Poo.

I don't know exactly what is driving me.
I think I'm going mad inside my walls, again.
Somehow I have erected them, again.
The truth will set me free.
But not here.
Not over the internet, where its wires and connections and unlimited distractions cannot hold me up as well as a pen can.
I feel sick inside.
Like a sick, twisted monster that can only hurt those who come close.
Because I cannot make them happy, I fear they will leave me, and in the leaving I will somehow become destroyed. I do not wish for this fate.
How do I free myself from this cage, again?
How do I find myself in another land, again?
Must I battle it out, again?
Must I torture the horse, again?
Bring it out, ride it bareback into the ground.
But that sounds like running, and running is not what is in my best interest.
My best interest includes seeking, not running. Well, then, anchors away.
Let me float up out of the hole.
Or die down inside it.
But please, let it fade away. Let it leave me. Let it leave me. Let it leave me. Let me be enough to fill it, again. Let me be enough to kill it, again. Let me be enough to set it free, again.
Because it is screwing me ever inward, and bending me ever so slightly to apathy, where I fear I will not be able to twist out without wrenching and tearing the framing that holds me.
The tower?
Possibly.
This Karmic lesson has not yet been learned, else I wouldn't be here, again.
So where do I go? Another meeting? Another appointment? Another literature study group? I will go upstairs and write my damn paper. If he doesn't accept it tomorrow, then he doesn't accept it and I fail. Whatever. I won't let this failure kill me. Though I may cry and rage and scream and rail against myself, I will not let me die! I will not forsake my life! I will not let my dreams die! For Winterfell! 

Peripheral Living = Life on the Edge?

Procrastination could be considered one of the most horrific traits a human could possess, except for the extraordinary work that does come about as a result of the super-hero mode.

This may require some explanation.

The super-hero mode is definitely that place that comes out of fear of failure slash fear of absolute suckage. When I procrastinate, and leave myself a night or less to complete a project, suddenly I become a superhero with amazing supertastic powers. One of those powers includes the making up of words, and the supreme ability to find incredibly important things with which to distract myself from my main goal. Which is, of course, to complete the project. So here is one crap-shoot ability coming into reality right now.

I am writing a blog post as I procrastinate on my CV project for Archaeology Lab Procedures.

Now, something that I've been pondering on recently is my role in other people's lives, especially in regards to how my personal growth (whether it's backwards or forwards, it's still falls under the category of "personal development") has effected it. I used to give a huge damn how I was perceived. Now I give less of a huge damn. And with this giving less of a huge damn comes the fact that I try a lot less to please the people around me. And something that I've noticed that has come up as a result is my ability to spot emotional poison, and the effects it has on otherwise bright, accepting people. Take some of my coworkers, for instance. If What's-Her-Facel did not react so negatively, and if she could ever pull her head out from under her negative rock, perhaps she wouldn't have poised people against me. Poison, poison, poison. I feel the poison trying to pry me open and suck me dry all the time.

And I guess that because I can feel it prying means that I'm two steps ahead of where I was, when I was being drained and devastated by it.

I think self-love really is what it's cracked up to be.

And this brings me to the title: Peripheral Living = Living on the Edge?

Am I, in busying myself and not committing myself to one social, academic, or vocational identity or another, living peripherally to other people? As in, my friendship groups-are they suffering because I am not as involved in their lives as I once had been? I know that I cannot afford to jump head first into the drama surrounding many of the people I once considered close friends because I have a future that I am preparing hardcore for. I definitely don't feel like I'm on the periphery of my own life, since I am staring right at it all the freaking time. Except when I procrastinate, but even then—like in cases like this one—I find myself staring straight at my reality in the face. Or at least trying to get a handle on it. So that is what this blog is all about, I guess. Trying to get a handle on my life view at present.

I've had to pee for a while.

Tiredness is seeping into my brain and heart, and it is becoming harder to see what is real, and what my fears are masking as real.

Real or imagined, I know I have let my reactions to negativity rule me. I want to enter into my new state of being without that baggage. Without the negativity of others influencing my opinion of myself and of what I am capable. Today I am so full of love, and my expectation of receiving that same unconditional love back was not met, so I think I'm experiencing a bit of a let down. And it is sad for me to see What's-Her-Facel try at every opportunity to drag and pull and poke at my high spirits and loving nature in order to bring me into a more comfortable place, a place where her negativity has more power and pull and sway over anything that I would have to say. Yet I didn't let her, because I didn't give in to my fears. I maintained my flow, and acknowledged the insecurities that came up as I let them go on their way, and out the back door of my consciousness.

