This is Real Life, and This...is Real Christmas

I used to love Christmas time. The holiday season would start as my family woke up to Macy's Christmas parade, and the smell of turky in the oven. The family would gather around a huge southern meal and then press repeat as we trotted over to my Granny and Paw's house to enjoy another gorge fest. Then, shortly after, and in some rare occasions, on the same day, I would celebrate my birthday by shaking and tearing off pieces of wrapping paper from birthday presents that sat under our already decorated Christmas tree. After my birthday, the countdown for Christmas was on, and a good indicater that we were getting close came in a large, brown UPS box from Pensylvania. My brother and I would wage war against our parents and make peace pacts in order that mom and dad would allow us to delve into the large box that contained our Christmas presents and homemade Christmas cookies from our Northern Grandmother and family. Once that brown UPS box was devoured, the days were numbered for when Christmas day would arrive with all it's magic and splendor. Our house was filled with warm smells of cookies, and delicious Christmas treats, the sounds of Christmas carols, and laughter from Christmas movie marathons.

Now, I'm an adult with two real adult jobs and to say that the magic and spirit of Christmas have been stripped from my life is a slight understatement. I have to work two jobs--it's the only way my bills, and more importantly, that nagging student loan get fed. Recently, my job has taken away our holiday days, and has left me unable to go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. With no days, and an ever shrinking budget, finding the financial means to take an upaid day off from work, plus buy everyone presents has been more than I can handle. People at work talk about going to the mountains for Christmas to open presents, or about attending holiday parties with copious amounts of food and alcohol (the new, adult spirit of Christmas) but I can't find myself being excited about any of it. I miss my magical Christmas with my family, and if I can't have that, then I might as well not have Christmas at all.

Now, at 30, my apartment shows no resemblance of Christmas, and those classic tunes and television shows that I once cherrished are no longer splashed across my television screen for weeks before the big day. Instead, I've come to realize how possible it is for people to truly disregard the season. There are pressures to go home--going home, when you can't afford it, there are pressures to buy people nice gifts and reflect your success when you hang out with family you haven't seen all year, and then even the stress of facing those in your family who have long since disregarded you.

Christmas for me was never about the material, it was about my family, the festivities, and the magic. It's been 13 years since that brown cardboard box come from Pensylvania, but this is the first year that the magic is gone for me.

It's All Excess in Capitalism and the American Fair

 

It's been a good five years or so since I've graced the muddy, littered grounds of an American Fair. It's no surprise that such an event has long positioned itself as a great American Tradition because as soon as you walk through the gate you are fully immersed in the tantalizing scents of barbecue, smoked turkey legs, funnel cakes, and endless fried candy concoctions. The bright, sparkling, and colorful lights of the carnival rides mesmerize and send people of all ages into hypnotic trances as they slowly, and zombiely walk around the grounds trying to figure out which piece of entertainment to take in first. And it truly is all fun and games--until you look around and see what the Fair has become, or better yet--what it represents.

I don't have to write to you about the time of extreme excess that we live in--it should be obvious. But then again, the very things I find to be obvious, really aren't so. Never-the-less, the Fair, in all it's modern glittering goodness, has historically always functioned as a capitalist space where laborers and trade merchants showed up to show off their animals and goods. Today, the fair has transformed into a showcase of excess--and I suppose, to some degree, fairs have always been about excess, but if our medieval ancestors could see us now, I think they would choke on their turkey legs and pursue immediate birth control options in order to prevent the future we have become.

The Fair has, and always will be middle class entertainment--but, to me, it seems that it has become more of a playground for the Plebeian Proletariat being duped by capitalist Bourgeoisie.  I journeyed through two gates--one charging me $8 just to get into this fun fest, and another charging me $20 to participate in the rides. I'm a professional--I work two jobs, and live fairly comfortably, but $28 just to participate in a make-shift amusement park seemed a bit steep. Most important of all--I am single--a rare anomaly at the fair, I soon found out.

I entered a kind of sickening daze as I noticed screaming, sticky, slobbering obese children running amok through the grounds with plates piled high with sugary, greasy, fried desserts while their equally obese parents wobbled closely behind toting gigantic stuffed animals that probably cost them a days worth of wages to win--and need I mention the price it cost these non-birth control practicing parents to take their bratty litters of progeny to the fair for the day?

We are the generation of me, where ride neighbor, and even fellow carny are just exchangeable commodities. People rush around the fair consuming massive amounts of food, and throwing money away on the precept of winning gigantic prizes to impress their friends with and then return to their homes, bills unpaid, and locked into an inescapable poverty. It's a swirling mess of bright colors, muddy grounds, and a dream, an American Dream left dying in the past. But maybe the Fair is all some of us have got.

