The War

"The War On Christmas" is some stupid shit, alright?

Why do people get up in arms about acknowledging other holidays? For years now people have been flipping out over Starbucks cups not having "Merry Christmas" emblazoned on them, or store clerks wishing people "Happy Holidays!" when they neither know nor care about what you might celebrate or not. Despite Christian denominations making up about 70% of the United States general population some people, especially in certain news media, completely believe that Christmas is under attack. It's not. For real. Despite what whats-his-face might say, there's no War On Christmas. Plus, not as many people give a shit about how they're greeted this time of year anyway, so it's really not a big deal.

Imagine, though, that the War On Christmas was actually a thing. What would the most effective means of dealing with a situation like that be?

Let's look at the one such example: The Grinch.

"You're a sassy one, Mr. Grinch."

He's an asshole. He hated everything, especially the noise, noise, noise that came from the Whos down in Whoville during Christmas. That hatred spurred on a plan to take away every last object relating to Christmas in an effort to eradicate the holiday. The Grinch dressed the part of Santa, sleigh and all, to go about taking every holiday-related foodstuff, gift, and decoration in Whoville. After his raid, while his smug ass sat on the mountainside over the town waiting to hear the lamentations of the Whos (which is counterproductive when it comes to stopping the noise, noise, noise, but whatever) he instead was greeted by the Whos gathered in the town square, singing, all happy to be together. The Grinch figured out that being with the ones you love during the holidays is more important that anything else.

That's basically the story. You know it already. I don't need to explain it to you.

However, it's an example of someone quite literally waging war on Christmas. The Grinch is literally breaking and entering with the sole purpose of getting rid of anything Christmas related. He lies to a child, destroys property, abuses his dog, all in the name of destroying the holiday. That dude is a dick, but despite it all the Whos didn't pay his actions much mind. They still gathered in the spirit of the season and had their little song and dance in the snow, which was enough to get The Grinch to turn around with his feelings about the holidays. Plus, they let him sit at the head of the table for the feast! They know he stole everything but he's carving the roast beast like nothing ever happened!

The people in the "War On Christmas" camp, however, are basically the Anti-Whos; the slightest indication that something isn't Christmas send them into a rage. The implication that there's something equally festive for someone else is met with hostility. They aren't here for togetherness so much as they're here for the pageantry of the decorations, the presents, and the title of Christmas over all else.

If the "War On Christmas" people took the Whoville approach and actually didn't give a shit if Christmas decorations were constantly in your face by the end of November, and instead embraced being together with friends, family, and loved ones, maybe they'd be a lot happier. If the media outlets that go on about the made-up war actually honored the values they claim to be protecting, maybe they'd, I don't know, love their neighbors regardless, like Jesus said to do. It's kind of a dick move to do the exact opposite thing as someone asks of you when he's someone you claim to have a close relationship with and it's his fucking birthday.

Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. And maybe, perhaps, possibly, someday, the losers who think Christmas is under attack can get their heads out of their asses and grow their hearts a few sizes too.

Happy Hanukkah, Happy Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Yule, and happy holidays in general, y'all.

Christmas Music

The holiday season is here.

Black Friday has come and gone. Small Business Saturday has passed. Cyber Monday is done. Thus, the spiral toward the gift giving holidays is underway. There are two types of people this time of year; some are excited for the holidays, exuding a seasonal cheer bordering on mania, wearing Christmas sweaters and Santa hats as soon as Thanksgiving dinner is finished, visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads at all hours of the day. Others are humbug curmudgeons, people that make The Grinch seem level-headed, who hear holiday music and react like Regan in The Exorcist. 

While I've improved in leaps and bounds in my humbuggery I'm still less than exuberant when it comes to the holiday season. I like the togetherness with family, the food, eggnog, and giving gifts, but one thing that I can't overcome-- the thing that keeps me on the Scrooge end of the spectrum-- is the music. I loved it when I was a kid, then grew to hate it, then came to accept it, but so much of it is so annoying that it makes me hope for New Years that much more.

