From: "Sean Gallagher" <sean-AT-iweeklabs.com>
Subject: RE: California
Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 11:32:19 -0500


Hey, all--

danceswithcarp wrote
->On Sun, 16 May 1999, Dave Coull wrote:
->
->> Yes, it is unusual
->> for a forty year old woman to be living with her
->> parents. She doesn't do it all the time. Only in
->> emergencies.
->
->Living with one's parents at 40 may have been unusual in the
->industrialized US/UK at one time, but now it is far more common than you'd
->realize, especially in the wirking\lower economic classes and perhaps even
->more so for womyn, as they are still at the botttom of the wealth heap.
(snip)

->Personally, I see this as a postive development in a capitalist society;
->It lessens the dependency of an individual on the ephemeral week-to-week
->paycheck and imparts a certain emotional stability and sense of continuity
->to family members.

Not to mention that in Kalifornia (especially in the San Francisco
/Silly-con Valley region), even those with what would be considered sizable
incomes elsewhere can't afford housing. I was just out for a job interview
in scenic Palo Alto, where a coffin-sized condominium (2 bedrooms, walk-in
closet that can masquerade as a third bedroom, micro-kitchen and a detached
one-car garage) costs $350,000 just to look at.

BTW, for those who care (and I'm sure that's a remarkably small subset of
the list, but I'll post it here anyway because it's easier), the job I
interviewed for will further complicate my life if I take it. Rather than
live in lovely California, due to certain entanglements here I'd commute
once a month from Baltimore to Palo Alto and spend 3 or 4 days out there
communing with my co-workers. Of course, I'd have to turn in my Wobbly
card--it's an editor-in-chief position for a monthly magazine. Can a
bicoastal media magnate (well, it's not a BIG magazine) still be an
anarchist, or do I have to turn in my decoder ring?