To-Do

List.

Sometimes it is the mundane things in life that give us comfort. The simplicity of routine, the soothing nature of familiar and menial tasks. I think many forms of happiness are hidden in the everyday completetion of small goals and obligations. The shape of a week, in list form but no particular order:

Go to the grocery store. Try to remember to get actual food that I will actually eat.

Clean bathrooms. If, that is, I have remembered to buy new sponges and cleanser.

Complete a load of laundry from sorting to putting away in less than 72 hours.

Open the scary looking mail I have been avoiding.

Corner cat and force her to take her medicine so she stops throwing up everywhere.

Do the terrible awful paperwork that I have also been avoiding.

Make dance. Undo. Make again. Edit. Repeat.

Write things. Undo. Write again. Repeat.

Picture: www.makeitheaven.com

Money For Nothing

Work.

I have reached a conclusion about the extension of jobless benefits that makes me feel like a bad liberal. The good liberal in me says that we should extend the benefits, that people get into a rough spot, lack the training and education they need, do not have the kinds of opportunities they used to have before we sent jobs overseas, and generally should not be left in the lurch by society. The rest of me says wow, 99 weeks is a long time to be on unemployment. The truth is, I don't think that we are helping anyone by just writing them a check. The economy is improving, unemployment is decreasing, people went back to school during the recession, there are opportunities. I believe that one of the biggest and far-reaching problems in the U.S. is economic injustice and that wage and income equality play a big role in that. But it has to be real income. Earned income. Where are the federal work programs, the state-run training programs and the affordable education that get people off unemployment and back to earning? Where is the student loan debt relief that could help pull millions of educated Americans out of poverty and into gainful employment? Where did our work ethic go? I think it is time for us to take a good look at the possibility of economic recovery the hard way, through hard work, sacrifice, and lifestyle change. We all deserve a living wage, but we all have a responsibility to work for it. All of us.

Picture:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/nyregion/12benefits.html?pagewanted=all