So...This is 30

Tomorrow, at approximately 10am I will have inhabited this earth for 30 years. Thirty is a milestone to be sure and when people hit milestones they like to look back at all of life's accomplishments and be thankful for the opportunities they've had thus far. I'm not going to be a total emo and say that I'm not thankful for anything in my life because it's simply not true. In fact, I've sucked the marrow of life many times and have relished in opportunity and friendship. But how did I get here? A Bachelor's and an MA later, and tomorrow, on my 30th year of life I'm still working a job that makes me work Thanksgiving. It's not the worst, and I'm being especially cathartic, but on the eve of my birth, I ponder back 10 years and realize that this is not where I wanted to be at 30.

Twenty is a big year--you have an entire decade to make it into somebody, create a family, and maybe--if your lucky--purchase your first home. I always knew I'd get married at a later age, but I fully expected that by the age of thirty I would have at least secured myself into an adult, serious relationship. I more than expected to be in a stable career with at least five years into a secured pension and 401K plan. Yet, here I am. Thirty. I've dreaded it. I have pushed back tears over it as I realize I have no career, no husband, and no 401k, but instead a lot of school debt, and no real promise of ever making into my chosen career.

Another ten years looms in front of me--will things be different in another decade when I sit down in front of a computer to blog the years that brought me to 40? I don't know. Time is fleeting, and I want to be more than I am, but the dreams of family, career success, and economic security scare me so much that I have silently pushed them from my mind and replaced those thoughts with constant forced feelings of appal towards commitment, children, and people who settle into careers.

So thirty is the new twenty you say? I guess I stand on the brink of another set of expectations--another set of hopefulness that will drive the days of the next decade. Tomorrow is always another day, and thirty just another year on this planet of my existance. Maybe thirty will be suprising, maybe in this next set of years I will get to leave the chair behind the computer screen and find real joy and purpose somwhere. And so...this is 30.

Post Grad School Career Blues

Every morning I wake up to, and snooze away a minimum of three alarms for approximately an hour and half. I like to be dreadfully prepared for the impending torture of rolling out of bed at 7am to go to my first job of the day. My first thought is always something like: "what am I really doing with my life, and why in God's name did I get a Master's degree in English." Yup. Every morning starts with this drudgery as I slug through the motions of entering into another mundane day of passing the hours to earn that mediocre pay check that drops straight into my bottomless bucket of lifetime school debt.

So maybe I should start looking for that "real job--" you know, the one that if I'm lucky enough to get contracted in as a full-time regular employee for a minimum of another decade of my life then my student loans will be graciously forgiven by our oh so loving government? Yeah. That's the job I need. There are only so many of them, and with the drastic decline in education jobs and the ever so hefty increase of academic prostitution through adjunct positions, the blood wrenching fight to the death over full-time professorship wages war on the state of sanity and survival of our kind. They might as well put us on a reality show and watch as we put on our dance and song to a room full of lazy, self-entitled students just waiting to rip apart our professor reviews, and lay bid to which of us they think can most likely survive the world of academia.

You've got to keep an open mind if you want to stay in the teaching profession. You're certainly not going to make a lot of money, and to be frank, none of us every really chose this career for the money, but you do have to be willing to make the move if you want to get the job. Keep in mind, with the median salary nationwide at about 40k, the struggle to move, pay for new license, that by the way may require yet more testing, and lose state funded retirement, the options from the start are largely against you. But it's not just budget cuts and an unwillingness for employers to pay for health insurance that's going to make it hard to find that nice ailing job that promises to one day forgive your student debt--it's Affirmative Action--AKA Unequal Opportunity Employment.

I've broadened my search for a job in teaching, academia, and university/college life to a sprawling nationwide endeavor. I'll move--I get it. I may need to spread my little Charleston wings and fly to new parts in order to get one of these coveted positions. As with finding any job, finding a teaching job--not even the perfect teaching job anymore--is entirely strenuous and lengthy. But a new set of questions have plagued my process.

Am I a minority?--"hmmmm, let me think. Does that 1/32nd Cherokee blood count here? If I check yes, will someone come after me and card me?"

Did you grow up in a low socio-economic environment?--"Well, I was middle class. I was always taken care of and had my needs met, but I never got big extras like a fully paid tuition. So , I guess no. No, I wasn't under privileged."