I just want to be happy and healthy, and boy has it been some hard work. I've put some long hours in, and I can tell my tonight's mood (or this morning, rather) that I have much work ahead of me, yet.

Living on the edge of a society full of emotional poison masked as "realism". That's where I am. And I'm ready to remove myself further from it. I don't want the poison. I don't want this parasite sucking me dry every waking moment. It nearly killed me once, and I don't want to let it get that much of me again.

Heaven let your light shine down.

Spring Break

Oh, Spring Break. I hear people talking all the time about “what they’re going to do”, and usually it involves something that sounds fun and exciting. However, when they direct the question at me, “Bonnyjean, what are you doing over Spring Break?” I just want to answer, “Your mom.”

Anyway, here's my Spring Break story.

~*~*~*~*~*~

3. . .

2. . . . 

1½. . . . . . .

1 ¼. . . . . . . . . .

1. . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . 

JUMP!

Falling through the air is an interesting sensation, and for me, it was also confusing. At the point where my body had expected to hit something, the air was still rushing up through my hair. Mentally and logically I knew that I was falling from pretty high up, however preparing my body for something it has no experience with is. . . well, interesting. Right--all right--so where was I? Fine. I’ll tell you. I was hanging out at Malibu Creek with my Peruvian Pal, Pamela, and her boyfriend and his buddies. For one, I was angry at how I was being ogled by the male population swimming around in the contaminated waters (though I'm not sure which was more contaminated--the men, or the murky water). For two, (though I was trying my best to remain unaffected) the chauvinism from Pamela's boyfriend's buddies was sickening. And the fact that one of the guys kept insisting that I needed help over every fallen tree and muddy incline and moldy, stagnant puddle made me want to punch somebody in the face. Did it really look like I needed help? I know how to hike, darnit! And then Pamela’s girlish and attractive complaints in her dainty “slightly-scared” voice was grating on my nerves so completely that I thought I might break someone’s neck. (I love Pamela to death, but she’s never been camping, and she’s not so fond of bugs, and at the time I had no remorse for her since she'd been the one to rope me in to tagging along. I found out later it was because the guys just wanted more girls along on the trip. . . ). So, as you can probably guess, the way the sun dappled the ground around us as it broke through the leaves didn’t do much to alleviate my mood, and the nostalgic crunch of dirt, branches and dead vegetation under our collective feet only chorused my annoyance. I was rather preoccupied with the plastic bags poking out of random sections of vegetation we passed along the way, and the beer cans glittering ominously in the dappled sunlight, and making sure nobody was sneaking a peek at my behind whenever I climbed up over anything in our path. The only thing that had given me satisfaction during the trek had been the prospect of Chauvinist 1's growing farmers’ tan. That thought curled up the edges of my lips--but only slightly. When we finally reached 'The Watering Hole' or whatever they called it, I found myself jumping to my own defense when one of the guys accused me of being too girly and cowardly to jump off the rock with the rest of them. It was about 35 feet--not so terrible, right? As I climbed up I noticed several of the guys hung back to watch, proclaiming to have already jumped on previous trips, or somesuch excuse. Only Chauvinist 1 and his buddy, He-Man the Magnificent, led the zig-zagging way up the hunk of jutting rock.

I’m happy to say that I had the "cahones" (as they put it) to jump, though not so happy that I lacked the wherewithal to keep my legs all the way closed upon impact. My bum hurt for a good long while after that. One could say that to jump in the first place was a stupid thing to do, however, I think we were all off our rockers to even wade in the questionable water. I was actually surprised I didn't find any dirty diapers floating around somewhere.

Rising Tides: a Brush with Danger

Okay, I apologize in advance for the length of this blog. I sort of got carried away. Skip to the end if you want the cliff-notes version.

~* ~ * ~ *~

At fourteen years old, I wouldn’t have called myself the most well-thought out person on the planet (that title was, at the time, reserved people much older and therefore much wiser than me). Before the Incident Which Has Not Yet Been Brought Up, I took it for granted that I was immortal until I grew old and, theoretically, died (no one had proven to me, yet, that old people died simply because they were old; I believed it was a conspiracy). This is not to say that I was completely stupid, just that I didn’t agree with agreeing with everything that was agreed-upon by the majority simply for the sake of being agreeable.

