Third-World Currency

*Images available in upcoming draft

Once upon a time, in a magical notion known as a good economy, I believed that my education would keep me on the, "giving" side of life.   I worked two jobs through high school, and invested in Honors opportunities to turn the scholarship coin as well.  If anything is worth wealth, it's a strong, diverse education.

In my youth, I decided to become an international attorney so that I could provide legal services to those in need in an effort to ensure that basic human rights would prevail.  I was fueled by my high school experiences of writing for Amnesty International, volunteering in soup kitchens, and working with friends  to raise money for Somalians; but it wasn't enough for me.

In the mid-nineties, between high-school and college, I made the physical shift to Haiti, helping to re-build a fallen culture.  I wasn't saddened by the heartache I saw, but idealistically strengthened in the fact that I could help a people reinvent their country post-Papa Doc.

I was more determined than ever to empower those who had been trampled by economical hard comings brought on by political lack of judgment.

I carried my convictions with me that fall, when I began my undergraduate studies in foreign languages and cultures, as well as in (government centered) philosophy.  To finance my education, I worked primarily with international students in a writing center where I learned that my passion was not in politics on the grand-scale, but in people on an individual basis.

I decided to become a teacher and, after more education, taught literacy and writing for the next dozen years.  I worked with students age 13 to 21 with varying cultural, religious, and language backgrounds, as well as those who had learning disabilities or special needs, finally finding my niche with those considered, "at-risk".

It was at this point in my career when strange things began to happen.

Specialized programs were being cut.  Curricula vitae began to look more like "Big Brother" was designing them.  Classroom size grew while teacher population shrank, and employees were sent to "The Silver Chair" coming back "Stepford" or not at all.

Public-service jobs in general began to disappear, as did community activities, and hours to public services.

Within months, major chains of minimum-wage employers were letting go of full-time employees, relieving them from access to healthcare benefits.  The idea that any job is better than no job at all turns a blind idea that, in instances of being the only source of a family's income, it likely means the demise of physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing.

Whats more, the recent tax increase has totaled, rather than simply dented, the income of those Americans fortunate enough not to have been affected by the aforementioned situational troughs.

Although this glimpse into our economy reminds us that we are in a recession, the facts that follow tell more than that.  These dire bullets to our way of life mimic patterns that historically warn us of oncoming depression.  Though easily dismissed as conspiracy theory, the fact that even Wall Street's big banks are gearing up for yet more layoffs show that it is an imminent possibility.

Not only has our economy decimated lower and middle class America, but it's demise is creeping upward into the jobs had by those who may believe themselves to be "safe" from such destructive forces.

I believe in the good of humanity, but I've seen first hand what happens when a Nation's people don't stand up for their rights; what happens when a nation gives up on itself, when the power of the people submits to inactive bitching, hiding behind ignorance and blaming a singular individual without looking into the deeper issues at hand.

And so I challenge you.  If you're pissed about what's happening to our country, find out what's adding to its downfall.  Just do it before its too late.

Dead. Lines.

As someone who thought she hated to write my whole life, you'd never know it for the miles of personal writing I've done since a blue-eyed, black-haired, blues-playing, coffee-selling, way older than me (by like, two grades!) wrote in a journal, shared his poetry with me, and impressed me with the fact that he would actually bother writing down something as lame as he had.  (Keep in mind, this was back in the nineties when it was ok to be bad.  We were; after all, coming off out hair-band obsession where we  confused tonguing the air with musical lyricism.)

It was an epiphany.  I could write.

No.

I could write BADLY!!!

And it wouldn't matter because nobody had to read it!  I was liberated!  This boy (who made it into my yearbook because the superlative was due during the month I was obsessed with him... never even kissed me, the bastard!) -had made it possible for me to write without judgment or guilt or fear!

And so it began.  For the next twenty years, I wrote.  Safely for the most part.

Eventually I got good enough to prefer writing to other forms of testing.  A twenty page paper was no problem for me, as long as there were no blank lines to fill in with a letter or a word...

See, I can write; can physically, mentally, and emotionally write.

That is, unless its fill in the blank... give me say, a court docket, a financial affidavit, an application for something humiliating, and I simply can't do it.  I could write them as a chapter in a book or ace them as answers to an interview, but the lines!  Oh, the dead lines kill me!

I've decided, that this is why they are called dead lines.

They leave me dead.  Like an arrow through the temple dead.  The language jumps around, and I can't figure out how to answer the really hard questions; you know, questions like:

Last Name _____________  First _____________  M.  __"

or  

Date __________ (even if it's already filled in)

The lines are dead.  No heart beat.  No mountains to draw on or diagrams to plot, just dead lines.

I stare. I sit. I look. I pile.  I stack.  I line up my pens.  I clean my glasses.  I try to see what the paper means.  I sweat.  I get nauseous.  I hold my breath.  I'm dead.  Flat lined.  I can't do it.  The paper screams death.

So I look up.
And my writer's block clears up.

I can block-out scenes, create stories, develop characters, sketch plots, analyze literature, stagnate poems, tweet to volley ideas...  Essentially, I can write again.  And this time, not badly (or at least, not as badly.)

I just can't handle a single dead line.

I've been staring at paperwork that has to be done today for the past five hours in a restaurant, -and that's just today.  I avoided the house so I wouldn't clean.  I didn't bring a plug for my computer so I wouldn't write.  I sat in the hard chair and not their couch so I'd wouldn't be comfortable.

I think its time to give up with dead lines for now, otherwise I'll flatline, and I'd rather not do that.  Not when there are so many great ideas floating in my imagination waiting to be written out!  And now?  Home to where the plugs are.  Hey, I can't say I didn't try!