Insane Things

Today's earlier rant, coupled with reading some awfully lukewarm rah-rahs about Frank Jackson, made me revisit my old Borne for Mayor platform. This was originally intended to be just a heap of tongue-in-cheek, soapbox suds. But it's occurring to me - slowly, laughably - that I could actually do this. I feel that one should live their life doing really insane, but socially productive, things. This is an insane thing that I could actually do.

I could spend the next 12 years figuring out possible solutions to Cleveland's problems. I wouldn't be rushing into this and have my idealism shell-shocked out of me. I don't even think I have any idealism left - idealism isn't the word for what I have. Outrage is the word for what I have.

But seriously. If I think about who I'd most like to vote for for mayor of Cleveland, it'd have to be someone who's done some extensive traveling, who's lived in the Pacific Northwest and New York, who's got a real handle on how to find solutions to problems (hello! my whole profession is about finding answers for people's often poorly articulated, difficult-to-negotiate questions), someone who people will look at and think, now there's someone we haven't seen before, someone who will be one of the most eccentric, memorable mayors ever, someone who will do things completely different. Someone with a giant sense of compassion but who's frigging surly in all the right places.

Why not me?

Anonymity and the Internet

The anonymous blogger at X Journal misses zines because your coworkers, your exes, your future employers couldn't just Google you and find your zine. She speculates:

Every time I post...I ask myself, if only in a deep dark corner of my mind that I don't like to acknowledge: What would an employer think if they read this? If I ever ran for office, would this blog surface? Would I mind? I don't think so, but really, who am I to say how I'll feel five years from now?

These little things, they chip away at what you say, until you're left with nothing left.

There's nothing that makes me madder than the idea of something chipping away at what I've got to say. I won't succumb to that. Here, watch: boobs! Fuck! Smelly diapers! If someone tries to flip that back in my face when I run for mayor in 2017, that says more about them than it does about me.

I'm proposing a radical bit of etiquette here: don't Google your coworkers. Don't Google people you might think about hiring. Don't Google random people and then give them hell about what they say. I don't buy that crap about "if you said it on the Internet then you wanted me to find it." It smacks of the same uncivilized, idiot logic as "you wore that short skirt so you wanted to get raped." It deflects the responsibility away from the perpetrator. Please. Let's give our unsuspecting coworkers some privacy, eh?

Long Blog Posts Are Irritating

But seriously, if, wherever you are, you've ever found yourself wondering, "what on earth am I doing here?" -- read on, my friend, read on.

Today was my last day at my job here on the Jersey Shore. I've lived here for a year and three months. If there's any one thing I can say about the shore for certain, it's that I just don't like this place. Now. If I spewed that out without backing it up, I'd be an asshole, and I wouldn't expect anyone to respect what I had to say. If I heard people bitching about Cleveland without backing it up, I'd say don't let I-90 hit your ass on the way out. But remember the ill-fated young journalist who came from Manhattan to work at the PD and ended up fleeing back East? You might not have, but I felt a sad sympathy with her.

I've learned a lot about suburban sprawl here. My boyfriend, a small-town Ohio guy who lived here with me for a year but who spent 90% of his waking hours in Manhattan, said it best. He said it just after my car broke down, and we were driving around looking for car dealerships. He said, "this place exemplifies everything we've done to make America ugly."

I tried to like this place. I tried thinking that a job that gave me 6 weeks of vacation was all I needed. I tried to make myself believe that having a rinky-dink natural foods store in a strip mall within theoretical walking distance was enough.

But when every road's a state highway, when there are no sidewalks where there ought to be, when you see people trying to cross the street and precipitously climbing over 4-foot high concrete barriers with angry, frustrated drivers zooming too fast past them, when every shopping center is a strip mall, and when none of the municipalities around you have a downtown (or, if they do, it could double as a modern-day Mayberry), this is just not good, and I'm sorry to offend, but I just can't understand how anyone can live like that. I really don't. I especially want to apologize to the handful of friends I've made who are from here, but for heaven's sake, guys, this place has zero character.

So when you start to think about how much Cleveland sucks, please just remember that although it might be downtrodden, although it might have fallen on pretty typical post-industrial hard times, at least it has infrastructure. At least it could fairly easily be rebuilt into something aesthetically pleasing without having to be bulldozed over. At least, when the shit finally hits the fan oil-wise, Cleveland has a chance to survive.

But those places in America that we've built around the automobile? Not a chance. Not a chance.

If I...

...could tell Frank Jackson one thing, it's that I, as a young person who's moved away from Cleveland multiple times, would like to see Cleveland stop trying to recruit people from elsewhere and get focused on the people who already live there, and try to improve their lives instead. Is that radical or what?

Confession

For someone who's such a staunch advocate of public transportation, it may surprise you that I never learned how to ride a bicycle. I'm wondering how many other adults there are out there who can say the same thing....

How About That?

I'm moving from one of the least diverse areas in the country to the most diverse county in the world.

Where Do I Start

Stephen Colbert interviewed Stephanie Tubbs Jones last night on the Colbert Report and posed the question: "22 astronauts have come from Ohio. What is it about your state that makes people want to flee the planet?"

What's Happening

I'm planning a trip back to Cleveland the week of the 14th, so if you know of anything interesting that's going on - I'm going to try and attend the Bloggers Meetup, which I've been wanting to attend for ages - let me know.