From some other emails in late July.
we are here in Berkeley with the countdown beginning. I(f) have to start school on the 14th and e begins work the 11th. I am a bit freaked out about this year and being in a public co-ed (AGAIN), competitive world. I haven't totally flipped out yet. e says this is because i am more clear headed about this, i am not so sure. I feel a bit unbalanced about/for everything and everyone i used to have passion... i feel like i continually get misunderstood and hurt people with my own feelings. maybe i am out of practice explaining myself. maybe i am irrational and demanding. maybe some of both. I think once my life is more structured everything will have balance again. but when everything seems to big to deal with and to unknown to predict... fear rather than reason dictates.
i love my little house, i love my way of life and i love the people in it.... maybe that is my biggest problem, realizing the fragility of things. when i see homeless people here i think, how far are any of us from that? what if everyone who loves us were gone... who would be our support? why are people so hateful, just buying and competing, telling everyone else how to run their lives and getting their way only via their pocket books? i feel like such a consumer some days, so shallow, why do things cost so much? why is there stuff in all our food that we are not supposed to eat? why do the corporations really need so much more money? what if we had products cost determined by a sliding fee scale? how about a sin- tax on SUV's... oh come on, they have gotten to be to much. we make smokers pay up front for the money we will put in to getting them fixed when they get sick. what about making the SUV owners pay now for what we will need to fix the environment and all the people who dies in crashes (as if there is any price on this)? and why do i dig through the trash to recycle more when people in the south don't even have recycling!! and apparently whenever you don't like a politician now you can just have him/her recalled! sure, i lost the first time but i can afford another shot so let me try again for no damn reason at all. yeah, that will only cost 30 million when i am campaigning on how to fix the troubled economy... tax breaks for big business.... yeah sure... worked for GW and his cronies.
i hate all these loosing battles that make me hate the world.
The interesting thing is, although it may not look like it all the time, e and I have become more aligned politically. She’s moving left and I am moving right (things look less black and white every day)… we just resort back to our old ways when we are afraid, i think. but you should see it... it is really something.
e's working at UC Berkeley in a molecular and cellular biology lab doing all sorts of fun research on the cytoskeleton and actin. (if you can follow this, you are ahead of 90% of the world including me) it should be an excellent fit. (certainly the best one of the jobs she interviewed for) she can take classes, have a rather flexible schedule in a laid back environment, is close to home, the two of us have the same holidays, etc. this might even get her a boost if she decides she wants to go here for grad school.
E's musings on berzerkly-land:
I have found that when I have an appointment with somebody they are rarely on time, instead they are 15 minutes late and claim i was early. I just haven't gotten used to it. The homeless people are all vegetarian and a few times when i have tried to do my good deed for the day by buying them a sandwich with some meat in it for protein I have been turned down. There are always 20 somethings wandering around with dreads smelling of patchouli oil and pot. they are usually breaking the parking meters and the cops walk right by because if they say anything to them there will be more protests than there were here during the 60's . Then you have the professors and the people who are rich, but want to feel bohemian. They live in little craftsman bungalows, with little backyards and park their BMW's and Range Rovers on the streets and leave them unlocked. Their kids leave their toys all over and have no fear of anything being stolen. They wear linen pants and shop at whole foods market just so that they have the paper bags to put in their recycling for everybody to see that they buy organic. If they were so concerned about the environment they'd bring their own cloth bags to the market like the rest of us. The dogs go into the grocery stores and the dog park doesn't have a fence around it because when they tried to put one up the residents had major problems feeling like the park was more like a prison. I live in a very small condo that cost more than both of my parents homes in Minnesota and my neighbor freaks out whenever i accidentally put something in the garbage that can be recycled. I'm not talking about a can or a newspaper, I mean like the top of a yogurt container or tin foil from a burrito. The woman upstairs doesn't appear to understand that when the rules say "do not leave your shit in the common areas" that they mean HER shit. But, the other residents haven't wanted to say anything to her because she has a garden in the backyard which has some pretty flowers in it and they don't want to upset her. Plus, she is a single mother so, again, her shit doesn't stink.
Despite all of this, I wanted to go to cal as an undergrad and even though i know it wouldn't have been the right place for me then, it is the right place for us now. I take a long time to adjust to a new place and fee comfortable. I know that eventually i will never want to leave and I am sure i will find my niche, but right now it's not the easiest thing i have ever done. I don't know EXACTLY what neighborhoods are safe to walk in at night and where the best (and cheapest) sushi is located (at least within 6 blocks of my house). I haven't found a taqueria that makes burritos that can even come close to the ones near my old home. but i have tried 4 (again within 6 blocks) so i am on my way to finding the closest replacement.
The weather is the one thing that I have actually come to love here. I wake up to fog every morning, by about noon it burns off and by 2 it's maybe 65 or 70 and then it's cold again by dark. last night it even rained a little. The rain is something that I missed when I was going to school in so cal (and even when it does rain there, the sky is red and everything smells like nasty wet blacktop). I am sure by the time I leave nor cal i will be sick of the rain. I can't see myself ever not enjoying the rain, but i am sure after I have to walk to work in it everyday for a few months i will be hoping for a reprieve.
