Happy Holidays & Happy New Year!!

Yeah, I know the economy sucks, businesses are treating employees like it's 1935, the masses are depressed and frustrated, and the self-appointed prognosticators have declared that the end is nigh.  Well, I say, screw them.  We (and by we, I mean me, the nation, and the world; individually and collectively) have seen worse times.  Maybe not necessarily in the same order, but we have been through worse.  Trust me.  Life is full of peaks and valleys, and anyone telling you to hold up in some underground cave or hop on a ship to The Solomons displays not only a complete lack of courage, but an arrogant misunderstanding of history, economics, world politics, and life in general.

The way I see it, at the end of the day, you have two choices: Give up or keep trying.  Not that profound, is it?  But the truth doesn't need a fancy bow.  A person can pour over every news source that comes down the pike and digest every word by every pundit and "expert" they choose, but at the end of the day, that person isn't going to walk away with any other options than when they started.  Give up or keep trying.  That's the only thing you have control over.  That's my little pearl for the New Year.

I have no job, no place to call my own, and the journey ahead to figure out what it is I'm going to do with the next 40, 50 years of my life is going to be arduous to say the least.  But I have family, friends, and access to opportunities that millions would crave.  I know that at the end of the day, despite the tears and trepidation, I'll be okay.  Why?  Because that's all I ever had.  Believe me, I've been through some shit folks (things I don't typically share with people who've known me less than 30 years) and I may not be where I want to be in life, but I know I'm better off than where I was.  And that says a lot in my book.

Okay, this entry was supposed to be a wee bit inspiring, and it's now dipped deep into Dead Poets' Society territory.  ::shudders::

On to something superficial!!  I had about $27 to my name before Christmas, so on the 23rd, I ducked out of the house and headed to the local WallsMart (misspelling intentional) and bought my mother a pair of house slippers that she desperately needed in this drafting abode.  I also bought my stepfather some nice headphones that hook around your ears from the back to go with his new birthday iPod.  He complained about the ear buds -- which I also loathe -- not fitting in his ears well and how they become a nuisance as the day drags on in the warehouse.  For those that don't know, my stepfather drives a forklift for a living.  For a man of his age and experience, he should be managing a shift instead of driving the lifts, but that's another rant story.

So, I was able to wrap the gifts in some of my Mom's Christmas paper and hand them out on Christmas Day with everyone else.  Yay!  I'm giving.  I also prepared and addressed all of my Mom's Christmas cards.  She kept putting it off, so I sat down the Sunday before Christmas and got them all together for her to mail at work that Monday.  I don't think most of them arrived in time for the holiday, but so far, no one has objected to our tardiness.  :-)  As for me, I received a nice $50 Visa gift card that I can use anywhere and a lovely, black wooden writing desk from my folks.  Truthfully, I'm surprised I received anything considering how much they've helped me out these past 6 months, but I am eternally grateful.  My mother said that no writer should be without a desk, and since I had to leave mine behind in L.A., she wanted to get me another one to replace it.  Awwwww.  :-D

I don't have any big plans for New Year's Eve.  I'll probably just watch TV and do the countdown with the East coast like I hoped.  I do need to get off of here and clean a little bit before the folks get home, though.  It's the least I can do.

Let's see.  Is there anything else?

Oh yeah, I'm in the process of taking my twists down.  I hope to finish tonight before the ball drops.  Of course, my mother is freaking out because she's afraid of my natural nappy hair being exposed to the world.  You know what I mean.  She's all worried I won't be able to get a job without at least having braids or stylish twists in my hair.  She even offered me a wig.  ::rolls eyes::  That, ladies and gents, is generations of mainstream society telling African-American women to be ashamed of their natural beauty.  So I'm not mad at her, but it does annoy.

In more tragic news, I read that we lost the magnificent and forever radiant Eartha Kitt on Christmas Day.  You will be missed, Ms. Eartha.  Not only were you the quintessential Catwoman, your voice is the main reason I watch The Emperor's New School.  In your 81 years, you never stopped.  You were a constant inspiration.  And even though we all must go home when we're called, my heart hurts to know you're not here with us anymore.

In more shallow news, I'm reading a cool nonfiction work detailing the Federal Theatre Project, a WPA program that was started to help put actors, artists, musicians, and writers back to work during the Great Depression.  It's Called Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art Out of Desperate Times by Susan Quinn.  So far, it's a really good read that eerily reveals a mismanaged government system that easily mimics our current economic and electoral predicament.  As the old folks say, "There's nothing new under the sun."  That being said, we are no where the same level of economic devastation in the early 1930s prior to the New Deal.  We're talking about a nation that suffered a 30% unemployment rate, wherein some cities like Cleveland and Toledo endured 50% unemployment.  According to Quinn, following the Crash of 1929, approx. 20,000 workers lost their jobs every day in every work week for the first 3 years of the Great Depression.  Honey, that's misery the surviving generations do not know.  I'm about 3/5 of the way through; I slowed down I started taking my braids/twists down.  I was inspired to read this little tome after watching Tim Robbins' Cradle Will Rock about a month ago.  The book gives a less sentimental retelling of the story, but a far more detailed one.  If you're not interested in reading the book, give the movie a gander.  You might enjoy it.  It stars John Turturro, Susan Sarandon, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Angus McFadyen, Cary Elwes, Hank Azaria, Ruben Blades, Joan Cusack, Cherry Jones and Vanessa Regrave.

Okay, I think that's all I have for now.  I have to get cracking on my to-do list.  I'll be back in the New Year with more incendiary diatribes and mid-life crisis-wannabe navel-gazing.  Here's hoping your New Years is happy and bright!  Au revoir.