Only 18% of adults under the age of 30 identify themselves as Republicans, according to an article I just read about the doom and gloom sentiments among young Republicans. Amongst my friends/peers at work, that number's probably closer to 1.8%. Then again, it's very hard to tell -- Republicans come v. close to being a discriminated-against group (such as the time that someone told me, on the day of the 2004 election, that she hoped I would get into a car accident so that I couldn't vote -- a shocking sentiment, particularly considering that I was voting in California, which is nowhere near a swing state). So even to people whom I have known for quite some time, I rarely if ever bring up politics, and they likely either assume that I'm a Democrat because all 'smart' people are, or they assume I'm a Republican because all Iowans are (which is patently false, considering our Democrat governor, state senate, and state house). And considering how outspoken I am about many things, the fact that even I hesitate to bring up politics makes it likely that there are other young conservatives out there amongst my peers who, like me, go with the crowd just to avoid the rabid attacks to which one is sometimes subjected by supposedly open-minded liberals.
This is also possibly the last time that I'll blog about it, but it's been brought into sharp relief by living in Berkeley, where nearly every car has a bumper sticker which annoys me, and I'm living in a house with a prominent Barack Obama window sign. San Francisco may be the city of sin, and it's not exactly a conservative stronghold, but there's something so in-your-face about Berkeley, with the kids living in trees and whatnot, that I'm not eager to continue experiencing. Don't get me wrong, there are nice things about it too -- it seems to encourage a genuine feeling of community and a sense of striving to help others. I just don't agree with some of the tactics, or much of the worldview behind them.
So anyway, it's amusing that I was thinking these thoughts since I didn't leave the house today; I stepped outside for a few minutes to eat a mango and some blueberries on the deck, and again later to take out the trash, but for the rest of the day I holed up inside and crossed more stuff off my to-do list. I have my move into Chandlord's apartment all scheduled for Monday, I have more allergy tests later this week, two doctor's appointments, and a meeting with my new insurance agent. I also spent a good hour with a map of Scotland trying to figure out exactly where I want the location of my current romance novel to be -- you would think I would have figured this all out, but basically I just glossed over placenames and dumped them someplace convenient (within a day's coach ride of Edinburgh, just far enough into the Highlands that it feels wilder without being so far that there is no society/opportunity to make it easily back to England). My map of Scotland is now covered with about twenty different post-it flags of possible town names, and I'm going to sleep on it before choosing one.
After I talked to my parents tonight for the first time in several days, I read most of that Suze Orman book that I bought yesterday. It was written in a style that was a bit too overexuberant self-helpy for my tastes ("You can make this change, if you visualize and bring into action these eight simple concepts", etc.), but there was some decent advice in there. If nothing else, it helped me to realize that I'm in much better control of my finances already than most women are, even if I haven't started a Roth IRA. And I almost laughed out loud when it turned out that one of her 'eight characteristics of a wealthy woman' was 'cleanliness'. I thought she was just struggling to come up with eight characteristics, but she soberly said that cleanliness was just about the most important of all, because if you weren't organized, there was no hope that you would be wealthy. Maybe she should have said 'organized' instead of 'clean', because I can see her point, but when I first read it, all I could think about was soap.
Now it's time for bed, even though I only got up twelve hours ago; I'm not staying up reading tonight because I need to start getting back onto a work-appropriate time schedule. Goodnight!
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