Were you the first generation of college graduates in your family? "Damn. No. I can't get any of these questions right. How could I have not grown up in poverty?!"

womp. womp. womp. "I'm sorry Ms. Lightner, while you do appear to be a qualified candidate, our institution is trying to increase the number of professional minorities and those coming from a low socio-economic status in order that we might better match the demographics of our school and bridge that ever, nagging achievement gap. We do appreciate your desire and passion to teach urban children and adults, but you're just too white, middle class for us."

I will be the first to proclaim it to anyone that cares, that I love my urban, diverse population of students, and I'm pretty sure they love me too. Teaching is never an easy task, no matter the demographic--but it's something about city school students that makes them vulnerable towards learning--there is a realness in them that I have never found in any other classroom, and I'm pretty sure I'd ask for these students over a class full of rich, self-indulged hipsters any day. Far be it for some educational coorporation to disuade passionate teachers from applying to jobs because they don't meet an asthetic and class restriction.

But as I come home at 8:45 pm from my second job--an arm full of papers and annotated bibliographies, I question whether I will ever get the joy of doing this job full-time. Being there for that crazy urban demographic, despite my incontestable whiteness, is what makes the bottomless bucket of student debt worth it. Yet alas, I'll climb into my bed and fall asleep checking my student's sources to make sure they are fully legit, and I'll get up the next morning, just as all mornings before them and wonder why I got that damn English degree.

Trend Setting Groom Slaves: It's Love in a Beard

I hear and see alot of things in my line of work--most of it I just block out or allow my brain to dispose of. Today, I was privy to a conversation introducing a phenomenon that I wasn't sure existed in our society yet. It's the rise of the Groomzilla. Yes, friends, we know of the not so mythological creature, the Bridezilla, and for some time I suppose the world has anxiously awaited her counterpart. And today, I can tell you he exists. Here's how it went down.

I am sitting at my desk, doing what I do--Gift Certificates--they are a dreadful little piece of my job that I sincerely loath and so when the office becomes loud or chaotic, my mind completely shuts itself off to the task. I was on the verge of having my brain explode across the computer screen in a terribly bloody mess, when I see this highly energetic, youngish male walk into the office. I gathered in point two seconds that he was here to sale a product--my favorite type of individual--the skeezy, swooney kind. Well, he opened his mouth and something like high pitched nails on a chalk-board, and scumminess, with a peppering of southern charm exited his lips. I know this kind. Friends, beware. It's the over-zealous, football watching--never playing, however--bitch beer drinking, out-of-date, metrosexual dressing southern man. I could sense this before he even proceeded to disclose his desire to bring his wife to the resort over Valentines weekend so they could participate in gender specific activites. "Of course women don't love golf, but I do so I can hit some balls on the course while she does girly things at the spa." See what we are dealing with here?

So maybe it will be surprising to you that this particular individual is not, I repeat, is not the Groomzilla in question--however, it would not surprise me if he himself was in fact a pioneer in this new trend. All while buttering up one of the guys at the resort to try and push his product, the metrosalesboy highlights the fact that he has a beard. Why does it matter you ask--why anyone would ask. These southern metros loooove to highlight self-glorifying features, but the beard provided our salesboy with quite another advantageous story telling moment in his product pitch. The beard was forced. It is quite a sad time we exist in when one is forced to grow a beard--especially when said male will have one to two grey hairs sprouting in and he can then self-degradingly proclaim that his entire face is covered in age.

Sigh. I digress--Groomzilla. The beard was apparently part of a forceful and demanding groom, who most likely, under the ultimate power force of Bridezilla, required all the groom slaves to sprout manly facial hair for the big day that no doubt was following pinterest-esque hipster trends. As if it couldn't get any worse, the Groom struck down his newly preemanating manly and husbandly power and demanded the groom slaves don Chuck Taylors with pristinely assigned and tailored, grey, Jos. A Banks suits. The trend has been set. No wedding like it will ever exist again--at least not until Pinterest gets a-hold of the pictures, and every image crafting Bride on the planet begins to re-post pictures of bearded men in grey suits wearing Chuck Taylors. But the Groomzilla--"he's one of those super metrosexual OCD types--he likes everything in order," at least according to the skeezy groom slave.

My eyes rolled to the ceiling, and my head shook and one deep breath later and I was back to writing my gift certificates. Bridezilla's beware: you now have competition, and at least maybe we can finally say that men are showing a concerted interest in their own weddings.

Apocalyptic Paradise

America--the land of the free, home of the brave, and insurmountable debt. It's a great place really--I mean, each year thousands of people risk their own lives to jump the boarders of poverty and enter into the "New Eden" of the world. What exactly are these people searching for? Many search for freedom. Others search for their one big break to make it into something they could have never been before or what in the depths of our past was once known as the American Dream.