Don't get me wrong, not all holiday music is terrible. Have you heard the "A Charlie Brown Christmas" soundtrack? It's fantastic! It's the kind of background music perfect for drinking hot toddies around the fire. Some traditional carols hold a soft spot in my heart too, like "Carol of the Bells" and "Silent Night" so don't think that I'm a total heartless Grinch bastard.

There are a lot more songs, however, that I hate with my entire being.

Take, for example, Peggy Lee's "I Like A Sleighride (Jingle Bells)". It's just "Jingle Bells"-- which is bad enough-- but played too slowly with the occasional annoying, "I like a sleigh ride!" interjected every now and then. To me, listening to it brings out the same emotions as being stuck behind someone with an annoying kid walking too slowly at the grocery store without being able to walk around them. It's irritating and drags on, but it seems to be on every holiday music playlist, probably to spite me.

There's also "We Need A Little Christmas" from the musical Mame. I haven't seen the musical, nor do I know the plot or any other songs from it, but the version I'm familiar with is sung by Angela Lansbury and is tortuous. She sings, "We need a little Christmas/ Right this very minute," to which I reply, "No, no we do not." The over-exuberance and show tune flair suck the life out of me, and even though the song talks about using Christmas as a means of overcoming growing leaner, colder, sadder, and older, it makes me that much more cynical.

Then, of course, there's "Baby It's Cold Outside". A seemingly cutesy exchange between a woman saying she should go home and a man insisting she stay because, well, it's cold outside, in modern context it sounds pushy and like the setup for assault. Because it's an old-timey song with certain nods to romantic norms of the time there's been debate on whether it's problematic or not. Vox did a way better job at dissecting it than I ever could, and they go much deeper into the issues than I intend to, but the song is pretty uncomfortable to listen to from a current perspective.

I could easily go on. There are enough shitty Christmas songs and shitty covers of shitty Christmas songs to play in every shopping mall on the planet every December until the sun explodes. Too many saccharine tunes with empty lyrics get played on repeat in an attempt to make it seem like The Season Of Giving isn't just a final cash grab for businesses before the end of the fiscal year. I'll leave the aforementioned examples to explain why I don't become Buddy from "Elf" every December, though. In the meantime, because I'm trying to grow my heart a few sizes, I'll relent to ugly sweaters, eggnog, candy canes, and Mariah Carey.

But I swear if I hear Peggy Lee I'm going to flip my shit.

Concrete

The off season at the hotel I work at is pretty quiet, so we generally do maintenance things we couldn't do during summertime once the number of guests drops. This season is no exception, so we have been sprucing things up around the property. One thing we're finishing up right now is an upgrade to the carport by the front desk, gussying it up with pressed and stained concrete. It looks like terracotta tile which fits the motif, so in that respect it's pretty neat.

Projects like this, however, bring out some interesting behavior in people. Notably, their lack of situational awareness shines through like a big beacon of stupid.

The old carport was first removed, and then new concrete was poured in sections over a couple days, so there was a big, gaping hole by one of the doors to the front desk for awhile. The area was surrounded by orange cones and caution tape to prevent people from walking through the wet concrete or into the big ditch full of rebar. While it did block off one of the entrances to the front desk, there were a couple others that were just as obvious that guests could use to enter the building. Most people avoided the taped off areas, but there were, of course, exceptions.

One night five different guests ignored the big, obvious hole surrounded by bright, obvious cones and caution tape, then read the bold, obvious sign on the door reading "PLEASE USE OTHER ENTRANCE" and used it anyway. They had to duck under the tape and drag their luggage through the dirt to get to the door, apparently oblivious to how not-quite-normal doing that was. When I asked if they could use the other entrances they gave confused looks, as if navigating through construction debris was a normal feature hotels have, then give an illuminated, "Oh!" when they figured out that, no, that's not a normal feature hotels have.

