at breakfast this morning, my father gazed over his coffee cup at the grey sky and said, "if you only knew how fucked up this world is..." i watched him for a moment, and he turned to me, saying, "our social fabric... we are hanging on the edge." i nodded, vaguely stunned, and mumbled something about a self-destructive society. he shook his head. "no, not self-destructive, just unsustainable. self-destructive sounds like it was a planned obsolescence, as though it was intentional. though i suppose when you're at the end of the rope, it doesn't matter if it was intentional or not, you're still at the end of the rope." i nodded again.

my mother and i had a conversation a while back about the rest of my life, unquote. she told me about her days in college when she was and environmental studies major, full of piss and vinegar and self-righteous enthusiasm. she wanted to start a public information campaign about the benefits of organic foods, knowing (as an economics minor) that organic produce needs a market to sell to, and the market needs to be educated so that they won't want to fill their bodies with toxic chemicals.

i've mentioned little to either of them about stray thoughts of potato farming or photovoltaic earthbermed housing or peacecorps or any of the thousand ideas which pummel each other within my mind, but it's comforting to know they'd have some idea of what i was talking about if i did.