Dear Internets-
I am up before the sun again. I woke up with the electricity of anxiety around my heart, and nothing would calm it. I finally gave in and dressed to run, which I have not done in three weeks. I am not a runner, but at 5:45 in the morning there’s not a whole lot else I can motivate for. Now I am sitting on my stairs (oh my favorite place to perch in my home, the middle of the spiral staircase, with the bookcase to my right to nicely hold my coffee).

As I ran the calculations were spinning through my mind. I don’t know if I am the only one for whom this happens, but calculations have become my constant companion. How many hours did I work? What are my unplanned for expenses this month (can I actually plan for something that is unplanned for?) What will the taxes be?

I was thinking back to a previous job, in which I planned and scheduled another person’s life. Part of that was arranging and getting money for travel. The company standard was a per diem of $50/ day. For anyone unfamiliar with per diem, it is the money that a person is given for food when they travel for work. I was thinking about what I usually spend on food for a day, and it is definitely not fifty dollars a day. I understand that per diem is to cover the fact that generally, when traveling a person does not have access to a kitchen, and therefore cannot eat on a budget.

It just gets me thinking about the ways that people travel through their lives. Or rather the way I travel through my own life. Where have I placed the emphasis in my budget? The fact is that I generally spend about $50 on my monthly grocery shopping trip. Although I suppose if I spent more I would likely eat at home more often.

I’ve been dreaming about my cottage again. In my head it’s a small affair, two bedrooms and an eat in kitchen with a small living area. The biggest part of my cottage is the garden. If anyone knows of a small cottage on a large piece of land that is available for cheap, please let me know.

In which I think a little bit about what the past months have wrought.

In attempting to keep with my new theme I realize I have not actually posted since I made the announcement. And so, a goal. Despite an ambitious (and exciting) month in front of me, I am going to attempt to post to this blog every other day.

Intriguingly, since I settled on my new blog theme, the rest of the country seems to have fallen in lock step behind me. Main Street? I don’t want to hear about Wall Street and Main Street once more.

So here I am, 26 years old and in the midst of “the biggest financial disaster since the Great Depression”. Well, guess what? From where I stand today is pretty much the same as yesterday, and I don’t expect tomorrow to be a whole lot different either. I don’t have a mortgage, and my investments in the stock market are laughable. Does that mean it doesn’t matter? Of course not. But what is far more concerning to me is the fact that the APR on my previously reasonable credit card has skyrocketed over the last six months.

Here in the “getting by” section of the world rent still needs to get paid, and healthcare is something we are lucky to have (at least everyone is on board with that). So I have full health coverage again (I was on COBRA for most of the last four months) and I can tell you that realistically, I’m not too impressed with the health care proposals from either of the major party candidates. I dismiss McCain’s plan out of hand because it will directly HARM me (gee… I sure would hate to pay income tax on my health benefits, since it is one of the reasons I can justify making so little in the first place). But Obama? Where does he plan to get the money for his plan? Of course with the choice in front of me (and if health care were the only issue), I would go with Obama’s plan, because at least it doesn’t hurt me. But really… with as much going on right now in terms of government spending… there’s just no way that there can be any follow through. Clinton couldn’t get universal health coverage ten years ago, and the economy was far stronger then than it is now.

Just one lay-person’s thoughts from the peanut gallery… but hey, if the big bucks politicians want to spend their time talking about the disappearing middle class, trickle up/ trickle down, and all of that other jargon I figure I might as well chime in.

My posting remains lackluster, and in an effort to inspire myself, I have broken down and decided to find, of all things A THEME (gasp). In taking the advice of, well, everyone ever, I’ll continue to write what I know (also because my attempts at writing anything else turn out rather dreadfully).

My theme is generally “getting by in america”. This morning I was listening to Barbara Kingsolver on The Ethics of Eating. I have been a fan of Kingsolver’s since I read The Bean Trees in middle school, and one of her essays “Lily’s Chickens” has inspired me in many of the ways I have chosen to live my life over the past few years. The interview I was listening to elaborated on the essay; Kingsolver recently wrote a book about the year she spent with her family living primarily off of food they grew and harvested themselves.

I long for a life in which I can sustain myself and remain a member of a small and closely knit community. My dreams are simple, a house, a family, and some land on which I can grow my own food. Why does my dream feel so desperately unattainable? Well, for starters, I live in a country where a significant amount of the population will inexplicably (to me) vote for a man who believes that people who make less than $5 million a year are middle class.

I make a little less than twice the minimum wage, and I have no children. I live in a city with overwhelming poverty, and yet some of the highest rental rates in the country.

So this is my new blog. Maybe someone out there is interested in the challenges of getting by in America (the success of Nickel and Dimed indicates that someone must find the topic compelling), while remaining thoughtful, and without becoming whiney. Perhaps some people out there can relate, and hopefully some people out there have tips.

As I have noted recently, I haven’t been around very much. This is for a couple of reasons, primarily that I have been holding down two part time jobs. Which wouldn’t be such a big deal except that one of them requires a metro and then a bus ride into suburban Maryland.

I have been working at the Apple store for about the last two months. It has been an incredibly wonderful and rewarding experience, something I would never have expected to say about retail once I started working in an office.

Last Friday I gave notice to my current employer. It is a feeling that would be familiar to anyone who has stayed in a relationship longer than they ought, the fear of leaving the familiar, the joy of leaving the frustrating, and the apprehension of the unknown.

It helps that I am not leaping blindly, without a plan, in fact I have a plan for the first time since I started college. It is a plan I have held to for a few months now, and it feels very right to me.

I post all of this because if I have any regular readers left, I feel I owe an explanation for my absence. Hopefully as the dust settles I can resume a more regular posting schedule.

PS- don’t ask me about the iPhone, I don’t know anything about it