(no subject)

[theatokos]

Yesterday's headline in the San Fransisco Chronicle was something like "East Bay faces water rations." Right on the heels of my "I might be very happy here for a long time" musing, the reality of living in a place not equipped for millions of inhabitants sets in. I live car free, recycle, try not topurchase too much, etc., but I'm still one more person, bringing another person into the world, living in a place that can't healthfully sustain the millions of people that live here. I have year round "allergies" to the air pollution and water comes from the mountains quite a ways away. It's not LA or San Diego, but it's not sustainable either.

Of course, Juneau isn't perfectly sustainable. All the food, save seafood, gets shipped in from Outside. And recently Juneau's been facing a massive energy crisis (check out the New York Times article). But this glitch will get fixed and they'll go back to clean, sustainable hydro-electric power. All that rain and water is good for something!

Still. Now I wonder if I can justify living in a major urban area. It seems a bit selfish and not that wise. I want my boy to be able to play outside! To have a relationship with nature beyond zoos, the Discovery Channel, and field trips. I don't want him developing asthma or other allergies.

Here I go, waffling about place again. As if I am even in a position to move.

Comments

[automata.livejournal.com]

Man. Juneau is a pretty awesome place for little kids in some ways.

There is sort of a daycare shortage that includes difficulty even in getting into Montessori. I guess some people get on the wait list when they're pregnant and have trouble getting into the infant-toddler program.

I think it's not the best place to go to high school. Did you go to high school here in town? Man, it sucks.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

I did go to high school in Juneau. My freshman year was the last year they still had a teacher smoking lounge on the top floor! The bottom floor exit, near the pool, was were all the "dangerous" guys hung out. Ha.

I actually had a pretty good time at JDHS. I think this can attributed to a variety of things: I am constitutionally happy and generally do my own thing, I was in the honors track, I was involved with activities (swim team and choir), I'm white. I'm not immune to the struggles of Juneau (especially after working at JDHS for two years!), but I don't see them as any harder than being in high school anywhere else. I think there are a lot of positives to growing up in Juneau that outweigh the negatives.

[alizarin71.livejournal.com]

DUDE! The California Supreme Court just overturned Prop 22! Gay Californians can get married! You live in the best state EVER!

Here's hoping the stupid constitutional amendment doesn't get enough ballots...amendments already exist in something like 26 states (unspeakable). But--hey! A little water rationing doesn't seem so bad!

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

Sadly, AK passed a constitutional amendment like 10 yrs ago. Sigh.

I'm still not convinced allergies, water shortages, cancer, crime, concrete and commuting are outweighed by the ability to get married.

It's hypocritical as a married woman to say so, but our legal system around marriage isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's still based on property, patriarchy and privilege - gay or no. I'm all for expanded critique on this institution.

But that in no way negates my happiness for the Court's ruling today!

[alizarin71.livejournal.com]

Allergies, water shortage, cancer, crime, concrete, and commuting--most of them things that afflict any place that attempts to get a lot of people living together in harmony--aside for the moment, what is it about the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage that leave you discontent?

What about it makes you say it's based on property and patriarchy? I know these are the roots of civil marriage. But these days, in the so-called liberal democracies of which ours is one, married people don't have to own property, or be one another's property. Women don't have to take a man's name. Justices of the peace and mail-order pastors can officiate, separating the institution from religion.

Forgive me for just repeating all the obvious things we all know. Perhaps you have an insider's whistleblower view on this whole song-and-dance that so many people still seem to want to be able to join.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

I am more than half being sarcastic. But also less than half serious. I completely support the right to gay marriage. Absolutely. But the way we (as a society) view marriage is still quite... provincial? It is rooted in patriarchy. And while Adam and I do a good job of not falling into that abyss - most days - it's still a social underpinning of the institution. We live in a part of the country that is quite progressive in how we view partnership - legal, spiritual, what have you. But, for example, Adam's parents and extended family still have a hard time wrapping their brains around the fact that I am not Mrs nor have taken his last name. I got a mother's day card addressed to: Mrs. Ewigweibliche W---/B---
Ha!

I'd really like to see the gov't step out of marriage altogether. Let civil unions be the state standard for all couples (and more, I support legal polyamory too!) and let religious leaders offer spiritual marriages.

[alizarin71.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what you say makes a lot of sense to me. Civil marriage is a big confusion of church and state. It enshrines--encodes, rather--a singular, entrenched set of cultural values as legal values. But as long as the gov't calls a certain huge array of rights "marriage," I'll want everyone to have it.