Ever notice that the more people you want to share your fabulous writing prowess with, the less people you have to lavish your fabulous writing prowess on?

Hi Dad.

I’m telling you, it’s a problem.

Ok Dad. You don’t do or say anything interesting, and I won’t do or hear anything… .

Ok then. We’re all set.

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Naw, I’m just kidding. Welcome to the crowd! Standing room only but I’m sure you won’t mind. Ok, topic for today: Why I am tempted to become a republican [gasps of horror, fainting, cries of indignation] even though I am pro-choice and have been known to say all republicans are self-righteous assholes…except for Alcoholic Roommie who is funny enough not to be an asshole when he’s being an asshole and to whom I hopefully will not be tempted to tout my fabulous writing prowess now that I’ve dubbed him Alcoholic Roommie.

I know this has caused you to lose a lot of sleep too, so I thought I’d share what I heard on NPR – I ♥ U 4EVR!!!! – on Thursday: Social security. There’s this big hubbub over how it’s going to be bankrupt in 2062 or ‘58 or whatever. Anyway, point is, when I will be retiring. That’s because the baby boomers are, as the commentator put it, like a pig making its way through the belly of a snake. That means they’re going to eat up a huge chunk of cash as they go through the system, so that by the time I reach the age of doddering senility (in approximately two years), there will only be about 70% of the benefits I should receive left – even though I’ve been paying in with every working dollar I earn. WTF?!

But wait, it gets better. Did it ever seem like something must be missing from the equation? Well, there is. And according to the story I heard on NPR, it’s this: during all the years the baby boomers have been paying into Social Security, they’ve been creating a huge surplus, since their generation is so much larger than the one before it. So what happened to the surplus, and more importantly, why isn’t it waiting for me? Well, the government took it, and invested it, and is using it to pay off the multi-trillion-dollar deficit caused by us wanting to prove to the world that we have big hairy balls and you’d better not f*ck with us (among other sundry factors).

WTF?!!?

Now, remember when I said I didn’t usually dabble in politics because I have no idea WTF I’m talking about? Well, that still holds in case I’m wrong/underinformed/have no idea WTF I’m talking about. But as a worker, this is why I’m so frickin’ mad: I spend a hundred thousand hours of my life – over 4,000 days – sitting in a goddamn cubicle so that the government can take that money and spend it on Halliburton?

WTF?!@???

(Please note that Halliburton is employed as a catch-all scape goat for all generally liberal-minded dissatisfication with the current political situation.)

Now, normally I’m a poster-child liberal. I think that the government should help those who are less fortunate, because for those seeped in a culture of poverty, it is that much harder to dig their way out. Especially when so many other people have a head start. And I don’t just say that because I grew up eating tofu and wearing tie die and hearing how awful our neighbor the land developer was. I say that because when I was in Nicaragua, I saw that it was true. Your cultural perimeters define your idea of what is possible. I know that it is possible for me to be a writer. I grew up in an environment where that was something people did. My friends and students in Nicaragua didn’t know what the Internet was. And I felt it myself—as a twenty-two-year-old traveler, I suddenly began to feel like an old maid. After all, everyone around me was married with two kids at my age. I began to feel incredibly, incredibly old. It was a very subtle feeling. It’s like a voice that hovers just beyond the range of human hearing, but is somehow incorporated in your psyche. Knowledge does not penetrate into areas where these people live because many of them lack the resources, time, and optimism to seek it out. Which is why I think we have to have resources to combat subcultures of poverty in our nation.

As for old people, heck, they need money too. And I’m all for the government pooling our collective risk so that everyone is guaranteed a return. But that money is our money, and should be uniquely dedicated to the purpose of supporting retired citizens. Down with big government! Isn’t that what you Republicans always say? But then again, your president did take our big fat surplus and turn it into a flabby ol’ sack of debt. You suck. Oh well, maybe I’ll just go independent and be completely disenfranchised.

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Not to get all political and sh*t. (All biographers please note that any reproduction of this information without prior consent of the AIC Trust is unlawful and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. By the way, what do you think about “Beginnings of Genius: R. Lavishes Her Fabulous Writing Prowess on Politics” —as a title for this chapter?)

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How the heck did I get on this topic anyway? Next time tell me I’m ranting, already.

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Uh. Bye Dad.