I came to Montana to practice my profession. The licensing process contains a number of redundancies which slow it down. I am almost there but until then I am making $12.48 an hour, good wages for this area, working 10 to 20 hours a week.

I have a student loan which is at $38k, all interest (I have paid off at least 3x what I originally borrowed but since I haven't been working the last few years the loan has been in forbearance collecting interest). They want $269 a month from me starting in March. This month I will earn under $700. If I don't make those payments they will suspend my professional and driver's licenses, which will of course make it impossible for me to practice my profession. Crazy eh? The US Congress passed that measure in 2005. This creates a catch-22. If you can't pay, you lose your ability to make a living, then you can't pay for food or housing either. Can debtors prison be far off?

When I was traveling and not employed I had more money in my pockets and less money stress than I do working and living somewhere. I feel like the message is getting clearer for me...drop out entirely, let the US and it's economic slavery go fuck itself.

So I am saying these things, and compared to many I have it easy! I don't have the responsibility for a bunch of kids, a mortgage, etc. There are millions of people in this country who are sinking fast.

And to top it off, the system which created this, and which stole the wealth of the nation and gave it to a few CEOs and politicians, is also responsible for killing, starving, poisoning, torturing, and basically brutalizing more hundreds of millions around the world.

Gee, great country we live in!

I am very happy to report that my neck is no longer hurting, the nerve pain down my arm is gone along with the tingling and numbness. Yay!! It's amazing how much energy it takes for me to cope with constant pain, and when the pain is gone all that energy becomes available for other things, like feeling good and being creative.

It is overcast here in the Bitterroot Valley today, and in the mid 40's F. I have this feeling of springtime, though I know it is really months away. The smell of the thawed earth, the warmth in the sunshine (when it's sunny) and the surge of energy from not being in pain all fill me with excitement.

I have been following the news some. Lots of really bad decisions being made by Obama regarding expanding faith based government funded ventures, poor choices for cabinet posts, continued US war mongering and brutality, continued squeeze on civil liberties. As the economy continues to sink into the abyss, the proposed stimulus package is looking less and less reasonable to me. If instead of bailing out corporations the government just sent everyone $50k most people would be able to pay off a lot if not all of their debt which would make the banks solvent, get people out of debt and allow for a revitalization of the economy. There would have to be wage and price freeze along with the payout to prevent inflation from running amok. But what we seem to be getting is more bailout for corporations, and some needed infrastructure and education repair.

We shall see what we shall see, eh?

Some friends are here working on their travelling permaculture demonstration schoolbus/home. Check out permibus.org it's pretty interesting. The website is not finished but we're all working on it.

I've been experiencing another bad bout with my neck since early December when it was - 20 F (that's -29 C) and I had to split a cord of wood by hand. If I spend more than 15 minutes to an hour in a vertical position, the weight of my head puts pressure on the nerves coming out of my neck and going into my right arm. This is happening because I had a compression fracture in my C5 vertebra in 1977, along with disk damage, and now there is arthritis, stenosis, and disk inflammation all aggravating the aforementioned nerves. Ouch. The sensations range from 0 to 8 on the 1 - 10 pain scale, usually hovering in the 2 to 6 range.

I have been through this before. This pain in my neck has lasted for years in the past. There is one practitioner who treated me with 100% success...nearly no pain for over 3 years until I split that wood. She is in Salem, Oregon and I am planning a trip there this coming month.

Pain is just a sensation, and I can relegate it thus at times, but it also wears on my emotional and physical stamina. When this is going on I don't have as much patience as I usually do, and learning to be patient has been part of my life anyway. I become irritable more easily, and I feel useless and wrung out.

Now, I am aware that I just became employed in a "job" job for the first time in a long time, and while there are things I like about it, and I am glad to use my skills both because they are useful and it feels good, I am also aware that I resent having a job. I don't work a ton of hours and I make about $700 a month for about 60 hours, which is just barely not enough for me to live on, and yet I don't feel up to or desirous of working more than 20 hours a week. Money stress has been a theme in my life...the scale may change from tens of thousands to tens of dollars, but it's still a factor.

I'm living in a place that I chose, which I like, and where I have met good people, and right now in the cold of winter with pain in my body I feel more like cocooning than like seeing people.

Anyone reading this who's known me for a while recognizes my pattern...just goes to show you, wherever you go, there you are.

Traveling affords a sense of pattern interrupt which is part of why I like it. Being in one place you have to deal with patterns within oneself and in relating with the outside world of people, Earth, life, etc.

So here I am, a week 'till payday, propane tank is empty, not a lot of food left, freakin' bills to pay...passing the nights by feeding the fire and watching movies on the computer...

I'm also watching what Obama is doing and liking some of it. I am very disappointed, however, in the things he is not addressing. People are really poor out here in the hinterlands, with no help in sight. The stimulus package he is proposing has some really good stuff re: infrastructure, education, energy, but it doesn't address the immediate need for health care, food, shelter. He is also not addressing the civil liberties issues that exist in the US. Maybe he is working on these things behind the scenes but I'm not seeing much about it in the media. he is also not condemning Israel for their horrific invasion and subsequent slaughter in Gaza, nor has he stopped the drone assassination flights into Pakistan. He has not pulled back on the missiles in Poland. There is a long list and I know his administration is super busy settling in and getting things in motion, these are just some priorities I'd like to see immediate action on.

My wish to you all reading this is that you are well and surrounded by people you love who love you.

I see a lot of sour grapes coming from the right in commentaries, in Congress...hey you folks, it's time to put aside your ideology and get with doing what's right for the people. Bush had 8 years during which he wreaked havoc on the world, on our economy, on the Constitution. You all had your turn and you fucked things up royally. Now bow your heads, have some humility, and do the right thing for a change.

Amen.

I have also seen signs that the Dems in Congress may do some holding out for their corporate neocon fascist masters. "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have made it clear -- it's not their job to answer to Obama." Really, fuck them. They sure have been kowtowing to Bush for years. How dare they stand in the way of real progress!

Now that there is someone decent in the white house it is critical that Congress be pressured like mad to give up their allegiance to greed and power. Since most of the members are too craven to do this they must simply be replaced ASAP. As far as I'm concerned people like Pelosi and Reid should stand trial in The Hague just as much as Bush and Cheney should.