Okay, fine—I was disagreeable. But what fourteen-year-old isn’t at some point? (Don’t answer that—I don’t want to have to re-establish a viewpoint on young teenagers just yet). So, my brother Hanzony (thirteen at the time, and not much better as far as judgment went) and I had gotten us into plenty of interesting situations throughout our adolescent years. This Incident in Particular was one we rarely talk about, simply because we knew that if our guardians had known about it, our roaming-privileges would have been revoked indefinitely. Or so we thought, which explains why none of our family members really know what happened that evening on the coast of Central California.

The stupidity began well before we reached the coastline; being jostled by more than just the pot-holed road-less-travelled-by did wonders for our claustrophobia, which caused the beginnings of mutinous thought to poison my attitude. After a jerky stop, we peeled our shirt-backs off of the hot, leather seats of the Jeep, and jumped down onto the hard-packed, grousey sand. I glanced conspiringly at my brother, and saw the same mutinous gleam in Hanzony’s dark eyes.

Looking out across the [insert poetic adjective] ocean, I said, “Hey, Dad,” sure to keep my voice as tired and neutral-sounding as possible.

“Yeah, Bubby,” he acknowledged distractedly; he was unloading the fishing gear.

“Mind if Ni-Ni and I go exploring for a bit? Gotta stretch the legs.”

Dad tried to think of a reason to say ‘no’—I could tell—and when he couldn’t justify to himself that saying ‘no’ for the sake of saying ‘no’ (because it isn’t good character-building to hear ‘yes’ all the time, even if it is deserved) would be applicable here, he asked,

“You don’t wanna fish?”

I just shook my head at him, and flashed a sad, apologetic look. (Okay, what? I was sorry that I didn’t want to fish with him! I had a conscience, I knew he had been looking forward to this little outing, and planned on giving me some sort of coming-of-age talk for some time now; I could see the beginnings of his lecture-face peeking out from behind his careful mask of contemplation.)

“Besides,” I said, “You know I’ll just complain the whole time about being cold.” It was true; I was a notoriously cold person. Stick me in 75 degree weather with a cold glass of iced-tea in my hand, and I I’d be shivering and looking for a sweater.

“All right,” his head nodded like I’m sure he heard some kind of classic rock beat in his head. He looked like he wanted to say something else. He seemed a bit sad, which only afforded a small dosage of guilt from me. However, he didn’t say anything else, and I looked to Hanzony, and we started off wordlessly toward the edge of the beach.

We discovered that it was a small cliff—a small cliff with amazing potential for hidden treasures, extending endlessly southward to our left.

It was glorious.

There were ledges and nooks and niches that sparkled and shimmered in the sunlight, dipping into the tumultuous waters stoically, and unmoving.

It made us underestimate the power of the waves, which had the force of the entire Pacific behind every crash. This was not our first mistake—our first mistake was dipping our legs over the edge once we were out of sight of our dusty-ball-cap-wearing father—but it was definitely our biggest mistake.

Our goal was to reach the scraggly tree we spied down the beach a ways, leaning out over the ocean as if looking for something it dropped. We figured it was a large and recognizable enough landmark to stop us from going too far. What we didn’t know was that, in real life, the tree was much larger than we gauged, and therefore much further away than we guessed. But once we set our goal, either of us would be damned before we’d give up. It became a test of nerve.

What I find interesting, in regards to myself is that I’m afraid of moving very, very quickly, but heights don’t faze me. I guess it never occurs to me how quickly I’d travel when falling from a great height—which is more or less exactly what happened. It wasn’t a great height, but it was ten or fifteen feet further than I wanted to be at that moment, and I was lucky that I slid most of the way before being deposited onto the back of a large, round, smooth rock. Through the adrenaline, I couldn’t feel the scrapes on my feet, or the throbbing in my ankle that indicated a severe and painful twist.

I had been wearing flip-flops up to this point, which now I wobbled over bare-footed to retrieve the only one that survived the fall with me. The other one, I’m sure, had kamikaze-d into the foaming water that surrounded my rock, because it definitely wasn’t anywhere in sight.

It was amazing how much louder the ocean waves sounded when I was—literally—right on top of it. I looked up at the muffled, echoed voice of my brother, and waved a hand, a maniacal grin on my face. I don’t think he knew what I was smiling about—and for that matter; neither did I.

It became plain that there wasn’t going to be an easy way back up the cliff for me, especially after watching Hanzony’s puzzled face slowly morph into the concerned glower that happened only when he was divinely frustrated with himself. Which was pretty often, so I’d come to know that look very well.

It wasn’t a good look.

And that’s about the time I felt a crash of ocean spray lick the bottoms of my feet, and I realized that the tide was, indeed, coming in.

