Where Have I Been?
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006
You’d think that with my prolonged absence from the blogosphere I’d have some great excuse, like I’ve actually been writing for once, or the Punkin decided that she would only eat striped foods, or the American Punkin clothing line got bought out by Babies-R-Us already.
No such excuse.
Why the long silence?
I read a book. It was my hubbie’s fault (well, actually, it was my uncle’s fault originally–he told DH to read it).
The Long Emergency, by James Kunstler.
Basic premise: We’ve passed peak oil output, there are no alternative fuel sources strong enough to take over from oil, so it’s all downhill from here.
Kunstler is very doom and gloom, going on about no oil, no cars, no electricity, no suburbia.
His solution? Prepare to move back into small towns (like in New England) and farms, and back into agriculture and handicrafts.
Now I’m not an end-of-the-world type person, and I’m still not so sure about Kunstler’s credentials (he was an editor. Of Rolling Stone no less.). But I have a background in International Affairs (no, not the kind James Bond has) and a lot of what he says resonates true.
I’ve always liked to imagine what I would do if thrust back into a non-tech world like Swiss Family Robinson (okay, so how many of you just loved that treehouse?). So the past few weeks I’ve been letting my imagination go nuts with this scenario.
If nothing else, it’s finally gotten the DH to agree to look into buying land. And building a nice “green” house. 
And I can consider all this reading research for some future novel.
Anyone out there have any thoughts they’d like to chime in with?