Alien Nation

You know, I just feel completely alienated from everything right now. Things at work are utterly frustrating, for one. I just have no desire at all to even see any of my coworkers. It's an unprofessional place, and my brain has been atrophying for a good two years there.

And now with the results of the election in, I feel the deepest chord of disconnect from America. As I've been websurfing for the past few minutes, I can't help but feel confused about the place I call home. Headlines such as 'McDVDs planned' and 'Bush sets direction for next four years' and 'US warplanes bomb Fallujah' and the rest of the stupid media/consumerism that plague the web just leave me feeling like I'm overly medicated. I don't want to live in a country where the extreme right wing conservatives run the legislative and executive branches of government, with the possibility of electing more of them to the Supreme Court. All of these steps we've made over the years (Roe v. Wade, civil unions/gay marriage, stem cell research, etc) are standing on precarious ground. Not only that, the division of this country is so palpable that I don't understand how we're ever going to unite ourselves again. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but could this be a huge groundbreaking moment in time when our past successes come back to haunt us? Will there be a mass exodus to Canada? (Funny sidenote - check out www.marryanamerican.ca because it's pretty entertaining.)

I feel lucky (and a bit exposed) living in the liberal bastion that is Massachusetts (and the rest of New England, really). But can I really relax in this state of democratic control when some pretty serious national decisions are on the horizon? It's alarming. Sometimes I wish we could mess around with geography.... perhaps rotate Canada 180 degrees on it's y axis, so Vancouver and B.C. are right above us, and then New England could just slide on in. We could all hang out and be liberal and smoke a lot.