This week, staining the concrete began with a similar setup as before; orange cones, caution tape, and a sign on the door advising people to use an alternative entrance. However, with how many people ignored those things last time, I decided to take it a step further and added multiple signs reading 'PLEASE USE ENTRANCE AT THE FRONT OF THE BUILDING" with arrows leading the way. One guests laughed and commented on how excessive it all seemed, but I told him I wanted to be thorough. It may not be wet concrete or an open pit, but it's a rust colored stain that could ruin a pair of shoes or luggage at least, and it still needs to dry, so I'd rather people stay off it.

I saw one guest earlier, however, duck under the caution tape and around the orange cones, traipse lazily along the wet orange liquid covering the concrete, look at the sign on the door, yell to her travel companion, "IT SAYS TO USE THE FRONT ENTRANCE! YOU GOTTA GO AROUND TO THE FRONT!" before ducking under the caution tape again and going to the front entrance. After checking her in she asked if she could exit through the door blocked by a table with the sign reading "PLEASE USE OTHER DOOR" set on it. I told her no and apologized. What I apologized for I do not know.

It isn't to say that I'm the most observant person; there have been plenty of times in my life where I've missed freeway exits, tried going into stores with their "CLOSED" signs up, and walked around with my fly down. However, there are certain things I encounter on a regular basis at work, from people not knowing how to open doors to people assuming there's a road that goes over Mt. Whitney and through Sequoia National Park all the way to Fresno despite it not being on any map in existence, that make me wonder how they survive into adulthood and into old age.

I guess what I'm getting at is this: Pay attention so you don't hurt yourself or break something. Too many people have hurt my brain and broken my spirit these last couple weeks thanks to ignoring the obvious. Don't ignore road cones. Don't walk on wet concrete. Don't be like that.

A Letter to 18-Year-Old Me

Earlier today I was dredging out old documents I had squirreled away over the years, partly to free up some space but mostly because there's no reason for me to hold on to tax information from 2013, insurance information for a car I no longer own, or a photocopy of a job application from high school. Among the old pay stubs, copies of old resumes, and other crap, there was a folder. There were a lot of folders of course, but this one stuck out because of five sheets of paper, all dated between May and September 2007, and all full of poems.

I have the great (mis)fortune of having been online and blogging for a while now on various sites, so the Young Adult Angst that I had growing up and entering adulthood is pretty visible if you know where to look. However, the poems I had tucked away in that folder, printed out from a laptop that has been dead for nearly a decade, were even more personal than the stuff I put up online. In flowery, cringe-inducing language, they described being homesick after going away to school, being afraid of what was ahead of me in life, and other things I've worked through as I've gotten older. It's not to say I'm without my own issues nowadays, but I figured I'd take a moment to write a letter to 18-year-old me:

Hey dude,  

Congratulations on getting out of high school and into the real world! Well, kind of "real world" since you can't afford much more than the Antelope Valley. You'll learn to like it. You'll actually end up liking it a lot more than a lot of people, but that's neither here nor there. Point is, you're going to grow and learn a lot, mostly the hard way, so that's pretty "real" I guess. 

You'll figure out how to get out of your shell and start dating, making appointments, shopping for groceries that are actually worthwhile, speaking up for yourself and others, and essentially become a functioning adult on some level. You're going to pick up some habits, some good ones but mostly bad ones. A lot of tough times are going to fall into your lap, both of your own creation and beyond your control, but you'll find a way to get through them whether you like it or not. I'm proud of you for that.

The neuroses you've had for so long are going to follow you, but you'll learn how to work around them. The lows are going to be low, but you'll eventually get to a point where things are okay. 

Drink more water, take up exercise, and lighten the fuck up. You'll feel better if you do.