I’d like to tell you that I held it together, and calmly found away to recue myself from a cold, wet, gagging death. But I wasn’t very calm at this point. Especially since I had lost sight of my brother, and felt as though God and all his creatures had abandoned me to sink to my watery grave. (It’s moments like those that really make me regret my over-active imagination).

I whirled about helplessly, looking for a ledge to hoist myself onto, or another rock to jump to—not that that would do me any good, since the tide would surely swallow up all the rocks level with me. I was barely aware of the pitiful, scared noises that were jumping out of my throat whenever the water crashed higher around me. The ledge to my left was jutting out over the water, and was quickly shrinking away from me, though I hardly thought being over there would be better than my being over here, since the ocean wasn’t about to discriminate in my favor. But I had to do something, right? So, without debating with myself to harshly about it, I launched myself over the briny blue, and landed square in the center of my target.

Great!

. . . Oh, great! I still wasn’t any closer to the top and my salvation, because there weren’t any handholds over here, either—just a bare, smooth, gently sloping and glistening rock face that dwarfed me in size and significance.

I swore. Loudly and angrily, just to make myself clear.

Another gust of spray warned me uselessly of the oncoming crash that nearly knocked me off my feet. If I hadn’t flung myself against the rock-face, I’m sure that would have been the last of me.

As if I wasn’t already feeling it, my panic rose considerably, and I don’t know what I would have done if Hanzony’s voice hadn’t permeated the resounding waves.

“BUB!” Came the shout from the heavens, and I flung my sopping hair out of my face to search desperately for its source.

“Ah! I. . . AH!” I said. Sure, they weren’t words, but they conveyed my meaning perfectly.

“I’m coming down!”

“WHAT!?”

“I’m coming down!” he repeated doggedly. 

“OH, You BETTER not!” I warned, my voice sounding alien with near-hysterics, and not sinister like I was aiming for. “Are you stupid!?”

“Only as stupid as you!” He cried, and I thought I would burst with anger. But before I could stop him, I heard a dull 'smack!' against the rock I had just catapulted myself from.

“What are you doing!?” I wanted to know, but he didn’t say anything. As the next wave had me up against the wall again, I felt his cold, wet hand on my shoulder in a death-grip.

“This way!” He proclaimed, and I realized that he didn’t have a heroic death wish—he had a plan! His dark, stubby finger pointed toward my salvation.

Another ledge--with a larger chasm than the last I'd jumped.

And when I say larger, I mean larger. The gap was nearly as tall as I was. Which was pretty tall, even at fourteen. 

Oh, goody.

All I had to do was jump one more ledge, he'd said.

Yeah. 'All I had to,' he said, as if it were easy, as if I was in the habit of jumping extreme distances. The nerve! 

Apparently—though I thought of this later, at the moment I was busy being incredulous—Hanzony had scouted along the top of the cliff for the best possible rout I could take. As he was doing this, he decided that he couldn’t shout the directions to me because it would take too long, and it would double my chances of survival if he were to, instead, show me. 

And he did. He jumped. No careening, no slipping (granted, he was wearing shoes). He turned, and held a hand out to me, as though the hand would make the distance not so distant. I looked down at the frothy expanse, numb and scared and scolding myself for not wearing shoes (or a freaking sweater! Oh, was I cold!). 

Well, if he could do it—I’d be damned if I couldn't!

One more wave that nearly pulled my legs clear out from under me was all the motivation I needed to finally launch my cold, wet butt across another glittering, stomach-churning death-pit. My foot barely touched the ledge, and if it weren't for Hanzony's beckoning hand, well. . . you get the idea. 

From there, my memory clouds, and I don’t recall how we climbed up onto the cliff. I know it was dangerous, slippery, and risky, but definitely not as dangerous, slippery and risky as staying put would have been.

When we cleared the top, and I pulled my breathless, battered body over the edge and to safety, I found myself staring up at a large, crooked tree. That was the first time that evening that I realized how dark it actually had gotten; several stars had winked into existence since I had tumbled to my thwarted-doom.

Well, I guess we did reach our goal. When we finally returned to the Jeep, numb from cold, and breathless from our hobble-hike (well, MY hobble hike; since the adrenaline had left me with a tremendous pain in my ankle, and I had a bloody, sandal-less foot to attend to, the way back was definitely not fun) Hanzony looked at me with eyes that warned against announcing our exploits. I nodded my head in agreement, and when Dad asked in a not-so-well-disguised Frantic Voice 'just where we’d gone off to’, Hanzony deftly answered,

“Oh, you know—around.”

