The following is a rant about my situation, taxes and my future. I know I am not alone and there are more with worse. Rant in. Maybe we can all get a little cathartic relief.
Language may be abused.
A-hemm.
Dear Goddamn American Government and Patronizing Plutocrats:
What the fuck else am I supposed to do for you?
I wanted to be an actress. A writer. Make a living with that.
Instead I got a Bachelors in Chemistry. It would put food on the table. A roof over my head. A 'good' living. Future growth.
I did my time in the rat race. I ran the wheel with several industries.
Just like a good little citizen should.
I got bored. Mid-career crisis. Started my path toward living in the country. Living off the land, with the land, as much as possible.
But I kept the job. Like a good little citizen. (Wherefore art this Galt guy? Good little citizens don't do that!)
20 acres. No house- an RV in making this transition. Fences. Dogs. Cats. Goats. Chickens. Hippie neighbors. Community. Real community I hadn't known I'd been seeking.
2008. Making plans to build. Get my plans and the housing market crashes.
Lovely timing? Yes.
I work for a multinational corp. They outsource. My job goes to China.
R&D work is being sent to China folks. What is left here? Shadows and stains.
I qualify for federal retraining funds. There are no jobs in my field that can't be outsourced. I choose to go into teaching.
Outsource that Plutocracy! Will you be outsourcing children next?? Think of all the dark-skinned folks you'll be importing, Tea Partiers! (Heads explode, I'm sure.)
To my surprise, after a rocky start, I like teaching. No. I LOVE teaching science to rowdy, contentious, unprepared, disinterested 9th graders. I get them excited about science. Perhaps not enough to have them all pass tests with flying colors, but enough that even the toughest nut was asking questions. I can get better. I want to get better.
I want to be a greedy thuggish teacher who takes a paycut to move from industry to teaching. Teaching science, which President Obama has claimed is a national priority. Right?
June 2010. I graduate. State of Oregon cut 10% across the state budgets. Fellow students have job offers rescinded. I find 3 jobs to apply for, two being part-time. I don't even make the interviews. One part time teaching job had over 50 applications in a rural town. Experienced applicants.
Do you want a damn teacher or not?
Remember this, Plutocracy, these students today are your future prostate surgeon. Be their first patient. I'll sell tickets.
Today I am doing my taxes. I owe 4 times as much as I did last year. Did I make 4x more? No. For a single person, my taxable income is barely above poverty level. Just about the same as last year. But I don't seem to qualify for educational credits that I did last year.
Oh, and that first couple thousand income exemption dropped so the wealthy could extend their tax cuts last fall. Thank you so much, US government. Could you please use some lube next time?
I hit 99 weeks of unemployment in Oct 2010. I've been able to do some substitute teaching, most of it in November to cover a teacher having surgery. That might have tipped me over poverty level, darn it.
So, perhaps I would have been better of not to keep my job skills up? Not make connections? Because it really hurts right now, when I'm living off savings (which are inherited stocks) and luck (which is very fickle for me).
Person who tell me to get a job dies a figurative death. Find me the goddamn job I am qualified for! No, I can't realistically move on a whim. Houses aren't selling and you think land will?? I have applied for jobs in teaching and in industrial lab work. The latter fears I will up and leave for a teaching job (true). The former hasn't got the budget.
I periodically check out all jobs in the area. Part-time, minimum wage will cost me more than it pays, thanks to gas costs. It's 20 miles to the nearest town. No transit service.
Nor would that last long. I'm too old to put up with worker abuse and I know worker rights.
I'm no longer a good little citizen. I educate. Even when I won't get paid for it. My soul gets paid, and that is a small comfort.
I went to a job fair for educators last week. Schools don't have budgets. Hardly any had positions they knew they would fill.
Unless you wanted to teach in China.
I interviewed for it. Won't work out for me, but perhaps something closer. Where I can drive back every month or so and check on someone renting my place. Eastern Oregon. Live with my mother in Portland (OR). Alaska.
Some one who might like to learn about farming in the raw.
I have to have something. Some job with decent income to wrestle my mortgage company into a new agreement. When you buy bare land, it's a balloon payment.
Mine is due Feb 2012.
I will give up my land when I'm in a box. It comes with a fantastic community. It's land with crappy soil, short growing season and food for goats. And slugs for ducks.
I'm not so sure it is my land so much as I belong to it.
Isn't that what I am supposed to do? Find a place I belong? Find work I enjoy? Enrich my community with participation?
Dear Plutocracy, you are making that impossible. Why are you shocked when we break out the pitchforks and occupy Capitol buildings? Why are you surprised when we organize?
When you are tossing circuses and breadcrumbs to the plebeians, the breadcrumbs have to reach them. Or they eat the circus that you are.