Love you,

Me 

Western Complexities

I was watching the PBS documentary The West awhile back, mostly because I think history is interesting and The West gave perspectives from a lot of varied groups of people (plus it was like educational ASMR; the soundtrack was super soothing and the people talked really softly, I recommend it for both information and for sleep). About midway through the final episode the topic of western cinema came up, and something said by historian T.H. Watkins caught my attention in a big way:

“Much of what is wrong with how we look at the west and its history is the fact that we have, in all our forms of entertainment, looked upon it as pre-digested folk drama; very simple stories acted out very simply to prove very simple things. You got your good guys, you got your bad guys, you got your Indians, you got your cowboys. And the true complexities of what was going on in the west almost never have been the subject of film in Hollywood”

The reason this resonated with me so strongly is because of where I live and work. Every October the town has a film festival-- not a film festival in the traditional sense, but more like a convention to celebrate the cinematic history of the area. In the early half of the last century a lot of western flicks were shot here with John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and other actors of that ilk, so the de facto focus of the event has been on those kinds of movies. For the last 28 years people from around the country have flocked here, dressed in their flashiest western regalia to view screenings of old western films, tour old western film locations, and attend panels of old western actors and Hollywood types.
It's unique in regards to conventions. Take comic book conventions for example; comics span various genres, tackle various topics from both the past and present, and are presented in various art styles from a broad array of artists. The audience expands while maintaining the old fan base, so kids and grown-ups alike can indulge in the medium. I went to AlienCon last year, and even though it was a little disorganized its point was varied; extraterrestrials, Ancient Aliens, Area 51, science fiction (or science REALITY? Dun dun DUN!), and so on are easy to get in to. They open discussions and start interesting conversation, it brings people from all walks of life and age groups together. What sets this film festival apart from other conventions is that the target audience isn't a niche that's likely to grow. The genre isn't that popular anymore, the films themselves are a little dull to the typical audience, content can be a little problematic (i.e. racist, sexist, etc.), and the target audience of boomers that watched stuff like The Lone Ranger as kids are either not that interested or literally dying off.
After working at what is essentially the headquarters for the event for close to a decade I've heard the same conversation over and over from the same people every year, going basically like, "Y'know, kids these days don't appreciate the classics. They don't make 'em like they used to. They don't like the good movies, like The Man From Utah and Code Of The West," to which another old timer grunts and nods in agreement. They then mention the friends of theirs couldn't make it, that so-and-so died a few months back at the ripe old age of such-and-such, that the event seems smaller than last year. They explain that it's because young people aren't attending, kids these days don't appreciate the classics, they don't make 'em like they used to, they don't appreciate the good movies. This gets repeated a few times every year, and it doesn't change much at all, much like the event itself.
The festival theme for this year is "The Role of Westerns in Shaping the American Experience" which I've thought a bit about. The genre portrays the heroism of adventurous men conquering the West for the sake of progress and freedom, of the men that drove cattle through harsh terrain or upheld the law in a wild part of the map that needed to be tamed, even though that's far from the whole story and often far from the true story. Westerns don't show the complexities of what went on in the west, and ignoring those western complexities never really stopped. For example, Native peoples brutalized for the sake of progress has been in history way too recently; protest efforts against the DAPL-- protests by Native peoples against environmental degradation and encroachment on culturally important lands-- being terrorized by hired hands is how the west was originally "won": with Native blood and scorched earth, not with some chiseled-chinned-fringed-jacket-wearing fuck playing guitar around the campfire. Westerns helped shape the American experience by teaching us to sweep the parts that make imperialism look bad under the rug and to believe in manifest destiny.
At least Django Unchained, which was shot in my neck of the woods, was a western that attempted to explore the subject of race and slavery (albeit with a lot of bloodshed and swearing), but I doubt they'll talk about it this weekend. It's almost guaranteed they'll talk about the influence of John Wayne though, who said some fucked up shit about Natives and black people. Maybe future film festivals here will be a bit more critical, thought-provoking, and analytical of the western gene, and maybe a little less idol worshiping, but I won't hold my breath.
At this rate the event will probably fade away on its own, but in the meantime I've made weekend plans out of town. Maybe I'll go to AlienCon next year too. We'll see.

Visiting Himself

There's an old man from Southern California that visits the hotel every now and again with his two adult sons. I've checked him in quite a few times over the years and shot the breeze with him more than once, so when he checked in last night I greeted him as usual and made the typical small talk we make. He got his usual room with his special room rate, and after a short while he and his sons were on their way.