~* ~ * ~ *~

CLIFF NOTES VERSION: So, essentially, my little brother and I pranced around like the pre-teens we were, climbed along the edge of a treacherous, beachside cliff, and were nearly swallowed by the rising tide. Luckily a stream of fortuitous events brought us safely back to where my little brother, Eli was fishing with my father. We told no one of our mishaps--we weren't that stupid. Do you think we'd risk punishment? I don't know about you, but I certainly didn't want--and Hanzony agreed with me--my dad to turn into a Nazi and revoke my exploratory privilages. That just wouldn't have been cool.

Pretentious Ambiguity

It is an understated memory, and reminds me of the way my bottom drawer always stays slightly rolled open. The stuff in the drawer, which, from the outside you can almost see, would only really be noticeable if you knew exactly what you were looking for. It would hardly seem significant.

It was just that, unexpectedly, I seemed to be frozen in time. I was in the middle of a room congested with bodies, judgments, and conflicting notions of reality. It didn’t matter; it didn’t matter who was there. It didn’t matter, and I didn’t care. It was a miraculous instance where I just stopped.

Others—the other people who were breathing, talking, distracting—didn’t notice, and wouldn’t notice it (certainly not at first, certainly not these people). And when it started (haltingly, like a stammerer before a congregation of hardy listeners, or grippingly, like one of those stories my brain seizes from me that I never intend to forget) a small, intense, and clandestine smile pulled itself over my face. Images that bore no relevance—or even existed—outside this moment seeped out from behind my eyes to hover like wraiths in front of me. Suspended. And it felt as if, perhaps, if I were to stare at them long enough, that they would take form and become real. If I stared at them hard enough, maybe I could force the forgotten dream to manifest itself in my waking mind. But they didn't, because they were insubstantial. 

It wasn’t like I was seeing something that wasn’t there, like I was hallucinating,  it was just that the act of recalling this thing, this memory, was deeply significant. It was deeply significant, as I’ve stated, because I just didn’t care. It was a memory that could be deemed haunting, or daunting—both, really—and the act of me not caring was like opening the dreaded closet door in the dark, only to discover that the noises didn't belong to scary monsters.

Not at all—they were just figments of a perception of a reality of a person who no longer exists as they had before.

 

. . . And then it was the peace that followed, like a fine mist felt on the face after an intense heat, that held me, stuck me, struck me, affixed me to that spot. Froze me where I stood. Not in a forceful, violent manner. It simply held me, gently, in a state of mind I could honestly say was peace. Peaceful. 

Anti-admiration equals. . . ?

I'm in a bad mood, and don't particularly want to write a blog/journal about something happy. I like my bad mood; it makes me feel important. So, in order to remain in this brooding state of disapproval, I am consciously avoiding avenues of thought that I know will lead me towards a brighter directive. I know that "admiration"—or more specifically, "What I, Bonnyjean Hoffert, find admiral"—is supposed to be the subject of this blog, and that the purpose of such a subject is to invite other people into my realm of personal belief(s) and/or dogma(s) of thought. 

I could go on and on about courage, and success stories about people overcoming personal struggles, against all odds, when nobody else believed they could, while drinking club soda out of a licorice straw, while turned upside-down holding the bridge position, while contemplating the aerodynamics of airplanes made of notebook paper. However, that would effectively lift me out of my bad mood, and where'd be the fun in that? Nowhere, I tell you--absolutely nowhere. It would be sad--savage--a travesty forsaking all that I, in this moment, hold low in dark, smoldering disregard. 

Well, heck! This is just a venue for creative expression, is it not? And right now, I want to creatively express my dark, brooding anti-admiration of those people who so artfully maneuver around the fact that perception is r e l a t i v e in order to rally the people into the dangerous realm of "groupthink"—people whose goal it is to bring others to adopt their own, personal "mindthinks" because they believe they are doing mankind a service by 'enlightening the unenlightened'. Here's one example: "English is important." To whom? To what end? Through what means? By whose judgment? (. . . Actually, I believe these questions are advocating fallacious thought, and I abhor that I asked them with such incredulity.) How about this one instead: "Humanity is the most sacred faction of nature". Now, there's a fun one. So, just because we have the brain capacity to reason and logic our way out of sticky situations—like responsibility for man-induced disaster—we are the most sacred part of the planet? Even to the detriment of everything outside our own, personal worlds and avenues of perception? Sacred? 

