First steps

Our final week before taking our first really big step toward living more sustainably and more proactively with all that's going on in the world.

Moving to Ely from Las Vegas does feel like a very proactive move, at least to me. Less of our energy (work) will go toward the same expenses (rent, utilites, gasoline, etc.) We'll have more energy and time to put toward learning the million things we need to learn in order to be prepared for the difficult times that I can smell coming.

It's such a daunting, overwhelmingly huge task to think about preparing for what could very well be a total upheaval. Dick Cheney said something once along the lines of 'the American Way is nonnegotiable.' That statement is so startlingly arrogent it's hard to know where to start. Is our vice-president honestly suggesting that American over-consumption--using far far more than our fair share--is non-negotiable?

It seems to me that Americans have lost their sense of rebellion. There is this prevasive mindset that has caught most of us up--the idea that the individual person can't make a difference. It doesn't matter if I take the bus, since everyone else is driving SUVs. It doesn't matter if I eat organic, since the majority of food sold in my grocery store is still conventionally grown. Why should I recycle when there are only a tiny handful of bins out in my neighborhood on recyling day?

What we need is a movement. Organization. We need to make it cool to live a different way. And for God's sake, we really need our leaders to stop suggesting that change is actually unamerican. Our president has been saying over and over that limits on emmissions won't happen--that the ingenuity of a few will save us all. Hogwash. We're in this together. It will take the ingenuity of our entire nation to fix things here--and the rest of the world will notice, and with any luck, follow suit.

I got a call today about a job interview in Ely, for a position as a special education teacher's assistance. The pay isn't fantastic, but the benefits are, and that's important since Kevin's job doesn't offer any. The interview is Friday--keep your fingers crossed for me, eh?