The American Dream--it has enticed immigrants to America since her founding--the strong Statue that stands for our Liberty fortifies herself between what lies beyond our site and the strong vision of capitalism and industrialism that lies within the streets of New York City. She lures her immigrants from all lands across the ocean saying "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of you teaming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" As surely as she cries and begs for them to come, they do--all of them. The tiredest and poorest of peoples from all lands--Ireland, Italy, Germany, Poland, England...They come. and they seek to rise into greatness just as her majesty, our Freedom Statue stands to proclaim.

Maybe the dream did find itself into the lives of many, for the the early 1900's of American capitalism and industrialization weaved itself into the very heart and fiber of our nation and gave some the opportunity of progression and quality of life that they sought. More than a hundred years later we still seek the American Dream--or what's left of it. Many good people work hard to find monetary, educational, and personal success in life, but are left enslaved to the greedy desire and consumption of our overbearing capitalist state. Many, like myself are forever enchained by educational and medical debt that has forever stunted our ability to progress above our current status.

Perhaps this is why our culture has latched on to apocalyptic obsessions. Sure the idea of an actual Apocalypse of fire and brimstone is scary as Hell--literally--but what about the idea of a society left in the wake of complete economic breakdown or possibly even a zombie outbreak? You may not see it at first--I have to admit, it sounds pretty scary at first--but think about. Just for a moment.

It would be frightening at first as everyone scattered to try and gather supplies for survival. Our entire system of economics and capital that we have entrusted so much of our faith and lives to would be eliminated, thus destroying class structure and monetary struggle. No single individual could claim legal ownership to any item through monetary gains, and we would be left to survive based on our own knowledge and abilities to outsmart the others around us. It would be social Darwinism at it's finest. Maybe you can't outwardly agree with me that an economic or zombie Apocalypse would be "fun" but I think maybe, just maybe, our culture secretly desires the purge of wrongdoing caused by  capital gain that would be ignited by a massive breakdown of our social structure.

Danielle's Top 10 Summer Countdown...

As summer more increasingly begins to come to a close and the fresh cool air of autumn sweeps in to refresh us, I have to take a look back at my top 10 best, summer moments. So please, come with me as I show you how my summer rocked.

So coming in at number....

10. Geting a Master's degree--in English. Summer started with a bang of celebrations and a trot out with the Charleston into my favorite season of the year.

9.  Going on a Cruise with Mom. As if getting an MA wasn't good enough, I got to spend 5 days on the ocean without a cell phone, facebook, or work.

8. Winning an official, Carnival Cruise Lines Medal of Participation: Alright, so I got schooled  by a bunch of teenagers on this one--but come on, we all know that had there been literature and grammar questions, I would have killed it.

7. Getting a Promotion: Got a Job; real style. No more 3AM mornings laying on top of books about Jacobean England divorce, marriage, and sex laws. Shit just got real.

6. Surviving an electrical storm: A casual jaunt to the free, employee luncheon at work turned sinister. Friends--walking together under the protection of a long metal rod with a plastic tarp, pointed at the sky, when suddenly the sky breaks apart in thunder and the gods send down flashes of fire and electrocution, and in slow motion, umbrella's fly, shrieks are projected, and friends get lost in action.

5. Being a Tennis Pro: Many a tennis ball met the face of my brand new, pink tennis racquet on the courts at Wild Dunes. I even won a match.

4. Being Panda-obsessed: The Giant Panda, Lun Lun, who belongs to the Atlanta Zoo, birthed twins in July and my love for the sweet little creatures has caused a pandemonium (ha--pun intended) for my life. I've been glued to the live webcam and the pictures of these little guys.

3. Spending the Fourth of July in a Random Place: ha--haha. In the most random of randomness, my fourth of July was spent lounging by the pool, with my friends Syd Dog, and Haley Boo Boo, a box of wine, lime chips, and an occasional firework. Oh. Did I mention this all went down at a random apartment complex?

2. Hearing Second Hand About the "Valet Service:" Even though I wasn't a first hand witness like some, the pure joy I get from this story causes it to be a member of this list. Picture, slow motion, to the tune of the great eighties classic, Chariots of Fire (need a reference? Click Here) a splendid coach of white sparkle, traveling, at top speeds in backward motion towards our Wild Dunes Heaven-sent mansion. Suddenly, chariot and mansion meet in a combustion of enormity. Knowing the stagecoach makes this story so much more the glorious, but sorry guys--top secret. The driver goes unnamed.

1. Being with my Friends: Nothing makes summer sweeter than spending it with your friends and loved ones, and I've got the best. Some are near, and some are far but my list would be empty without you all!