I was listening to the Today Show on the radio this morning. They did a segment on office dress codes. During the high-tech boom of the 1990's everything was all about deconstructing the office hierarchy and learning to play at work. Computer geeks had basketball hoops stuck to the walls over their computer screens and people brought their dogs, babies, and goldfish to work.
Today corporations are demanding the restraint of personal expression, adherence to rigid dress codes and more work for less pay, or else! Since even upper-middle class workers can expect to be unemployed for two years or more, the workforce is buckling under.
It's funny, I came out of a generation that was profoundly affected by the 1960's Consciousness Revolution. I thought breaking down the boundaries between the rich and the poor; men and women; gay and straight was par for the course. I suppose young people all assume where they came from is where they're going.
It became obvious to me over the last ten or more years that a conservative backlash had taken the edginess out of the liberal mind-set of America. Year by year landscapes altered from Reagan to the Internet to 911.
The thing is it's very hard for me to imagine being more restricted on the job and in day to day life. I'm forty-one and I'm used to alot of freedom.
Well, that's how I ended up in New Mexico. The cost of living in Boston not only jeopardized my physical survival, it pushed me against a psychological wall that forced me to take action or end up as the next anonymous number on the homeless list at some state office. I'm too old to live on the street. It would be too heart-breaking.
Nevada never had any intention of leaving where he came from. However, over time he saw the escalating rents, the Eurotrash couples moving into Somerville, the MBTA and food prices going up, up, up.
New Mexico is a much neglected state. But in that neglect there is space. Not so many people, not so many rules, not enough political infrastructure to make what laws we have stick.
It's still the Wild, Wild West in so many ways, which means we have to be on guard against wild dogs, crazy kids, and flash floods. But that's what made it possible for us to buy a house and live quite comfortably on almost nothing.
Life is weird, I don't know what to make of it. Do you?