He's getting up in age, though; he didn't always walk with a cane, and even though his hearing was never the best I find myself repeating myself and speaking up louder more often when talking to him. He was pretty old when I started working at the hotel more than eight years ago, so he has to be well into his 80s I think. He knows he's getting old too.

During a quick chat about general information, he asked me where the cemetery was. I made sure he meant the one in town and not one of the the historic ones, and I told him.

"Oh good," He said, "We're headed that way tomorrow. I'm going to visit myself."

I knew what he meant. "Got yourself a piece of real estate, huh?"

"Yup," He replied, "And I have to pay for it tomorrow."

He was going to his plot at the cemetery. Maybe it's because I plan to get cremated (or eaten by coyotes after getting lost in the desert, who knows), but I never really thought about pinpointing the exact place my body will be left after I keel over. I'd imagine it being a surreal experience, like the Ebeneezer Scrooge existential crisis moment toward the end of A Christmas Carol or an out-of-body experience but while still in your body, seeing your final resting place. Knowing the spot where what's left of your physical existence is going to be brings some small comfort to some people. Setting your affairs in order would set a mind at ease too, I guess.

After some pleasantries he left, and I started thinking about life a little bit.

There was a tinge of sadness behind the joking tone of the mans voice when he said he was going to visit himself. I think most people would have trouble making peace with finality. A lot of people are afraid of dying, but I think after so many years you feel some disappointment for not getting just a little more time. Even though he was making sure everything was in order when he passes away, even though he's led a good long life, he's bummed. He's like a kid who had the best summer vacation having to go back to school; a little disenchanted but accepting.

I hope, should I ever live to see old age, to be as bummed out about the party of life's last call. Life isn't perfect-- it's usually not even all that good-- but since it's going to end anyway it's worth seeing it through until the bar lights come on and the music stops.

A Quick Gripe About Keys

The lodging facility I work at has two separate wings; a modern style motel and a historic hotel. The motel recently upgraded to RFID key cards, which is pretty nifty. The hotel wing still has the old school hard keys, like the little metal ones on your key ring.

RFID keys can be a little tricky, especially when you've never used one. Most of the guest clientele are accustomed to the usual magnetic strip type keys that you swipe through a slot in the door to unlock. All you need to do with RFID keys is hold them in front of the lock-- simple. So simple, in fact, that it's complicated, because people assume you insert the key in the door to open it. That means people come back to the front desk to ask where the slot is for the key, or to tell me they broke the door lock by trying to jam the key into a place it sort of might fit. I can't fault people too much for not knowing how those newfangled locks work I guess.

I can, however, fault people who don't know how normal keys work.

Oftentimes in the historic hotel, guests come back to the front desk after checking in to tell me their key doesn't work. When I follow them to their door and try their key, it works-- every time. After a moment of bewilderment at my apparent door-opening magic they look at me and say, "Oh! You use the lock on the DOORKNOB! I was trying the DEADBOLT lock!"

Okay... I act understanding and cordial after the fact to save face, but it does raise an honest question; If you try a doorknob, and you find said doorknob to be locked, why would you try the deadbolt lock instead of the doorknob lock? Maybe I'm expecting too much, or maybe I'm just being too critical, but it really seems like there is a fundamental level of problem solving that is being missed by these folks. Like, they can't figure out that they should unlock the doorknob that isn't turning. These are people that have survived into adulthood. Some of these people are educated, like doctors and teachers. I know it shouldn't, but it really gets to me. I don't know.

Maybe my gripe isn't so much about keys as it is about the lack of troubleshooting capabilities people possess. Maybe the unwillingness of people to figure relatively simple things out is the issue. The RFID cards have use instructions on them. There's another lock on the door besides the deadbolt. One thing is for sure, though; I really only think this hard about keys toward the end of my work week.

