06 February 2003

I know, I've been slacking a little bit with the journal thing...

I don't want to talk about myself. I'm bummed out, I'm half-suicidal, I drink too much coffee and smoke too many cigarettes, and my brain is just sort of fried. I bug the shit out of Jake (at least, I try; he's startlingly resilient), I mope, I clean compulsively, I fantasize about sharp objects, and I don't wash my hair very often. Oh, and Jake and I go to a lot of AA meetings. But you're not exactly allowed to talk about those.

Really. You don't want to hear about me. Live in the now, and one day at a time and all that happy horse-shit, but let's face it; the "now" sucks my ass. You don't want to hear about me, and I don't want to talk about me.

I don't want to NOT talk about the baby. I know, it makes me cry, and it hurts if I'm thinking about her or if I'm not, but... I don't want to write about her because I'd leave this room bawling, and I've had a decent enough day so that I don't HAVE to bawl right now... But I don't want to NOT talk about her, because it seems like a dishonor somehow...

Frankly, it seems like a dishonor that I'm alive and she's not. Mothers should be able to fight for their children's health and safety to the point of their own death, and I wasn't able to. I don't feel like a mother, I don't feel like a human being. and I don't feel like I should be alive unless, somehow, I can make everything I do into something for her...

Anyway...

Norman sent me an email to sort of kick me and tell me to write SOMETHING, at least...

"But still -- tell us something. Remember -- the whole earth is alive, and you can feel it."

Right. I'm not in a mood for feeling. I'm not much in a mood for the world, or aliveness of any sort, either. So I'm going to gripe, instead.

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Bear in mind, I am not an economist, or a mathematician....

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Okay, so according to my sources, which are reliable although my analysis of them might be less than accurate, Washington State now has the third highest state minimum wage law in the country. Also, according to my sources, Washington State appears to have one of the top unemployment rates in the nation.

Consider this:

Alaska has the highest minimum wage in the United States: Seven whopping dollars and fifteen cents. ($7.15) Alaska also appears to have THE highest unemployment rate in the nation, at something like Seven-point-whopping-four percent unemployment. (7.4%)

Okay, so this isn't exactly rocket science... Really, it's not. Like this: if you're an employer, and minimum wage is a dollar, you can hire, say, two workers, because you've got two bucks to throw their way. But if minimum wage is two bucks, you can only hire one worker, because you've still only got two bucks. Really, it's not rocket science.

The government, and whoever the fuck else, can regulate minimum wage, BUT... they can't regulate the number of employees a company has to have. So an increase in minimum wage appears to do NOTHING but make a few people (the employed) a little bit richer, and give the pink slip to a lot of people. In very basic terms, it makes a huge division between rich and poor.

I've been poking around with this idea a lot since I moved to Washington and realized it's fucking impossible to get a job. ("You want my RESUME? This is a BURGER-FLIPPING job!") But... the minimum wage is very high.

For some reason, many of my friends and acquaintances do not appear to share this view that increases in minimum wage are not necessarily all good. I don't understand this. I mean, I'm talking about poor college students, you know? Why on EARTH would a poor college student want a HIGHER state minimum wage? Something about workers' rights? Well, sure, workers' rights are GREAT... BUT NOT IF THERE AREN'T ANY WORKERS... It's NOT all good; not if you're a poor college student and you can't GET a job.

Not, of course, that I have any halfway-intelligent solutions to offer...

But for gahd's sake, why are my unemployed, poor friends whining for higher minimum wages? It would be GREAT to want higher minimum wages IF you were in a very, very stable long-term job -- and NOT otherwise.

(Jake says, as I bitch to him about this, and show him the statistics that I found -- which I compared myself, because apparently nobody else has done it -- that I'll be a Republican yet... ...which, of course I won't be... Nor will I be a Democrat... I'd personally rather teach kids English in exchange for food and rent, and spend my summers eating berries in the woods, than be part of this whole ridiculous system... But if so-called liberals are for workers' rights at the cost many more people UNABLE to get a job, then fuck that whole idea, and you may not send me a petition to sign...)

Great.

Anyway, I'm going to bed now, or some shit...

~Helena*