Today- Community Counts!

Sure, corny though that title is, how many of us can honestly say we love our neighbor? Oh, forget that- how many of us can say we even know them? Sometime over the course of history, we've lost our world of wholesome community to the blaring of ipods and cell phones. And laptops, and TVs, and blackberries, and electronicarealityvisionquestfloatingairimagesallsystemsgo. And whatever the hell else it is that they've shoved down our throats.

I'm not yearning for some Beaver Cleaver nostalgia rebound; for christ's sake, I haven't any idea what that would be like! I'm still some spring chicken. That doesn't mean that I don't want some sense of realness in my life. It's hard sometimes, because nearly everything I see in my culture and among kids my own age is so... false. Our hair, our nails, our waistlines, our eyelashes, our skin color, our packages, our minds, our smiles. I know that everyone, deep down somewhere, is their own person and I shouldn't judge them, no matter what my personal opinion is. But-c'mon- get off the damn phone and help me out!

This past weekend, I spent time with my family. I went to a bbq at the young couple's house up the street. They just moved in, and they have a child who turned two. Our new neighbors from Scotland and their little daughter showed up, too, along with plenty of families and couples who are just starting to leave their marks. The family from Scotland has a daughter who is allergic to dairy, and she was delighted that she could eat my cookies (they were vegan, made while I was ignoring the television).

And Sunday, also while I was on technology restriction, I showed up to work and we had to waitress short hand. I found out that the girl that I was working with, who looked incredibly exhausted, had been working for 8 days in a row at the local supermarket. Later, our friends stopped by on a motorcycle and had some drinks with my parents and I.

Today, I baked raspberry-cornmeal vegan muffins and took them to our neighbors with the lactose intolerant daughter. I picked the raspberries with my mother. While they baked, my dad taught me a new song on the guitar. It's funny, but before that bbq, I never even knew our old neighbors had moved out, which is sad, and I realize this.

So when I finally got my techno-whore self to shut up, I guess I learned a lot.