TGIF

Blog Update 5-16-17

Hello! Hope you're doing well. Are you drinking enough water? Getting enough sleep? Taking care of yourself physically and mentally? Getting outside? I hope so. You deserve it.

Anyway, sorry about not posting for, like, four months. Along with being busy with work and life (and not having a good balance between the too I'M WORKING ON IT), I also haven't been inspired to write anything. Most of my focus has been funneled into improving my running pace, training new employees at the front desk, keeping up with the bills, travelling hither and yon, and staying sane in the current political quagmire, so this blog has kind of fallen to the wayside as many blogs of mine have before. I doubt I'll be able to write as voraciously as I did when I first started this blog, but I'll claim it's "quality over quantity" and pretend my writing is better now even though I'm out of practice and it's as garbage as it always has been.

I can't guarantee I'll be consistent at all with updating or posting in this blog, especially considering I posted a total of six times last year-- one of those posts being an apology for not posting. Hell, it's mid-May already and this is only the third thing I've posted this year. At this rate I'll have something up by, what, November maybe? I don't know.

I might post something up once or twice a month (I said that last year in April and I very much didn't do that at all) so keep an eye out for that. There are some adventures I want to take this year, and research I want to do on a bunch of things, so I might write about it.

I guess I'll see you next time! Take care! Thanks for reading!

"Is This Place Haunted?" pt. 2

I've worked in a historic hotel for the last eight years or so. Close to a century old, it has housed old western film stars, mountaineers, adventurers, and tourists from all corners of the globe for generations. Usually people stick around for a single night, but others stay around for longer. Some are convinced a few never left.

Spooky, right? #2spooky4me

I've written about how the hotel has its fair share of ghost stories, from mysterious footsteps to sink taps turning on by themselves to guests being shaken awake by forces unseen. I've personally even experienced things that left me with goosebumps even after thinking up logical explanations and that it was my imagination getting the better of me. Having had an overactive imagination as a kid while simultaneously being a fan of the paranormal and spooky, I've learned how to calm down when I freak myself out. Usually I can see a scary movie or hear a ghost story and shrug off the heebie-jeebies.

Then again, sometimes stories bounce around my head longer than usual and spark my curiosity. Within the last month I've listened to three separate guest accounts of something they have had a hard time explaining. Granted, I hear stories from guests all the time, but the fact that their stories are set in the same wing of the hotel and are so eerily similar-- and that none of these guests even know one other-- stands out in my mind. The accounts don't vary much, and they go basically like this:

The room was upstairs in the south wing of the hotel. The guest was laying in bed, nodding off. It was pretty late. It was dark. Aside from the usual creaks that come from old buildings, it was quiet. After some time, despite the stillness and the hour, the guest felt something watching from beyond the shadows. The guest peeked through sleepless eyelids to see a dark silhouette at the foot of the bed that looked like a man. It started to move closer to the guest, either moving along side the bed or hovering overhead. Startled, the guest frantically turned on the bedside lamp, but when the light came on... the shadowy figure was gone.

It sounds like it could have been a nightmare. As a matter of fact, some people have reportedly seen "shadow people" during episodes of sleep paralysis, but the people I talked to claimed to have never experienced anything like that prior to staying at the hotel or since. Meth addicts who haven't slept in days report seeing similar things too, but the guests who reported the mystery man at the foot of their beds didn't look like they were coming off a drug bender either. Although not completely beyond the realm of possibility, I also doubt there was some dude hanging out in their rooms. I swear it wasn't me either.

The guests aren't sure what it was they saw or experienced, but they all lean toward the opinion of something supernatural. Considering the age of the building and the tales surrounding the place it's not hard to understand why they'd think it's a ghost. 94 years of passers-by might leave a straggler spirit behind, after all. Maybe it's the lost spirit of someone looking for a place to sleep, or possibly a dark entity out to harm unwitting souls that happen upon its hallway. Any number of ghost hunting TV shows can give you an explanation, but whether any of it is true or not is a matter of what you believe in I guess.

