"Going south, and we are older"

(quote: Beirut, video: clip from Encounters at the End of the World)

I watched Obama's Inauguration Speech, chomping bagels in the conference room, between bands at a house party hours later, and nodded and went goose-bumpy and gave the tiniest fist-pump at moments. I remembered where I was, or what state at least, for previous moments. Recalled the old burning nausea of watching Bush win the second time. Gave up hope in fragments and hang-overs and youtube clips. And Obama made me feel like the problems of humanity might not be insurmountable. That a man with these words, and this backbone, and this brain, might be able to truly 'change' something for the better. The nation truly made a good decision, collectively, for once. We gave credit where it is due, recognized our needs, let the best of our emotions color our choice. And Obama focuses on all things that need focus if we're to really secure our species' survival. But, I realized when he was talking about all the hard-work being done by the unnamed morass, the meaningless struggle of the military, the corporatocracy plundering our 1s and 0s, the desires to live safely and peacefully and retire with dignity, that he never let the American Dream dissolve. He never admitted that our prosperity is won on the backs of those that can't protect themselves. Or that the financial system is not a corrupt business model, but rather an oppressive and failed ideology. That our cultural has evolved into one that equates happiness with mean pleasures and empty, vicarious experiences. The trouble is, that while I think Obama can make inroads on jobs, and healthcare, and our international reputation, this place will still be something that alienates me. I will still shudder at the myth of the American Dream, not because I don't think strong-willed people can do great things, but because it encourages us to settle. It teaches us to be satisfied with mediocrity. Yet, I want everyone's situation to be easier. I want the Israeli's to stop trying to wipe out Palestinians. I want people to have access to doctor's. I want kids in the 'hood to get good educations. It's just that Obama's vision is not my utopia. And the change that would please me cannot be shaped by politics.

I'm becoming obsessed with Antarctica. I spend afternoons reading articles on Big Dead Place, nights watching obscure documentaries on the Ice, pirated versions of The Thing with French subtitles. The appeal is something still metastasizing in my spinal column. In one dream I saw the place in negative, like it was inseparably opposite from my life now. A death-rattle cold taking place of this climate control. Vast expanses of ice and rock substitute buildings and roads and rolling hills. Bureaucracy silly becomes absurd, and everyone drinks to it and curses it, instead of imbibing and regurgitating. Countless decisions simplified by survival instead of the paralyzing anxiety of infinite choices to no consequence. Loneliness like an illness wrought deep in your gut, rather then the demands of trying to be everyone at once. Backbreaking work to pay your privilege to exist in your setting, not your student loans and car insurance.

I'm a gypsy. I just move slow. Plod along like a tortoise till my shell grows moss from each land I rest in. See sunsets become rises from just a few feet to my left. And since I came back from Detroit, the thought of leaving this place keeps me up at night. Anticipation, anxiety, good old Catholic shame and fear. But all of that under a timid bliss. Thinking: Next year this time, I could be anywhere.