I just don't keep up on this as I should...no excuses any more. The holidays approach, and good times and rest. I have said enough on the subject of exhaustion, and don't want to read it any more. Suffice to say, being out here involves a lot of work, and even the simple stuff gets complicated quickly. It is expensive, and difficult, even when it comes to something as seemingly simple as buying a carton of milk.
It will get a lot more complicated if the Post Office "reforms" go through, and the mail system out here becomes more expensive. It is currently a life line of sorts for rural Alaska. You can probably find a lot of people (especially in the cities) who think that this is an unsupportable lifestyle that has been too long subsidized by the federal government and oil money and that it just has to end. They will write long and hard in the comments section of the Anchorage Daily News to that effect with some frequency.
They may have a point. I don't feel qualified to comment. Times are tough everywhere, and it is hard to argue that there should be some sort of accommodation here not available to others elsewhere. I suspect that life is going to continue to get harder for most people in this country for the foreseeable future, and that little in the political arena is likely to change that. Our system is pretty clearly in thrall to the interests of those with enough financial power to manipulate it.
It is, however, nice in some ways to be out beyond the direct grasp of the advertiser and the huckster, the baying hounds of the "news' media, and the general Great American Bullshit Machine that runs the conversation back in the world. We are not so very far, in many ways, but it is easy out here to step off from that platform. I am not sure that I like all of the things about civilization, as comfortable as they are.
There is a real push and pull that is hard to know how to resolve. Fortunately for me, there is no hurry...
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