- so feed yourself – ,

But you know what I need instead?

My hand to my heart and a gun to my head,

No fear, just a rumble growing louder,
In the tunnel of my belly,

Kick-starting the engine into gear,
Fist to cuff, I roll up my sleeves,
Wipe the beads of sweat from my dry mouth,

There’s trouble in my brain this time,
I induce vomiting,

Calmly journaling,
No longer flying high.

It’s also good to see something positive come from something so negative as teen suicide:

The site was born out of a need of mine, certainly, and perhaps some other folks as well for the middle point of view of this country to have a voice. Politically I have always considered myself a moderate – someone who wants to understand as many sides of an issue as possible and believes in collaboration. It is from this spirit that I’ve launched The Middle Nation.

The weekend of October 30th my wife and I attended the Rally to Restore Sanity (and/or fear) and were moved by the crowd and of course by Jon Stewart’s call to civility and reason. I did some iReporting for CNN – those reports are all up on The Middle Nation or you can find them over at CNN.com.

The sight of cleavage, combined with a biting smile that screams of bliss, coupled with an exuberant woman caught halfway in between a leap of freedom and the latest scent of Dove body spray, is enough to keep me barely emotionally occupied, yet occupied nonetheless.   I want this woman’s cleavage.  I want this woman’s smile.  I want…this woman’s life.  I watch the online ad again, I scan her left hand  – no wedding ring, she’s single.  She likely has a boyfriend.  What’s she wearing? Red fitted v-neck sweater, jeans, she’s young, late 20’s to early 30’s, probably just invested a good chunk of change into starting up her own business.  A potpourri and candle store, perhaps? I imagine the name of her new store, a quaint, cozy, seductively lit den, a hotbed of peach blossom and lavender, and peppermint oil.  The wrought-iron sign deliberately posted above its entrance reads, “Making Scents”.  Yes…”Making Scents”, very clever…she has a slight way with words.  She’s smart.  And happy.  And successful.  I like this woman, this joyful, confident, down-to-earth, yet sensual woman with a plan.  I want to be like her, but the closest to her I can seem to get is to buy the same kind of body spray she is wearing.

From the back of my mind, I am alerted by a feeling, I hold the computer’s gaze, then I shift, then back to the screen, then I shift again. Something inside of me is silently trying to figure something out, the deep of the muck from which my evolution was inspired is tremoring, much like a baby begging to remove itself from the womb.  I try to quiet it, but it’s starting to kick now, threatening to start thrashing if I don’t give it my immediate attention.  I begin to feel slightly ill.  I need to shut it up.  I swiftly open my web-browser, begin to type: “Google.com”…”facebook.com”…I need connection now.  I need “friends”.  I need “people”. I need to know what people are doing because I need to know that people are doing things.  I need to “like” what other people “like”.  I need to be heard, to “comment”, to agree that yes, Prince is amazing and Michael will be missed.  The only problem now is that my womb is empty, and my pregnancy has been prematurely terminated.

Facebook wants to know what’s on my mind,  I like to “share”.  Hours later, I am walking through Walgreens, really, I just came in here for some toilet paper, but the deodorant isle is calling me for some reason.  I find myself in front of the Dove selection, carefully evaluating how much this deodorant costs, then dreamily slipping into fantasy…the blonde woman with the cleavage.  With the smile, with the business.  With the Dove.  Should I buy it?  Should I?  No.  I know better.  I know that some psychologist somewhere has carefully analyzed groups of women just like me in order to help create an effective Dove campaign.  And it’s working.  I walk out of the store, forgetting my toilet paper in the process.  I need to go home now.  Something is wrong.  I need to go home.  Maybe if I had cleavage, I wouldn’t even need to buy the Dove.  Something is wrong.  I can’t shake it.  I want the baby back.  But I’ve rejected it, and it won’t show its face in my belly for a few days now.  I’ll just have to be patient.  But when it’s there, I don’t give it the attention it deserves.  I’m drying up.  On a black tar pit of advertisements and commercials, and false promises, and degrees of separation.  I want to touch people, but I can’t, they don’t seem real anymore.  The happy Dove woman has somehow stolen a piece of my identity in her effort to show me hers, and I want.  Mine.  Back.

I know that when I do give birth, I will never give birth to a monster.

*  Name of ad campaign has been changed to protect the innocent.  This blog in no way, shape, or form directly or indirectly represents trademarked company “Dove” or any of its internal representatives.

I take off my headphones and look up from my computer and over my shoulder towards the cubicle wall behind me. Listening for the sound…

Clck, clck, clck.clck,clck!!

I stand up. And look up and around the maze of cubicles trying to locate the sound. I turn just in time to see arching up and over the cubicles nerf arrows flying, piercing the silence as their plastic machine gun hosts clack and click away.

CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK

It must be 6 o’clock. Time to go home for the day.

Thus was my re-introduction into the work force this past April.

I got a job with a major company working as a contractor on a project – a thirty day job that has turned into nearly six months of steady employment.

I was worried, having been unemployed since January of 2009, that I would have trouble rejoining the working world…the daily nerf war kinda helped ease that concern.

- There were two tribes in the great room -

Yet even in student government, it was clear that factors such as popularity, quality of campaign posters and (no joke!) how funny the final speeches were played larger roles in the election than how capable the “elected officials” actually were. There’s a certain amount of disillusionment that comes with many aspects of high school as a microcosm for the real world, but among them, student government still stands out as one of the most memorable.

The idea of a “fair” democracy, then, of having a truly effective and representative body working to help further our wishes and solve our problems, clearly didn’t always apply. And the main block between a desire for a representative democracy and actually fulfilling that desire was simple: those who had the optimism to believe that their vote mattered were the ones who came to control the way the student government ran. The rest of the apathetic student population could complain all they wanted, but realistically, by failing to take action, they had forfeited their right to criticize.

Over time, and through the haze of high school, college and post-college living and a quickening pace of life, that initial faith in democracy has since waned. For our generation, blind faith that a true democracy exists on its own has been replaced by the understanding that nothing worth it comes easy — and this, too, includes that elusive concept of a perfect government.

The beauty of the democracy is that it provides an open forum for anyone who wants to participate, should they choose to. The truth about the democracy, however, is that this freedom of choice often leads to the decision (conscious or not) that the fate of societal problems lies in someone else’s hands.

And this is the side of “democracy” they didn’t teach in jr. high text books.

Ok, so I read this over like 5 times and it mainly just made my eyes glaze over. That entire paragraph is two sentences. Two long, wordy, run-on and confusing sentences. To me, that’s more of the problem with our government then the system itself. The language of government has become so convoluted and confusing, any hope I had of getting involved has just shot down the crapper.

There’s a lot of problems with our governing body, including (but not limited too) too many older white guys making decisions for a culturally diverse country, money getting put into weird things we’re not told about, the system of representation not actually representing the population, and many many more. For me, the biggest problem is: none of it makes any sense to me. I know I should inform myself on the issues more then I do- I’m not a kid anymore, and a lot of what is happening has a direct impact on my life now. But I just CANNOT care when the language used is so cyclical and vague that nothing ever really gets said.

When Government type issues come up, I become the 13 yr old version of myself in math class- my eyes glaze over, my jaw relaxes, and I start to watch a movie in my head. This happens every time I get sucked into a political debate, or have someone try to preach an issue to me. I can’t help it. I try to listen, I really, truly do. It just doesn’t work. I can blame my ADD, (and have on numerous occasions) but really, I just don’t respond well to people saying things indirectly. Discussions of the politics always seem indirect to me. Everyone is saying their version of things, so you’ll agree with them, while rarely (if ever) discussing the strengths of the opposing views. That’s shady communication right there.

Yes, politicians are liars- so aren’t a good percentage of the American population- so what’s new there? Yes, the government is an imperfect system that is handling issue X, Y, Z with confusion and spitefully careful word choice. It’s still a better system then most of the world has, and we’re still a privileged community as a nation. Yes, our “big government” is flawed on fundamental levels- So am I, So are you, so is everyone we vote for on some level. Yes, the issues of today are vitally important and deserve smart people fighting both for and against them. That won’t make me listen to people arguing like children on a Sunday morning news program, no matter how much I ‘should’.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in DC and politics were topic du jour 24-7-365. Maybe it’s because my mother was a very motivated teacher of government classes and my rebellion was to ignore everything about it. Maybe that is why I can’t get my brain to turn on now. Who knows what the reason, but now I just find it all too …. Overwrought.

If one person could sell their argument on an issue to me in the same tone that we’d discuss something more commonplace, like, say, what a mutual friend had happen to them, a conversational, non adversarial, direct tone – I’d LOVE that. I’d respond well, and most likely end up on your side, just because you actually related it to me instead of trying to impress me with the sheer volume of your opinion. The problem is, most people who could and would present things that way aren’t as motivated to start the discussion in the first place. They’re less impassioned, and less determined.

Does this doom me to a life of lackadaisical attitudes about everything? A life of getting swept up by the tide of government decisions? Possibly so, and I’ll have to live with that. I think I know how to wade the waters well enough; I just won’t ever get swept away by any of it. I’m ok with that; I’ll happily sit on the beach and watch the waves. It’s quieter, more relaxing, and usually has an umbrella drink on hand.