What's up here? Not much. It snowed like mad and now I'm stuck here. Discovered my car is a piece of crap when it comes to snow. Went to take it to town, and turned around and came back as soon as I found a place to turn around where it wouldn't get stuck. I liked it fine when the roads were dry...except it was an embarrassment, but at this point I'm ready to sell the thing. The bottom line is that I now have zero mobility unless I'd like to walk or ride a bicycle through the snow, and am therefore once more dependent upon the good graces of my partner for bringing home groceries and performing various basic and necessary errands. In other words, I can kiss checking the mail, selecting what I'd like to eat, wear, and listen to, and the things I'd like to go to or participate in, goodbye. Shit. My life sucks. As though it weren't impossible enough already....::sigh:: I have got to do something, but damned if I can figure out what.

An old friend of my partner's stopped by a few days ago. He irritated the hell out of me, mainly becuase he was so goddamned patronizing and condescending, as though my head was full of fluff and air. >:-( But that's beside the point. The man spoke of his place, what he was doing, of firewood, greenhouses, stoves, hunting, of venison and moose, conspiracy theories....all things that used to be a major part of my life and identity. Now it's like ho-hum, been there, done that, tired of it... Don't get me wrong, I love the country life, but the last fifteen years of my life have been consumed with hardship and wondering where the next meal is going to come from, and how, finding ways to be more comfortable and warm, and so on. There has just got to be more than life than taking care of the most basic, rudimentary needs. Once I reveled in this sort of stuff. I loved splitting the wood, picking herbs and plants for the winter's tea, finding new uses for lentils, mapping out ways to supply all our food from the garden, living a subsistence lifestyle, showing that I was tough, that I could handle it, and sneering on those who couldn't. I think I'd still like to live in the country, someday...but not like this. And then, this place is so provincial. People here are so small minded- not all of them, but as a whole, you could hardly call them progressive. We've gone from logging and timber to lumber mills, realty, and tourist oriented industries. I think that there is some potential here; we have a lot of artists and artisans, and there are handfuls of interesting minds, but there is still such an...exploitative...mentality among the locals. The woods have been logged to death, and now we turn to the tourists. It's like they're pimping the place. After the tourists, after everything has been taken that can be, after the woods and mountains have been clearcut, subdivided and developed, after there's a tacky fast food joint or walmart or dollar store wherever one can be supported, will anything worthwhile remain?