You know what I admire? I admire people who think outside the box. I know that's a cliché blanket statement, but I mean, what's the use of having a brain if one doesn't use it to question other people's directives? So what if a band of literary bigwigs got together and decided on a standard of theories and concepts and structures for writing that the rest of the academic community is expected to follow! So what if I don’t adopt group-accepted conventions into my personal perception of the planet. However did conventional become a requirement--and when? And. . . how? And. . . and. . . when?! Who stood up and said that conventional was acceptable? Perhaps nobody stood up and said anything, and instead everybody stood down and smoldered quietly at anything that threatened their sacred set of preconceived notions. Maybe it was this act of not acting that allowed convention to take over and slowly choke the creative spark out of most of humanity. 

Well, I’ll tell you what: I’ll fail classes and tank papers while going against convention (not to mention that teachers could perceive me as a pompous, naïve, self-important glob of wasted drive). I’ll lose jobs if I decide to go against the convention of wearing appropriate attire to work, i.e. if I show up in a scanty Halloween costume and the words, “F*CK CHRISTMAS” painted across my face. So what is there left for me to do but to comply with rhetoric, and do assignments the ‘appropriate, conventional’ way that was decided for me by thousands of literary adepts? I’d be lost in a lonely world, even if I surrounded my hobo home with the unconventional. . . like, silly string meant to ward off bad juju. Because then I’m not being ‘unconventional’, I’m plain acting crazy. 

Next time we're assigned to interview family members, I think I'll "get in an accident."

Let me preface this interview with a quote from the bible. "Oh my people, put on sackcloth and roll in ashes." Jeremiah 6:26

Now, you may be wondering why I've included a biblical reference in my blog. I am not religious. Or Christian. So it could be considered blasphemy, or some type of heresy; in fact, it's borderline mocking. However, when interviewing my dad on politics, it's a lot like listening to a sermon; you've just got to sit and take it. I have no idea what this particular quote means (since I am aware that it is taken completely out of context), but something about it seems very appropriate.

So. Without further ado or aplomb or any such giberish, may you enjoy this interview.

What’s your position on the stimulus bill?

I would say that it’s the wrong solution at the wrong time. It’s going to prolong the pain. I mean if you have your own household and things start unraveling because you’ve spent too much money because the economy is going bad, do you just max out your credit cards? Spend more money? They’re trying to spend us out of debt. I don’t know how you spend your way out of debt.

What would you propose we do?

Let the banks fail. And let the auto industry declare bankruptcy and restructure. Sure, it would tank for a while, but the good businesses would prosper. It would encourage people to get back to work, once the bottom of the housing industry is hit. It’d be real painful for a while, put its like pulling off a bandage slowly, or yankin’ it off. Which hurts more? The auto industry would have to renegotiate its contracts with their unions, and with their suppliers, who also are unionized, so everybody in the industry would have to renegotiate their contracts. That what bankruptcy does, it protects companies from creditors while they restructure. Cut your losses instead of try to save everybody. If they use that stimulus package, they could put 2700 bucks peope’s pockets. But what do you think the people would do with it? They would save it, or use it to pay off their credit cards. They sure as hell wouldn’t spend it, which is what the government is doing. And we’re all going to pay it back.

What do you think would happen if the bill was passed?

In short term it’s going to create jobs, but it’s not going to create long term jobs like building an industry. But once the short term jobs are done the gov’t will be out of money. California can’t even sell its bonds. And it’s the 8^th largest economy in the world. Who is going to buy the bonds that the us gov’t is putting out there? It’s not gonna be you and me. Who’s it gonna be? China, the Arabs? Well that’s the only people that have money right now. Europe doesn’t have money. Japan doesn’t have money. That means they’re going to put more interest on the bonds to attract people to buy them--

Dad, if you could give me a more generalized--

--People will be attracted to buying the bonds instead of investing in business which will make business people have to pay more for business loans, and then they have to charge more for their goods and services to cover the interest. It makes everything cost more. That’s what inflation is.

Dad, I know what infla--

--There won’t be any capital available for business because the gov’t already borrowed it all. And if you think that’s not a recipe for depression, then you haven’t read any history. And I’m not talking recession, either. Anytime you put money into gov’t projects, people go to work, but it’s usually the same people that already have a job. It’s not going to give new people jobs. They have to pay union wages, so when you could get two people on the job, you’ll only get one.

. . .

It’s the chicken way out. They’re going to ease the short term pain, but there’s no long term gain. . . Do you have any more questions?

No, Dad. I . . . I think I'm good.