Regardless if it was a malevolent shadow person or an exhaustion-induced hallucination experienced by multiple people, it's still fascinating to me. One day I might rent out a room in that wing of the hotel to see if anything paranormal happens to me, but in the meantime I'm content with hearing the stories and keeping an eye out for those things that go bump in the night.

The Drought

The summer of 2015 wasn't the best for my neck of the woods. The California drought, along with an unseasonably warm winter, had caused an infestation of boxelder bugs from Ridgecrest up to Bishop. My buddy Blair said it best to The Mercury News when he stated, "They’re in everything. There’s no way to get rid of them or eradicate them. They’re just here." Clouds of them swarmed the gas station lights outside Pearsonville. It seemed like every other cup of coffee had me spitting out those little black bugs. The infestation, along with nearly 900,000 acres of land burned by wildfire, a record-breaking low Sierra Nevada snow pack of 5% normal that lead to major water restrictions, and record-breaking high temperatures, made 2015 pretty rough.

Drought conditions in 2017 vs. 2016, by surface water
(Photo from Outside Magazine)

Fast forward to this week. The recent weather has added 33.6 billion gallons of water to Lake Tahoe, 10 to 15 feet of snow has fallen on Mammoth Mountain, and the Sierra snowpack overall is at 158% of normal. Aside from some washed-out roads, chain restrictions and road closures due to snow, and floods in some towns, it's been a good thing. More rain and snow means more to fill reservoirs and water tables throughout the state, which means potentially less forest fires, barren farmlands, and infestations of those little beetle bastards. I'm personally glad to listen to the rain pelt on my roof, and I'm ecstatic to see Mt. Whitney to the west and the Inyo range to the east both capped in white.

I see articles and Facebook posts and tweets saying "The drought's over!" over the last couple weeks, and that bugs me a little. Yes, the current maps show that 60% of the state is no longer designated as "in drought" which is fantastic, and the parts of Southern California that still are considered in drought are on the mend, which is great too, but it's not even halfway through winter. It's still too early to see if the good times for snow and rain will keep rolling, and it's still too soon (at least, in my opinion) to lift all the restrictions on water use.

It's like being broke after the holidays; Imagine you had to take some time off work for travel or because you caught a nasty cold, you bought a lot of cool Christmas gifts for the whole family, and you went all-out on New Years Eve with a bar tab to show for it-- but all your regular bills are still due at the beginning of the month despite your increased spending and the lack of hours at your job. For a couple months you're living frugally. You're keeping up with your bills and rent but your bank account is definitely still lean, and you find yourself dipping into savings more than you'd like. Then, one day a few weeks after filing your taxes, you get a tax return! "Hell yeah!" You shout to yourself, proud of your tax-filing prowess "I'm going to survive!"

It might seem obvious on the surface, but the best course of action after that is probably not to blow your entire tax return on a bunch of new clothes, electronics, and goodies. If you do that-- big shock-- you'll probably end up broke again, possibly even more so than you were before. Splurging can be fun in the short term, but if you want to build up your savings again you probably shouldn't blow your tax refund straight away.

The same can be said about water, but unlike tax returns and normal income water in California is a crap shoot, and with climate change playing a factor it's anyone's guess what the weather will do next. Lifting drought restrictions now because we think the drought is over can potentially screw us over later down the line. By maintaining sustainable use of water we give ourselves and future generations a fighting chance when the next major drought eventually comes, and help avoid the whole state becoming like the Owens Dry Lake where I live. By continuing conservative water use we can help forests survive, watersheds refill, and allow farmland to be used longer and more efficiently. Despite what the signs along the 5 in the Central Valley tell you, saving water isn't a bad thing, and the drought wasn't created by politics.

Basically I feel the weather we've been having has been a literal heaven sent blessing to the Golden State, but we should still be smart about water. I may have some strong feelings about water use, but I don't think I'm being too unreasonable for not wanting to jump the gun just yet. The boxelder beetles that landed in my coffee left a bad taste in my mouth, and the thought of prolonging the drought because of misusing our resources does too.