horribly resigned to the idea that sooner or later I'll join them.

The BC foot mystery continues

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/latest-foot-to-wash-up-in-bc-was-probably-male-shows-no-sign-of-trauma/article2148021/

There have now been 8 disembodied feet washed up on the shores of BC and Washington, the majority male, all still in trainers. They say there has been no sign of trauma, but really, doesn't anyone think this is a little odd?

Richard & Rachel

Richard & Rachel are my new bunnies, from the VRRA http://www.vrra.org/wp-beta1/ bunny sanctuary.
They're brother and sister and they were the longest residents of the shelter at 4 years. Their entire family was dropped off in a box in a park, and they both have respiratory problems from being in damp outdoor hutches (a lot of the sanctuary bunnies have that problem). I'm trying to give them the best life possible.
Richard likes to explore and has a cough like a 90 year old cigar smoker (the white Himalayan). Rachel is a little pig but very very shy and scared of people. She doesn't even like to be looked at, so I made them a cushion cave and bought them one of those furry cat tunnels. Their only interest in me is a provider and cleaner, and otherwise they just want me to stay out of the way.
I can hardly blame them.
Right, Richard is giving me that 'more food please' look, and I'd better do their litter. I like being a slave to bunnies :)

Divorced, or nearly

I'm just about to become a divorcee. I find it very strange that I never thought I would be. It's not like my parents haven't both been divorced, from each other and then from others. So why did I actually believe in being married?
It would be so nice to actually be able to trust someone for once in my life, and I guess that was the appeal. I'm not sure why marriage = trust in my mind, but it did.
Oh well, it was an experience, just not one I ever want to repeat.

Fuck it, I shall spend the rest of my life painting spooky bunnies and writing never-to-be finished dark fantasy novels.

I miss my Henry bun

He was my bunny for 12 years; given to me by an ex-boyfriend, whose friend found him on the street outside a club as a baby. He was a big bunny and very bossy because I let him do whatever he wanted. He liked to eat books and dance with me, or play his dug dug game. He hated being picked up and cuddled but he loved pets behind the ears, and occasional squishing. He talked back with his ears a lot.
He died at the end of February this year, and I miss him so much. I dreamt that he was still alive last night, but sick, and I was giving him antibiotics.
I volunteer at the local bunny sanctuary, so I felt it only right to get more bunnies after he was gone. I have two now: Richard and Rachel. I'm glad I can give them a good home, and they are very cute, but I still miss Henry. I have a feeling I probably always will.

Strep Throat

I just got a new job, and 3 weeks into it I got strep throat with an added ear infection. Then the antibiotics I was given made me puke. They gave me different antibiotics, which made me puke and really dizzy. I went to hospital. They gave me gravol to counteract the nauseau. It does, but it makes me too sleepy to work.
Honestly, you'd think that a capitalist society would've figured out a way to allow me to be sick but still productive. This sucks.

Babylon's Burning

Every time I read or see the riots in London, this song by the Clash pops into my head.
Remember being in the Brixton Riots back in, what, 1986? Cops burst into a house and shot a crippled Jamaican grandmother in her bed, the lastest in a line of racially divisive police shootings. Brixton exploded.
I don't blame them. I don't blame them for the looting either: these are people who know already, even in their teens, that this society offers them no future. It's a perfect counterpoint to the mayhem going on in the markets while nation's leaders promise to pay off debts with these people's lives.

This society is a powder keg right now, and the Police seem to have lit the fuse.

Crumbling Society

I find things scarier and scarier. I hate the US and everything they stand for, but I don't hate ordinary Americans, and they're the ones who are going to pay the price for this.
China is going to be interesting. Some in the US scoff, but they forget their history. China really is the oldest nation in the world still going, and for them, this must have a sense of coming full circle. And, horribly, they're in a better position because they're not a democracy. Its hard to see such a thing as the Tea Party existing in China: theyd either be taken out and shot or would succeed in a coup. Either way has more stability than their constant obstruction and nagging in the US.
I have never believed in western democracy really, I'm an anarcho-socialist at heart, but I will be sad to see it collapse in favor of dictatorship or a new extreme-right war machine.
I think thats the scariest thing; that Ive read about conditions like this - the great depression, the rise of the right, the need for war as a way of restarting the global economy. I feel in my gut that a lot of people are going to die in suffering over the next couple of decades.
And jesus, don't even get me started on climate change and our lack of sustainability as a species. From the planet's point of view a nice big die off might be a good thing...nukes aren't that big a deal from a geological perspective....

Beyond a certain level of blithe insanity

I just read an article in Time magazine about the US debt, and it said that someone aged 35 would have to save $700 a month to have enough for retirement if the US is downgraded. It made me laugh because it was so tragic; you're talking about a country where millions of people don't even have a job.

Watching the Decline and Fall of the US

I love reading about Roman history. I've read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire many times. It worries me endlessly that I see a pattern in the latest developments in the US. I never thought I would see the disintegration of the US in my lifetime, but then I guess the fall of the USSR was unexpected at the time too. The US' deaththroes are just a lot more public.

So many people are complacent about their chances, viewing the coming events with apathy or even glee. They seem to forget that the first thing to fall in a major recession is the middle class, who get pushed down into the ever growing pool of the unemployed.

Its the feeling of powerlessness which grips me. I have absolutely no voice in these events, and all I can do is watch in sorrow as the ruling class make decisions which will see the death and degradation of so many of us. I honestly don't think the US is going to survive this in its present form, and I am not arrogant enough to think that I will be one of the lucky ones to escape the fallout, even though I live in another country - Canada.